Appellate Law

More Odds and Ends

By S. COTUS

Because of a lack of cases this weekend, and a big queue of unpublished odds and ends, I give you these things.  Because it is a holiday in some country, there will be no jokes about tort reform this week.

• Aiding in possessing.  The Third Circuit Blog points to a gun possession conviction, based on an ?aiding and abetting? theory being reversed on a sufficiency challenge.  As the blog writes, ?the Court concluded that the evidence was insufficient to convict for constructive possession because there was no evidence that Cunningham ?knew? about the gun. The evidence was also insufficient for aiding and abetting because Cunningham?s actions "did not show that he attempted to facilitate the carrying of the gun ... or that the gun was in any way instrumental to his decision to participate in the drug offense.'?
• British Military pretrial confinement.  CAAFlog explains how the ?European Court of Human Rights nixes part of British military pretrial confinement procedure.?   The problem is that the ?soldier's commanding officer [was deciding] whether to retain a soldier accused of a crime in pretrial confinement.?
• Intracircuit splits.  We mentioned California Appellate Report?s take on the Ninth Circuit?s twists on the ?law of the circuit rule.?  The Ninth Circuit Blog comments here.
• More dirty deeds of the FBI.  Boston Justice reports on oral arguments before the First Circuit some of the cases resulting from the FBI?s dirty dealings with informants.
• Dirty Deeds of prosecutors.  Indefensible reports on the familiar pattern of ?tough-talking militant [prosecutor] who has incarcerated folks for a living since 1977? ?delet[ing] a bunch of e-mails in violation of a subpoena, and whose other e-mail messages included endearments to his executive secretary, sexual and racist jokes and pornographic videos.?
• Judge seeks rehabilitation.  Indefensible also reports on how Judge Cheryl Aleman (a Florida judge who seems to want to hold all defense attorneys in contempt) argues that she should not be sanctioned because she can learn.  Or something. 

Full post as published by Appellate Law and Practice on March 10, 2008 (boomark / email).