Controversial Beginnings The investigation into U.S. President Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia has controversial beginnings: a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) authorizing the secret observation of people close to Trump. Regardless of one’s feelings about this investigation in particular, warrants issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in general animate the […]
Category Archives: Criminal Defense
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Paul Manafort is President Trump’s former campaign chairman who is currently the defendant in two upcoming trials on money laundering and bank fraud. On Friday, a judge ordered he spend the rest of his pretrial period in jail. The accusation which led to this pretrial charge is witness tampering. The Judge determined that since there is no […]
The Supreme Court recently overturned a long standing sport betting act called PASPA (Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act) which was originally enacted in 1992 by President Bush. This act essentially banned betting on sports at the federal level. However the repeal of this act does not necessarily legalize sports betting across the country. What […]
Distracted driving is a highly dangerous activity that rivals the risk taken when drinking and driving, which we have discussed before here. One of the main distractions is texting, most often by teenagers. But despite the risks, motivating teens to stop texting has proven difficult. However, a new study indicates we could change teen habits more […]