If you handle cases involving DNA evidence and don’t know the story of Lukis Anderson, stop what you are doing and take a few minutes to observe National DNA Day by reading this great article by Katie Worth of The Marshall Project. Mr. Anderson was a homeless man living in San Jose, CA whose DNA was found …
Cases
Rare medical condition, not shaking, caused baby’s death
Murder charges were dropped recently against a father in Randolph County charged with the death of his 11-week-old daughter. The baby’s treating physician indicated the death was caused by shaking or blunt force trauma. The defendant spent 158 days in jail prior to the charges being dismissed. The charges were dismissed when the forensic pathologist, …
Rare medical condition, not shaking, caused baby’s deathRead More
Mass. Supreme Court Considers Relevance of FSTs for Marijuana Impairment
Any practitioner that handles driving while impaired charges knows the significance of field-sobriety tests (“FSTs”) to the investigation and prosecution of drunk driving. Scientific research supports the basic idea behind the tests — that test performance on FSTs is an indicator of alcohol impairment. What about when the impairing substance isn’t alcohol at all? Do …
Mass. Supreme Court Considers Relevance of FSTs for Marijuana ImpairmentRead More
Admissibility of field test kit results
In State v. Carter, 237 N.C. App. 274 (2014) the NC Court of Appeals found that a trial court abused its discretion by admitting an officer’s testimony that narcotics indicator field test kits indicated the presence of cocaine on various items. The court cited State v. Ward, 364 N.C. 133, 142 (2010) which held that “expert witness testimony required …
Stingrays and Privacy
The Florida Supreme Court recently issued an opinion holding that the Fourth Amendment protections apply to real time cell site location information. The court distinguishes real-time cell site location records from historical data, emphasizing that historical cell site location records are not at issue in this case. This real time location surveillance is done with …
Shaken Baby Syndrome: How Bad Science Can Result in False Confessions
For the past decade, the theory of shaken baby syndrome has been under attack. See here and here. In January, the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Illinois granted Defendant Jennifer Del Prete’s habeas corpus petition where her conviction for first degree murder was based on faulty evidence of shaken baby syndrome. Del …
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Using cell tower data to track a suspect’s location
With the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision Riley v. California, the topic of cell phone forensics is on the mind of many attorneys. Cell tower location tracking is a related area where investigators gather information about a cell phone’s location using data from cellular towers contained in phone records. Attorneys should be aware that location …
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Hinton v. Alabama: Effective Counsel and Forensic Expertise
by Sarah Turberville, Senior Counsel, Criminal Justice Program, The Constitution Project on Tuesday, February 25, 2014 This article is re-posted from the National Association for Public Defense (NAPD) March newsletter. Please view the NAPD newsletter, available here, for additional articles relevant to effective criminal defense. On February 24th, the United States Supreme Court issued a per curiam reversal in the case …
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Defense attorney taps into the NSA’s surveillance of telephone metadata in hopes of finding exculpatory evidence
Among the documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden to the Guardian in June 2013 was an April 2013 order by the FISA Court directing Verizon to provide the National Security Agency (NSA) records of “telephony metadata” for all foreign calls between the U.S. and other countries and all domestic calls within the U.S, including local …
Dogs – 1, Defendants – 1
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the second of two dog sniff cases before it this term. In Florida v. Jardines, the Court held that taking a drug-sniffing dog on the front porch of a house is a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. The Court held that the front porch is within the …
The ENCODE project, the Fourth Amendment, and Haskill v. Harris
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, heard oral arguments on whether DNA fingerprinting violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure on September 19. Plaintiffs-Appellants in Haskell v. Harris argue that collection of DNA at arrest violates their privacy interests because DNA contains not only CODIS markers that help in …
The ENCODE project, the Fourth Amendment, and Haskill v. HarrisRead More
SCOTUS to Decide on Dog Sniffs and Privacy
The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear two Florida cases at the end of October regarding dog sniffs and the Fourth Amendment. The Florida Supreme Court ruled in Florida v. Jardines that taking a drug detection dog to the front porch of a home to sniff for marijuana violated the Fourth Amendment. They held …
Free at Last! Willie Grimes Exonerated by 3-Judge Panel
A 3-judge panel found Willie Grimes innocent after thirty-minutes of deliberation on Friday. Grimes had been sentenced to life in prison in 1987 after being convicted of two counts of first degree rape and one count of second degree kidnapping. He was paroled in May of this year after serving twenty-four years in prison. Grimes’s …
Free at Last! Willie Grimes Exonerated by 3-Judge PanelRead More
Evidence of a Genetic Defect May Lead to Lighter Judge-Imposed Sentencing
Both The New York Times and National Public Radio (NPR) report that a recent study suggests judges may impose lighter sentences in cases where a defendant, diagnosed as psychopathic, is genetically predisposed to violent behavior. The study, carried about by researchers at the University of Utah and published in the journal Science, tasked 181 judges …
Evidence of a Genetic Defect May Lead to Lighter Judge-Imposed SentencingRead More
Greg Taylor and Darryl Hunt programs on April 12, 2012
Two programs featuring NC exonerees Greg Taylor and Darryl Hunt will be broadcast on April 12, 2012. The WRAL documentary, “6,149 Days” which premieres on April 12 at 8:00 pm recounts the flawed investigation that led to Greg Taylor’s conviction, Taylor’s 6,149 days in prison, and the fight to set him free. Steven D. Hammel, …
Greg Taylor and Darryl Hunt programs on April 12, 2012Read More