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Criminal Law

Crime & Federalism

Discussing recent news and court opinions, with an emphasis on federalism, criminal law, and civil rights actions.

Post Frequency: 8.6/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 15:45:19

Video Justice

Posted on August 11, 2008
Hell, yes. Let this be a reminder to would-be drunk drivers. Privacy is dead. Cameras are everywhere. People are watching. Do the right thing.

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

Posted on August 11, 2008
A law firm recently hired an all-star associate. She is a terrific writer, a soldier researcher, and a great listener. She has screwed up two consecutive assignments in a row. What are the odds that someone who is supposed to be so good would perform so poorly? You just hired a dullard to do yeoman's work around the office...

Mayor Cheye Cavlo Describes Ordeal in E-mail to Friends

Posted on August 11, 2008
Mayor Cheye Calvo, the man whose dogs were murdered by Prince George County Police, sent an e-mail to friends, describing the event. The e-mail's text is available here.

Ted Frank on Prosecutorial Indiscretion

Posted on August 11, 2008
Ted Frank has an interesting article entitled, "Prosecutors Gone Wild." Check it out.

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How Not to Persuade

Posted on August 11, 2008
I just read a brief that went something like this: Hey, judge, there was this case about the Second Amendment. Heller, I think it was called. Anyway, my client is charged under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9). That law is unconstitutional under Heller, I think. I'm not certain, because the Supreme Court said that Section 922 might not be unconstitutional...

Salvatore Rivieri's History of Violence

Posted on August 09, 2008
Salvatore Rivieri is a police officer with the Baltimore Police Department. He was put on paid administrative leave in February, after he was caught on video assaulting a 14-year old. Maybe that 14-year old was a disrespectful punk who deserved to be taught to show some respect? That's a pretty revolting worldview, but it's one many people like Justice Antonin...

Prince George County Police Have a History of Violence

Posted on August 08, 2008
In Hudson v. Michigan, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: "[M]odern police forces are staffed with professionals; it is not credible to assert that internal discipline, which can limit successful careers, will not have a deterrent effect." Prince George County police officers are under scrutiny for killing Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo's two dogs...

Prince-George-County Killers Attempt to Re-Write History

Posted on August 07, 2008
Police raided a Maryland mayor's home without a proper warrant, and shot one his black labs as the terrified dog ran away from police. As it turns out, the police raided Mayor Calvo's house for no reason: Police say the couple appeared to be innocent victims of a scheme by two men to smuggle millions of dollars worth of marijuana...

Free Public-Records Search of Yourself

Posted on August 06, 2008
This is interesting: ChoicePoint is one of the nation's leading information services companies. We believe you should have free access to your information and are providing you with an enhanced search of your public records. Access to your public records is provided free to each consumer on a yearly basis...

Awareness Test

Posted on August 06, 2008
Can you count the number of passes?

Change Blindness

Posted on August 06, 2008
Still think eyewitness identifications are reliable? Check out this video: And here is an awesome video illustrating... well, I don't want to ruin the fun, so decide for yourself:

Thirty-Second Memory Test

Posted on August 06, 2008
Please read and memorize the following words: bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, wake, snooze, blanket, doze, slumber, snore, nap, peace, yawn, drowsy. Look away from the screen and write down the words you remembered. Once you've done so, please highlight this paragraph as if you were highlighting a paragraph in Word (double-click and drag your mouse down): If you're like...

Michael McConnell on Blogs and Scholary Critiques of Judicial Opinions

Posted on August 05, 2008
Pepperdine hosted Justice Samuel Alito and Tenth Circuit Judge Michael McConnell. (Via.) Pepperdine filmed the discussion, which is available for viewing here. Justice Alito and Judge McConnell discussed opinion writing. After lamenting that academics do not provide objective analysis of opinions, instead seeking to push an agenda, McConnell said: I think blogs are, in the legal area, beginning to provide...

How Prosecutors Really Think

Posted on August 05, 2008
In a moment of unusual candor, then-Assistant District Attorney Jack J.McMahon lets black people know what prosecutors really think of them. "Seeking justice," indeed.

Los Angeles Times Covers Up DEA-Blackwater Connection

Posted on August 05, 2008
Last Thursday, DEA agents raided a California medical marijuana dispensary. The Los Angeles Times covered the story, and also published several photographs. In one photograph, either a DEA agent or a Blackwater operative is seen unloading boxes. What is the DEA-Blackwater connection? Was the depicted man a DEA agent who simply bought a Blackwater t-shirt? They are available for purchase...

Dog-Killing Cops Did Not Have No-Knock Warrant

Posted on August 05, 2008
The Prince George County police officers who broke down the doors of an innocent man, and shot one his black labs in the back, did not have a no-knock warrant: Prince George's County authorities did not have a "no-knock" warrant when they burst into the home of a mayor July 29, shooting and killing his two dogs -- contrary to...

Abstract v. Concrete Argument

Posted on August 04, 2008
Oral traditions predominantly consist of sequences of concrete actions. For example, Havelock (1978) stresses that rather than employing abstract principles, only concrete examples by active agents are included. Thus Homer has only concrete examples of heroism, wisdom, and justice, not abstract statements -- Rubin, Memory in Oral Tra ditions at 11...

Criminals

Posted on August 04, 2008
One myth of the criminal justice system is that "criminals" are the people you see on "Law and Order." Most people who end up in the criminal justice system are not violent people, or drug dealers. They are in for what I call "DSS" - doing stupid shit...

Unpaid Parking Ticket Leads to Home Foreclosure

Posted on August 03, 2008
Wow.

Dog-Killing Cops Unremorseful

Posted on August 03, 2008
I've been around thousands of dogs. I have seen exactly zero vicious black labs. But some bad-ass members of a SWAT team, after raiding the wrong house, murdered two of them. One dog was so vicious that it ran away from police. So a bad-ass cop shot that dog in the back...

San Francisco District Attorney Commits Felony?

Posted on August 01, 2008
Who will prosecute San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris for allegedly stealing $5.4 million from the federal government?

Using Google Maps to Commit a Felony

Posted on August 01, 2008
This is creepy, but it's undoubtedly the future.

The Media is a Scam, Part 3,267

Posted on August 01, 2008
Twenty percent of marketers have admitted to a pay-to-play scheme. This is most obvious in the media's coverage of the car industry. How many scams do car dealerships run? Why aren't the investigative journalists hounding car dealers? The answer, of course, is in your classifieds - the dozens of pages of them that car dealerships pay for...

Analogical Reasoning is Hard

Posted on August 01, 2008
What would happen if we as a society did not punish criminals? Would we expect to have less crime? Why then do we as a society tolerate criminal conduct by police? Do we expect our tolerance to lead to less police misconduct? What the Hell with wrong with this wretched human race?

Judge Gould on White Collar Criminal Sentences

Posted on August 01, 2008
Ninth Circuit Judge Ronald M. Gould issued a powerful dissent today, in a case where a notorious criminal avoided a prison sentence. We shall let the man speak for himself: To provide for a mere slap on the wrist of those convicted of serious economic crimes, with no or virtually no time imprisoned as punishment, strikes a blow to the...

Laptop Privacy

Posted on August 01, 2008
Do not bring your laptop overseas: Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed...

Company Lawyer Sells Employee Out?

Posted on July 31, 2008
Imagine that you and the company you work for are under federal investigation. The company's lawyer sends you a letter offering to jointly represent you and the company. The company's lawyer also notes that based on her "present knowledge of the facts," she does not anticipate that any conflicts between you and your company...

Memory and Story

Posted on July 30, 2008
Throughout history, some stories survived, others died. Those stories that survived lived on despite illiteracy and the lack of the printing presses. Why did some stories die while others survived? Survival of the fittest stories is explored in Memory in Oral Traditions: The Cognitive Psychology of Epic, Ballads, and Counting-out Rhymes...

Willie Gary Has a Sex Tape?

Posted on July 30, 2008
Something strange is going on here.

Making Bad Employee Behavior a Federal Crime?

Posted on July 30, 2008
The New York Law Journal has a fantastic article on the "honest services" provision of the federal mail and wire fraud statutes. The backdrop to the article is Tim Donaghy, an ex-National Basketball Association referee who is going to prison for providing insider information (in violation of NBA rules) to bookies...

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