Testimony from Anonymous Witnesses
The Fourth Circuit recently decided United States v. Ramos-Cruz, a case involving an MS-13 member who was convicted of assorted federal crimes, all generally tied to his gang membership and […]
Advice to Officers after Jones
I’ve had quite a few questions from officers and others about United States v. Jones, the Supreme Court’s recent GPS tracking decision. I previously summarized the case here. Below, I’ve […]
News Roundup
The Jones GPS tracking case was the biggest legal news of the week. I blogged about it here, and plan to post some additional thoughts next week, but in the […]
Qualifying Predicate Traffic Violations for Purposes of Misdemeanor Death by Vehicle
Misdemeanor death by vehicle is defined in G.S. 20-141.4(a2) as (1) unintentionally causing the death of another person (2) while violating a State law or local ordinance applying to the […]
Supreme Court Justices and the State of the Union
In case you missed it, President Obama delivered the annual State of the Union address last night. The address is rooted in Article II, section 3 of the Constitution, which […]
The Supreme Court on GPS Tracking: U.S. v. Jones
Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court decided United States v. Jones, the important GPS tracking case I previously blogged about here. (The case was captioned United States v. Maynard at […]
Defending Santa: Is It a “Breaking” to Enter Through an Open Chimney?
Now that Christmas is over, Santa’s cases are coming on for trial. He’s accused of multiple counts of burglary. We already know the facts: He entered dwellings at night, using […]
News Roundup
Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. To commemorate the occasion, National Public Radio’s Fresh Air broadcast this interview with Ohio State University law professor Michelle Alexander, author of The […]
Pretrial Release – Part 4: Refusal to Provide Identification & Noncitizens
In the last in this series of posts on pretrial release I’ll address two issues that continue to create problems for judicial officials: defendants who refuse to identify themselves and […]
Electing to Serve a Sentence after Justice Reinvestment
Some criminal defendants just want to serve their time. There a variety of reasons for that. Sometimes they are facing active time for another conviction and hope the new sentence […]