Criminal Procedure

Meet the lawyer working on a plea deal for NSA leaker Edward Snowden

National Security Agency-leaker Edward Snowden called on one of the best-known Espionage Act lawyers last year when he entered into plea negotiations with the United States government. According to a Tuesday article in the New York Times, Plato Cacheris, a prominent Washington, D.C. lawyer and name-partner at Trout Cacheris, has…

Apr 29, 2014 5:23 PM CDT

Brooklyn lawyer ensnared in sting after asking undercover officer to ‘talk dirty’ to him, police say

Staten Island Advance reports that Brooklyn lawyer Lee Huttner was arrested on Friday after allegedly trying to solicit prostitution from an undercover police officer in Staten Island. According to the Advance, Huttner, a former assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, is accused of exposing himself to the undercover officer and asking…

Apr 29, 2014 4:31 PM CDT

Study: Scalia was wrong; about 1 in 25 people sentenced to death are likely innocent

A statistical study concludes that about one in 25 people who are sentenced to death are likely innocent. The study says only 1.6 percent of those on death-row are exonerated and released, but the actual figure is likely a minimum of 4.1 percent when statistical assumptions are applied to the…

Apr 29, 2014 12:41 PM CDT

Federal judge uses blog to advocate clemency for woman he sentenced 21 years ago

But for the office and background of the man who wrote it, a pointed blog post about the Justice Department’s new clemency effort to get nonviolent offenders out of prison perhaps wouldn’t carry such power: “Sorry Ms. Hasan. Time flies. In your absence, your children have grown up and had…

Apr 24, 2014 8:56 PM CDT

Judge says defense can’t videotape jury selection in Colo. movie theater shooting case

Lawyers for James Holmes cannot videotape jury selection for his trial over the 12 people killed and dozens more wounded in a July 2012 shooting at the premiere of a Batman movie at a Colorado theater, a judge has ruled. Saying that the digital video camera could be intimidating to…

Apr 24, 2014 2:50 PM CDT

Lawyer’s deficient capital murder defense requires sanction, ethics board says

A Kansas lawyer accused of “a cornucopia of … ineptness” by his capital murder client is fighting an ethics board’s recommendation that he be disciplined for his conduct in the case. Lawyer Ira Dennis Hawver disputes the March 14 findings by the Kansas Board for Discipline of Attorneys, the Topeka…

Apr 10, 2014 1:12 PM CDT

Former Ohio AG supports convicted murderer’s bid to overturn conviction

Former Ohio Attorney General James Petro is supporting a convicted murderer’s bid to overturn his conviction. Convicted murder Alfred Cleveland is asking a federal judge to overturn his 1991 murder conviction after his accuser recanted his testimony, report the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Chronicle-Telegram and the Morning Journal. In an…

Apr 8, 2014 1:51 PM CDT

SCOTUS ruling could complicate laws on impaired driving

In December 2012, Emily Sue Falkenstein of Renton, Wash., drove into a marked crosswalk where wheelchair-bound Gregory Ramirez, 48, was crossing with his 6-year-old niece in his lap. The crash broke his leg and his wheelchair, and it left the girl with bruises and scrapes, according to court papers. The…

Apr 1, 2014 10:19 AM CDT

Low-tech high court to weigh police search of smartphones

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan told a university audience last summer that she and her colleagues “are not necessarily the most technologically sophisticated people.” While law clerks regularly use e-mail, Justice Kagan said last August, the justices haven’t taken to communications technology that most working Americans have used for…

Apr 1, 2014 8:50 AM CDT

Ex-Dewey finance director pleaded guilty to larceny; 6 more pleas unsealed a day later

Updated: A former finance director of Dewey & LeBoeuf is one of seven individuals whose cases were sealed when criminal charges were announced early this month against onetime top leaders of the bankrupt BigLaw firm concerning an alleged $200 million accounting fraud. Francis Canellas pleaded guilty to grand larceny in…

Mar 27, 2014 7:40 PM CDT

Judge strikes Oklahoma lethal injection law because source of drugs is secret

An Oklahoma judge struck the state’s lethal injection law as unconstitutional Wednesday, saying that it violated due process because it keeps secret from inmates the sources of drugs used in executions. The ruling by Oklahoma County District Judge Patricia Parrish follows recent adverse reactions by dying inmates during executions in…

Mar 26, 2014 6:10 PM CDT

Did procedural misstep bar defendant from raising lawyer’s capital concession? SCOTUS to decide

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal of a death-row inmate whose trial counsel said during a summation that he couldn’t quarrel with the jury’s decision to find his client eligible for a death sentence. The court limited review to a procedural issue: whether the claim was…

Mar 24, 2014 3:15 PM CDT

Top state court says Chicago lacks ‘clear and appropriate’ release criteria for criminal defendants

Lending support to critics of the pretrial services provided to help keep criminal defendants in the Chicago area out of jail as they await trial, the Illinois Supreme Court on Friday issued an unprecedented report (PDF). Change is needed in what has been described as the nation’s largest single-site jail…

Mar 21, 2014 6:15 PM CDT

Released from jail in civil contempt case, Kevin Trudeau starts 10-year criminal contempt term

Infomercial pitchman Kevin Trudeau can only serve one contempt sentence at a time. So a federal judge who jailed Trudeau last year for civil contempt to try to force him to pay something towards a $37.6 million fine released him Wednesday. That will allow Trudeau to begin serving a 10-year…

Mar 19, 2014 8:55 PM CDT

More than 186,000 fugitives escape justice because no one wants to pursue extradition

Crossing a state border proved to be a good move for more than 186,000 fugitives. A confidential FBI database used to track outstanding warrants indicates that officials don’t want to spend the time or money to extradite 186,873 fugitives when they are arrested for other alleged crimes, according to a…

Mar 13, 2014 12:50 PM CDT