Gant, “Retroactivity,” and Retroactivity
The fallout from the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Arizona v. Gant, see my initial post here, has been fast and furious. Most questions I’ve received have been about how […]
No Probable Cause?
One of the things I do as Defender Educator is design CLEs for public defenders and private assigned counsel. In an effort to plan top-notch programs, I meet from time […]
Arizona v. Gant and Searches Incident to Arrest
The Supreme Court decided Arizona v. Gant yesterday. The opinion is available here, and a news article about the case is here. It’s a pretty significant Fourth Amendment case, so […]
DNA Collection
An interesting article appeared yesterday in the New York Times. You can read it here, but the gist of it is that the federal government and about 15 states are […]
Updated Sex Offender Registration & Monitoring Flow Chart
Some time ago I prepared a flow chart that included all the information about sex offender registration and monitoring I could reasonably (or maybe even slightly unreasonably) cram onto one […]
News Roundup
I’ve been involved in the New Prosecutors’ School this week, but the flow of criminal law news has been constant. First, the News and Observer had an interesting story yesterday, […]
Prior Record for Recidivist (and Recidivist-ish) Crimes
I am frequently asked about what convictions may count toward a defendant’s prior record level in prosecutions under the habitual felon law and other similar laws, like habitual impaired driving. […]
Confessions and Custody
The Court of Appeals decided two Miranda cases last week: In re J.D.B, available here, and State v. Rooks, available here. The former is a very close juvenile case that […]
Field Sobriety Tests During Traffic Stops
Several recent inquiries have been variants of the following question: can an officer administer field sobriety tests during a routine traffic stop? In other words, if an officer has reasonable […]
The Budget and Court-Appointed Experts
A Chicago Tribune article, available here, states that an Illinois public defender recently moved to prohibit the state from seeking the death penalty against her client because the state does […]