Georgia Criminal Law Blog

Recent Posts from Georgia Criminal Law Blog

• Arizona v Gant - limitation of search incident to arrest

  Arizona v. Gant - Click here to read the full opinion.Today the U.S. Supreme Court limited the circumstances under which officers may search the passenger compartment of a vehicle after it’s driver had been arrested.…

• Airplane bathroom emergency lands man in jail and with Federal criminal charges

  ATLANTA - A man who says he desperately needed to use an airplane bathroom after eating something bad in Honduras faces a federal charge after being accused of twisting a flight attendant’s arm to get…

• Helio Castroneves acquitted on tax evasion charges

  After a 7 week trial, Helio Castroneves was acquitted of the federal tax evasion charges he was facing.  The two time Indy 500 winner and Dancing with the Stars Champion had this to say after…

• Police Officer’s conviction overturned in the Kathryn Johnston case.

  http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2009/01/15/tesler_conviction_overturned.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

• The whittling away of the exclusionary rule

  Today the U.S. Supreme Court decided  Herring v US The Court basically extended the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule to cases where the police make negligent decisions that violate the Fourth Amendment.

• Brian Nichols avoids the death penalty - what now?

  Today Judge Jim Bodiford sentenced Brian Nichols to four life sentences without parole, seven life sentences plus 485 years all running consecutive to one another.  Brian Nichols will never see the outside world again.  The…

• Supreme Court says the life sentence for a second violation of failing to register is excessive.

  http://www.gasupreme.us/pdf/s08a1057.pdf Bradshaw v. State. I am not going to summarize it because it is a “must read” opinion.  But the quote of the day is “grossly disproportionate.”

• Troy Davis gets a stay of execution from the US Supreme Court two hours before he was scheduled to die.

  The story from the AJC is printed below.  To me, it is ridiculous that this execution was scheduled the way it was.  The Supreme Court was scheduled to decide if they would hear the appeal…

• The Georgia Attorney General Crosses the Line of Decency - Schedules Execution before the US Supreme Court Can Hear the Case

  ATLANTA (AP) — A death row inmate who has drawn international headlines with claims that he is innocent of killing a Savannah police officer is scheduled to be executed later this month, Georgia authorities said…

• Don’t talk to the police