Sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenges to a criminal conviction are notoriously difficult to win. California man and alleged gang member charged with drug conspiracy. Man: I left gang and bought drugs for my use. Contacts with gang is for friendship purpose. Jury: we believe defense and prosecution. Acquits on some distribution charges; convicts on drug distribution conspiracy and gun charges. Man appeals.
Eyewitness accounts are the backbone of evidence; we trust few things more than what appears before our very eyes. But how do you know if you're right and if what you're seeing is accurate? And what if you're wrong? (view full article).
The Supreme Court on Thursday in Hemphill v. New York sided with a criminal defendant who said his Sixth Amendment rights were violated at a trial during which he was convicted of murder.
The issue is whether Hemphill “opened the door” at his trial to the use of evidence that would normally be barred by the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause (view previous coverage).
The Supreme Court will hear argument on Tuesday in an important case on the rights of criminal defendants under the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause. Specifically, the court will determine in Hemphill v.
In state court news, the Supreme Court of Maryland rifles through the evidence and shoots down firearm experts' striking claims that they can link a certain bullet to a particular gun. Henceforth, such claims will trigger significant scrutiny, and, if an expert that tries to claim more than what the evidence supports, courts should rightfully go ballistic. New trial ordered.
Evidence of child pornography found on a defendant’s phone must be suppressed and his plea vacated because the application for the search warrant didn’t adequately establish probable cause, the First Circuit said (view full
In a case that could have easily sprung from the wild imagination of law school hypotheticals, the Fifth Circuit holds that hitching a ride across the border in a car with 283 pounds of marijuana, is not, strictly speaking, possessing marijuana. The two men could really have been hitchhikers. Mere presence in the area where the drugs are found is not a crime. Convictions vacated. Dissent: Shut the front door. Two hundred. Eighty-three. Pounds.
A San Antonio man, during a traffic stop outside his mother's house, throws his jacket onto a garbage can on her property. Police grab the jacket and find a gun inside. Felon in possession? Suppress the evidence? District court: No suppression Fifth Circuit: Suppression. Tossing an item onto property you often visit and are welcome isn't abandonment, so the cops couldn't just search the jacket willy-nilly. You need a warrant for that but you didn't get one. Conviction vacated. Dissent: Anyone could've taken that jacket.
A federal court on Wednesday formally dismissed the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, granting the controversial request from the Justice Department that generated a public outcry and spurred the largest mass resignation of senior federal prosecutors in decades.
In 2020, Burlington, Wash. officers get a warrant to scour a man's computer after an alleged sexual assault, including a catch-all "dominion and control" clause that effectively authorized an unlimited search of any documents or files. They find child porn from 2016 and charge him in federal court. Ninth Circuit (over a partial dissent): That's an unlawful general warrant if we've ever seen it—no good-faith exception, no plain view, no dice.