Restitution “TBD by the Probation Officer”
May a judge delegate to a probation officer the task of setting the amount of restitution owed to a victim? For several reasons, my standard answer to that recurring question […]
News Roundup
The state Senate passed its budget this week. It’s different from the Governor’s budget and also from the House budget, so nothing is final and there’s plenty of negotiation left […]
The Sniffer
The National Transportation Safety Board’s recommendation that states lower their per se blood alcohol concentrations for impaired driving from 0.08 to 0.05 grabbed headlines last week. But the BAC reduction […]
Are Mug Shots Public Records?
[Editor’s Note: My colleague Frayda Bluestein is the author of this post, which she wrote for the School of Government’s blog about local government law. Because she’s not a regular […]
Rule 404(b): The Requirement of Temporal Proximity
As I noted in my last post on Rule 404(b) evidence, even when the evidence is relevant to an issue other than propensity or disposition, admissibility is “constrained by the […]
The DSM V
The American Psychiatric Association is about to release the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, commonly abbreviated DSM-V and pronounced “DSM five.” This is important to criminal […]
News Roundup
There was lots of news this week about judges new and old, so let’s start with that, then move on to the rest: Jeff Hunt, until now the elected district […]
Alleging Probation Violations in a Post-JRA World
How specific does a probation violation report need to be about which condition the probationer allegedly violated? Until last week, I would have said “not very.” A new case from […]
New Edition of the Capital Case Law Handbook Now Available
Although the number of capitally-tried cases has declined in recent years, capital cases remain important, complex, and hotly contested. So I’m happy to announce that a new edition of the […]
Street Names and Nicknames
Suppose that a murder defendant goes by the street name “Hit Man.” The prosecution wants the investigating officer to testify that she received a tip that “Hit Man” committed the […]