In the case of Florida v. Powell (2010), police officers told Powell that "you have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any of our questions" and that "you can use this right anytime you want to during the interview."  7 of the 9 U.S. Supreme Court justices upheld Powell's conviction, ruling that the warning adequately conveyed the message that Powell was entitled to the presence of a lawyer during questioning.  Two justices (Stevens and Breyer) disagreed, arguing that the officers' words didn't clearly tell Powell that he had a right to have an attorney present during (and not just before) questioning.  

The dissenters seem overly picky.  But the fact that the issue made it all the way to the Supreme Court is a reminder that language can be ambiguous.  In a country filled with native speakers ffrom non-English speaking countries, courts should make sure that police officers explain rights clearly.

The latest example may involve Michael Anderson.  In a notorious case, Anderson was convicted of killing five people in New Orleans in 2006 and sentenced to die. Torrie Williams was the key prosecution eyewitness.

It turns out that the New Orleans DA'a office had in its files a copy of a videotaped interview that prosecutors conducted with Ms. Williams prior to Anderson's trial.  The version of events that Ms. Williams provided in the interview was markedly different from the version that she testified to at trial.  Clearly, had the DA's office complied with its legal and ethical obligations and turned the videotape over to Anderson's lawyers, they could have used it to cast doubt on Ms. Williams' trial testimony. 

Anderson is trying to set aside his conviction based on the prosecutor's failure to disclose the existence of the videotape, and court hearings are underway.  Of course, the New Orleans DA's office is trying to protect its ass by claiming that the tape wouldn't have been all that helpful.  Do you think any of these prosecutors would make this same argument if their lieves were at stake?

If Anderson's conviction is set aside, he'll have the shoddy New Orleans prosecutors to thank.  Unfortunately, prosecutors are immune from suit if they fail to properly carry out their public duties. If they at least had to apologize to Louisiana taxpayers for wasting their money and to the families of the five victims for forcing them to relive the tragic events, maybe more prosecutors would follow rather than try to evade the rules of trial.   

This happened in Charles Dean Hood in 1989.  Hood was apparently just that-- he was convicted in Texas of a double murder in 1990.  What Hood didn't know was that trial judge Verla Sue Holland and prosecutor Thjomas S.O'Connell Jr had recently ended an extra-marital affair.  

Texas's highest court has upheld the conviction, ruling that Hood took too long to complain about the possible conflict of interest. That's a surprising ruling since the judge and prosecutor didn't admit to the affair until 2008, 18 years after Hood's conviction.  The court took refuge in the procedural point to avoid confronting the real issue, which is whether the judge and the prosecutor had an ethical obligation to disclose their affair to the defense. 

The answer to this question is easy: YES!  Hood's attorneys should not have had to ask for this information, Holland and O'Connell should have revealed it and given the defense a chance to object. If the judge and prosecutor were concerned about protecting their privacy, one or both of them could have stepped aside and let others handle the case.  Hood has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and hopefully the Court will reverse the conviction and eliminate this blight on the US system of justice.  As for Holland and O"Connell, at the very least these worthies should repay the Texas taxpayers for the cost of a trial that was a sham all along.    

Judges frequently have to grapple with how to adapt rules to scenarios that didn't exist when the rules were created.  Search warrants are supposed to describe carefully where police officers can search for the evidence described in a warrant.  But if a computer is the site for a search, police officers may uncover a vast amount of private and personal information about suspects and other people and groups that have nothing to do with the evidence described in a warrant. 

In the Williams case, the court ruled in favor of the police by applying an existing rule (the "plain view" exception to the warrant requirement) to a technology that didn't exist when the rule was created.  The court stated that the police officers seized the child pornography legally because it came into "plain view" as they opened electronic files that might have contained evidence of threats.

The Williams case is a reminder that legal rules have to be somewhat abstract and elastic if we expect judges to apply them in contexts that develop after the rules are created.   

trial.  For example, assume that police officers conduct a warrantless search of a house in circumstances where they should first have obtained a search warrant from a judge.  Whatever the search turns up- illegal drugs, evidence of a past crime, etc. - would have to be excluded.  If the prosecution does not have enough independent evidence of a defendant's guilt, excluding the illegally seized evidence would result in dismissal of criminal charges.

          According to Mapp, the exclusionary rule deters police officers from conducting illegal searches.  If police officers know that illegally-seized evidence can't be used in court, they won't conduct illegal searches.   But attackers of the exclusionary rule argue that it makes no sense to "let guilty people go free because the constable has erred."

          In recent years, the Supreme Court has reduced the reach of the exclusionary rule.  For example, evidence that a police officer seizes in good faith reliance on a defective search warrant is admissible in evidence.  Nevertheless, proposals to eliminate the exclusionary rule continue to be put forward.

          A 2010 essay by law professors Samuel Estreicher and Daniel Weick published in the Missouri Law Review suggests that law enforcement agencies that establish rules and policies to deter improper searches should be exempt from the exclusionary rule.  They argue that illegal searches can be deterred without freeing guilty criminals if police agencies establish rigorous polices and training programs and discipline police officers who carry out illegal searches.

          Whether or not states and courts accept Estreicher and Weick's proposal, the debate over the wisdom of the Exclusionary Rule is likely to continue in the years to come.

Traffic fines in Finland have long been based on a formula that combines the severity of an offense with a driver's income.  The idea is that if penalties are to hurt equally, wealthier people should pay higher fines.  Thus some years ago a well-heeled driver was fined $71,000 for driving 43 mph in a 25 mph zone.

Anyone anxious to copy Finland?  

The federal government presently plans to try Abdulmuttalah as a criminal rather than as a terrorist.  If so, the statements made by Abdulmutallah before he was given Miranda warnings may not be admissible in evidence against him at trial.  However, the delay in giving warnings will have little or no impact on the government's case against Abdulmutallah.  Apart from anything he might have told the investigators, the government has plenty of other evidence that it can offer to prove his guilt. 

Thus, the delay in giving Miranda warnings may affect the admissibility of Abdulmutallah's statements, but the delay in no way jeopardizes the government's ability to convict him of an act of terrorism..

1. The murders were gruesome, and he recounted the awful details.

2. Spisak was undeserving of their sympathy.

3. Spisak had not done any good deeds and never had good thoughts.

4. Spisak is demented, he will never be any different, and he has threatened to commit future crimes.

Despite its conclusion that the defense attorney's remarks were "constitutionally inadequate," the U.S. Supreem Court upheld the death sentence.  The reason was that a better argument wouldn't have produced a different result.  As Justice Stevens remarked, even Clarence Darrow wouldn't have been able to save Spisak from a death sentence.

Maybe so, but I bet Darrow would not have sounded like he wanted to cast the first ballot for death.

Sometimes American juries are derided for their seemingly irrational decisions.  I think it's worth saluting this Wichita, Kansas jury for getting it right. 

Roeder explained that he had a good reason for shooting Tiller- Tiller performed abortions.  Roeder had the chutzpah to explain that "It's never up to man to take life," perhaps temporarily forgetting that he did exactly that when he shot Tiller. 

Roeder undoubtedly hopes that the jurors will find this a valid reason for killing, and if not acquit him at least convict him of nothing more serious than manslaughter.

If the jurors accept this disgusting defense, people like Roeder would have a license to kill anyone who disagrees with their religious beliefs.  Maybe today it's an abortionist, but who knows who would be next.  If your God disapproves of homosexuality, no problem, kill homosexuals.  If your God disapproves of inter-racial dating, no problem, kill those couples.  I write in the hope that sanity prevails on the jury and that Roeder spends the rest of his sorry life in prison.  

In Briscoe v. Virgina (2010) the Court passed up a chance to clarify the scope of Melendez-Diaz.  Briscoe involved the legitimacy of a state law that allowed prosecutors to offer lab test reports into evidence without calling the analysts as witnesses, and then (upon request from the defendant) producing the analysts for defendants to examine as part of the defense case.  The Court chose not to decide whether this procedure is constitutional, instead returning the case to the state for "consideration in the light of the decision in Melendez-Diaz."  So for some time to come, the increasingly bitter confrontation over the scope of the Confrontation Clause continues.

Despite the increase in the number of death sentences, California has not carried out an execution in 4 years and probably will not execute anyone in 2010.  As a result, San Quentin's death row houses 697 prisoners, about 20% of the nationwide total.

Many of these prisoners have undoubtedly committed horrible crimes.  But in an era when the state is too broke to spend money on law-abiding students and people who can't afford medical care, spending millions of extra dollars to convict and house "the worst of the worst" seems a terrible waste of public money. LWOP sentences (life without possibility of parole) are a far cheaper alternative that protect society as well as death sentences do.   

To some extent I agree with the committee- Sanford is a criminal, not just a bad boy.  Instead of holding onto his office and thanking the committee for its "deliberative approach," Sanford should have resigned months ago.

How sad that Sanford remains in office in an era when the U.S. repeatedly rebukes other countries for their corrupt politics.  The South Carolina Committee's decision shames our entire country.