In 2021, FBI agents lied to a judge, got permission to raid safe-deposit boxes owned by people suspected of no crime, and then sent hundreds of forfeiture notices never saying what the box owners did wrong. Then they lost the contents of many of the boxes, including retirees' entire life savings. But don't take our word for it. Head over to The Los Angeles Times and see the FBI agents admit as much under oath.
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 an 8 to 1 decision, the Supreme Court rejected a Second Amendment challenge to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8)’s prohibition against persons subject to a domestic violence restraining order possessing a firearm. See United States v. Rahimi, No. 22-915 (June 21, 2024).
In Smith v. Arizona, No. 22-889 (June 21, 2024), a unanimous Court held, when an expert conveys an absent analyst’s statements in support of the expert’s opinion, and the statements provide that support only if true, then the statements come into evidence for their truth, implicating the Sixth Amendments Confrontation Clause.
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.
Kerry Max Cook, 68, spent 20 years on death row for a 1977 murder. Now, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has formally declared him innocent, citing stunning allegations of prosecutorial misconduct (access full article).
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.
Pennsylvania man is convicted of murder and appeals through the state court system. He ultimately loses at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court but receives no notice of the ruling. Uh oh! When the trial court dockets the Supreme Court's ruling, it gets the date wrong, recording it as March 16, 2015, rather than February 19, 2015. The error is not detected until the man files a federal habeas petition, which is dismissed for being 14 days too late (it would have been timely under the date recorded by the trial court). Is he out of luck? District court: Yup!
Alaska U.S. District Court Judge Joshua Kindred announced his abrupt resignation (access full article).
He cited no reason in his two-line resignation letter, dated July 3, 2024. The court posted it on its website Friday, and it takes effect Monday.