In Erlinger v. United States, No. 23-370 (June 21, 2024), the Supreme Court held that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments require a unanimous jury to make the determination beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant’s past offenses were committed on separate occasions for ACCA purposes.
In the 6 to 3 opinion Snyder v. United States, No. 23-108 (June 26, 2024), the Supreme Court held that 18 U.S.C. § 666 proscribes bribes to state and local officials but does not make it a crime for those officials to accept gratuities for their past acts.
Starting in at least 2007, Oklahoma has allowed transgender people to obtain Oklahoma birth certificates with amended sex designations. In 2021, the governor issued an executive order directing the Department of Health to stop amending sex designations. Three transgender Oklahomans sue. Tenth Circuit: This is sex discrimination and thus might get heightened scrutiny, but it fails even rational-basis scrutiny.
As of July 1, 2024, 200 people in the U.S. have been exonerated and freed from death row since 1973 (access full article).
In 2021, the Death Penalty Information Center dubbed this national reality an “innocence epidemic” when the number of death row exonerations had reached 185 people. Two recent exonerations have brought the number to 200: the June 19, 2024 exoneration of Kerry Cook in Texas and the July 1, 2024 exoneration of Larry Roberts in California.
In July, the Fourth Circuit (over a dissent) held that "geofence" warrants ordering Google to provide law enforcement with information about every account holder who enters a particular area in a particular time period are totally cool under the Fourth Amendment. But wait! A mere month later, here comes the Fifth Circuit to tell us that these same warrants are, in fact, totally bogus under the Fourth Amendment!
Mexican national is connected to the fatal shooting of a Border Patrol agent in the United States. Seven years later, FBI agents interrogate him in a Mexican prison. After reading him his Miranda rights, they hit him with everything: good cop, bad cop; your friends told us a different story; we're not charging you with anything. He doesn't bite. Then his lawyer says, you were just in the mountains looking to rob drug dealers, and that's not a crime, so tell these guys what they want to know. So he does.
AH Datalytics has launched a “Real-Time” crime index, (RTCI), online. (access index). AH Datalytics launched the real-time crime index in an effort to “aid in the need for a faster understanding and visualization of national, state, and local crime trends.” AH Datalytics acknowledges certain crime data is under-reported to police and agencies can fail to provide complete or accurate information.
The United States Sentencing Commission releases new Quick Facts periodically, which give readers "basic facts about a single area of federal crime in an easy-top-read, two page format."
Quick Facts published in September include:
Today, the Supreme Court agreed to hear another Texas death row inmate’s case challenging the state’s DNA testing statute as unconstitutional. Gutierrez v. Saenz, No. 23-7809 (Oct. 4, 2024) (cert. granted).
Does law enforcement's use of a "pole camera" to film the front of someone's home amount to a "search" under the Fourth Amendment? Seventh Circuit (2021): No. Seventh Circuit (2024): Still no. Concurrence: On a blank slate, I'd say yes.