Legal Blog

Legal Blog

PUNISHED BUT NOT GUILTY

PUNISHED BUT NOT GUILTY

Convicting the Innocent According to The Innocence Project, a nationwide organization working to exonerate, win compensation for, and rehabilitate people wrongfully convicted of crimes, around seventy percent of the hundreds of convictions the organization has overturned so far using DNA evidence have resulted from eyewitness misidentification. Traditional police methods promote such error, in part because […]

HEMP, FORMERLY SCOURGE OF CIVILIZATION, RECLASSIFIED AS A PLANT

HEMP FORMERLY SCOURGE OF CIVILIZATION RECLASSIFIED AS A PLANT

New Laws With the passage of The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, legislators have officially distinguished hemp from marijuana, making hemp an agricultural product instead of a controlled substance. From this will come a multitude of changes. Hemp farmers can now buy crop insurance. Banks will grant loans to hemp-related businesses, and credit card companies […]

IF IT’S LEGAL IS IT STILL A NUISANCE?

IF IT’S LEGAL IS IT STILL A NUISANCE

As the landscape of marijuana legalization changes, the many related laws evolve accordingly. An Oregon court recently ruled that the smell of marijuana smoke cannot be considered inherently offensive. It is in fact pleasing to some people, and therefore not grounds to pursue any complaints concerning the odor. This ruling came about concerning an Oregonian […]

SHOULD IT BE HARD TO FIND SOMEONE GUILTY?

SHOULD IT BE HARD TO FIND SOMEONE GUILTY

A pattern has emerged: the use of statistics showing low ratios of criminal convictions to criminal reports to support criticism of the U.S. legal system. How, the implication goes, can we trust the law we live under when Department of Justice surveys indicate that only 22 out of 619 robbery reports end in felony convictions, […]

GLAMOUR! PASSION! GIGANTIC ROBES! THE SUPREME COURT APPOINTMENT PROCESS

GLAMOUR! PASSION! GIGANTIC ROBES! THE SUPREME COURT APPOINTMENT PROCESS

We realize there is a chance you were buried in a mudslide several weeks ago and have only now tunneled out into the light of day. First of all, if so, welcome back! Second, you have some catching-up to do with Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation, which we think makes apposite a review of the Supreme […]

LETHAL JUSTICE: DETAILS OF THE DEATH PENALTY

LETHAL JUSTICE DETAILS OF THE DEATH PENALTY

As Chris Watts of Colorado awaits trial for the murder of his pregnant wife Shanann and their two young daughters, speculation abounds whether the case may end in capital punishment, though so far the prosecution neither confirms nor denies that it will seek that result. Colorado, rightly cautious about death sentences, has not carried one out […]

CONCEALED GUNS ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES: THE DEBATE CONTINUES

CONCEALED GUNS ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES THE DEBATE CONTINUES

The Debate In 2015, expanding the application of previous similar laws, the Texas legislature passed a law to allow citizens to take concealed guns into buildings on public college campuses. Two years later several professors from the University of Texas at Austin sued, calling the law unconstitutional. When their case was dismissed they appealed, and […]

CASE SUPPRESSION: SHOULD YOU BE WORRIED?

CASE SUPPRESSION SHOULD YOU BE WORRIED

Colorado law gives judges the authority to hide information about court cases from the public, information ranging from the least important details to the very fact of the cases’ existence. Judges use this power either by a procedure called sealing, which has strict limits set out in state codes, or by orders of suppression, which […]