Police: Our search of the defendant's backpack was valid because our only alternative to impounding it would have been to abandon it in public. It's not like we could just give it to the mysterious stranger who came up mere seconds after the defendant asked for his "girl" and who kept asking us to give it to her. She could have been anyone! Tenth Circuit: Um, or she could have been his girl. Nice try. Evidence suppressed!
The Speedy Trial Act says that a federal criminal defendant has a right to be tried within 70 days of his initial appearance, so this guy who had to wait almost a thousand days for his trial has a pretty good argument, right? Tenth Circuit: Wrong! (We won't spoil the court's reasoning, but it rhymes with "pænˈdemɪk.")
Allegation: Inmate at Rush City, Minn. correctional facility is attacked with a shank when he declines to pay off his cellmate's drug debt. He (and his family) repeatedly asked the prison for a transfer to another facility, but officials decline (in part because the assailant attests "the issue was dead.") The assailant attacks again the first chance he gets by throwing a heated liquid in his face and striking him in the head and face, causing serious injuries. District court: Things happen. Summary judgment for prison officials.
Two guys go walking down the sidewalk of a Richmond, Va. housing complex. Cops see them, recognize them, and accuse them of trespassing based partly upon a trespassing arrest from eight years ago. Cops ask the guys to lift their shirts. One does, one kind of does. The kind-of one is also wearing skinny jeans, and there was a sketchy tip based on vague descriptions he sold drugs. Officers threaten him with trespassing charges and then detain and pat him down, finding a gun. Permissible Terry stop? District court: Totally permissible. Imposes 10 years imprisonment.
In his 2023 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. focused on the new technology while steering clear of Supreme Court ethics.
Detroit man spends more than 20 years in prison for a 12-year-old girl's murder—a crime he did not commit. Indeed, another man's fingerprints are on the murder weapon, and the defendant's confession (which got the cause of death wrong) followed a detective's telling him he could go home after signing it. Once he's released, he sues the city and involved officials who, as you might expect, assert qualified immunity.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled Thursday that anyone under the age of 21 cannot be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, finding such a sentence constitutes “cruel or unusual punishment” under the Massachusetts Constitution. (view full article).
The Justice Department on Friday said in court papers that it would seek to execute the gunman who killed 10 Black people in a racist massacre at a Buffalo supermarket in May 2022. It is the first time that President Biden’s administration has sought the death penalty in a new case (view full article).
The Supreme Court of the United States is hiring a deputy clerk for administration. Applicants must have a law degree and be admitted to the bar of a state’s highest court. More information about the position and the hiring process.
Eight years after the Supreme Court blocked his execution so that it could consider a challenge to Oklahoma’s lethal-injection protocol, the justices agreed on Monday to take up the case of Richard Glossip, who is seeking to set aside his conviction and death sentence (view full article).