Anonymous Juries
At the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh jurors’ names were kept private. So, too, in the corruption trials of former governors Edwin Edwards of Louisiana and Rod Blagojevich […]
August 14, 2012
Back and Forth on Visual Estimates of Speed
Can an officer’s visual estimate of a vehicle’s speed, uncorroborated by radar, pacing, or other techniques, support a speeding stop? The Fourth Circuit has been whipsawing back and forth on […]
July 11, 2012
Visual Estimates of Speed and “Slight Speeding”
The Fourth Circuit recently decided United States v. Sowards, an interesting case about a traffic stop. The case arose when an experienced traffic enforcement officer stopped the defendant on I-77 […]
June 13, 2012
4th Circuit Ruling: Child’s Statements to Social Worker Are Non-testimonial
The U.S. Supreme Court’s new Crawford confrontation clause rule has had significant impact in child victim prosecutions, largely because of problems with getting children to testify. One frequent Crawford question […]
April 9, 2012
Stalking Statute Not Unconstitutionally Vague
The Fourth Circuit recently rejected a vagueness challenge to the federal stalking statute. Because of the similarity between the federal statute and North Carolina’s stalking law, I thought the decision […]
January 31, 2012
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 […]
August 30, 2011
Fourth Circuit Adds to the Controversy over Traffic Stops
I’ve written about traffic stops at some length, in this paper. One of the areas in which the law is unsettled is the extent to which officers may engage in […]
March 16, 2011
The Fourth Circuit Chastises the Government
The Fourth Circuit recently decided a very interesting case with a lot of North Carolina connections. The case is United States v. Foster, and it’s available here. The facts were […]
September 23, 2010
Fourth Circuit Decides Involuntary Medication Case
A former School of Government law fellow blogged here about the involuntary medication of death-sentenced prisoners. A recent Fourth Circuit case has moved me to think about the somewhat more […]
August 17, 2010
Significant Fourth Circuit Drug Case
Because our appellate courts often find the Fourth Circuit’s opinions to be persuasive authority, I read all the Fourth Circuit’s published criminal cases. Yesterday, the court decided United States v. […]
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