Evidence

Are lawyers better at evidence collection than tech companies?

Whenever a law firm has a case involving large volumes of electronic evidence, there are thousands of companies clamoring to do the dirty work of collecting and managing that evidence. But a few large law firms have looked at the job of e-discovery and built their own in-house services. A…

Nov 1, 2015 1:50 AM CDT

Lawyer resigns from government job after testifying against ex-client in murder case

A Texas lawyer who testified this week for the prosecution in the murder trial of a former client resigned from his government job almost immediately afterward. Attorney Marshall Shelsy admitted during his Wednesday testimony in the case against William Porter that he had initially lied to investigators and a grand…

Oct 30, 2015 4:30 PM CDT

Proposed law would ban federal prosecutors from reading emails between prison inmates and attorneys

Federal officials in Brooklyn, New York, say it isn’t practical to segregate inmate emails to their legal counsel from ordinary email. So the feds have solved the confidentiality problem by saying there isn’t any: Prosecutors have the right to review the electronic communications, although in-person attorney-client conversations and hard-copy letters…

Oct 29, 2015 4:25 PM CDT

Attorney testifies in murder case, says he found spent bullet in then-client’s home

A Texas lawyer testified Wednesday in the murder trial of a former client, telling the jury that he had found a spent bullet at the scene of the fatal 1986 shooting. He also admitted that he’d lied to a grand jury last year when questioned about the case. Attorney Marshall…

Oct 29, 2015 10:10 AM CDT

Courts struggle to sort out meanings of emoticons and emoji

Keyboard-crafted emoticons and digital emoji are becoming an issue in court cases, where judges are asked to decide whether the symbols affect the meaning of texts and emails. Emoticons such as “:-P” denoting a stuck-out tongue and “;)” denoting a wink are particularly tricky for courts, Slate reports in a…

Oct 29, 2015 6:15 AM CDT

Using taxi as getaway car points police to bank robbery suspect

A suspect in a string of San Francisco bank robberies attributed to the “straw hat bandit” has been arrested. Indicted Tuesday on charges of robbing three banks and trying to rob a fourth, Richard Laurence Stewart was located by police after a teller in one of the robberies spotted the…

Oct 28, 2015 1:10 PM CDT

Appeals court OKs suit against school district over a student who knocked down others on field trip

A divided New York appellate court has OK’d a lawsuit filed against a school district by the parents of two girls knocked to the ground by an 11-year-old boy during a field trip to the Bronx Zoo. At issue is whether those in charge properly supervised the children during the…

Oct 26, 2015 3:45 PM CDT

Feds ID suspect charged in national park spray-paint case by phone number included for co-worker

A California man accused of spray-painting vulgar messages on prehistoric Indian rock carvings at Sequoia National Forest allegedly told an investigator he was “very drunk” at the time. In fact, Christopher Harp, 58, said he was so drunk that he didn’t even realize the rock carvings were there as he…

Oct 26, 2015 3:10 PM CDT

Judge grants Hulk Hogan’s request to inspect Gawker’s computers

A judge has granted Hulk Hogan and his legal team access to Gawker’s computers, smartphones, and network servers to determine whether Gawker employees purposely leaked confidential information about the former pro wrestler, The Hollywood Reporter reported Thursday. Florida Circuit Judge Pamela Campbell ruled that Hogan and his team could search…

Oct 23, 2015 4:15 PM CDT

Jurors and others unconvinced Dewey & LeBoeuf management was a crime

After four months of trial and more than three weeks of jury deliberation, a fraud and larceny trial against three former leaders of a shuttered BigLaw firm ended badly Monday from the prosecution’s standpoint—not a single conviction on any of the approximately 100 counts collectively faced by the Dewey &…

Oct 21, 2015 4:45 PM CDT

Suit follows newspaper claim that Chicago police ran ‘domestic equivalent of a CIA black site’

In a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Monday, three individuals accuse the Chicago police department of using “unconstitutionally coercive and torturous tactics” at an “off the books police detention, interrogation, and intelligence gathering center.” Earlier coverage before the Chicago litigation was filed, by the British newspaper The Guardian, described the…

Oct 21, 2015 3:30 PM CDT

Turn off security cameras in interview area of new $230M courthouse, federal judge says

A federal judge has ordered those in charge of a new $230 million courthouse in Staten Island, New York, to turn off video cameras that had been running in attorney-client interview rooms. Although the cameras do not record what is said during pre-arraignment meetings and were intended to enhance security,…

Oct 21, 2015 3:05 PM CDT

Lawyer for fugitive Paul Ceglia says in personal lawsuit that Facebook and its counsel defamed him

One of the lawyers who represented fugitive Paul Ceglia in a high-profile unsuccessful lawsuit against Facebook Inc. and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has now filed suit against Facebook on his own behalf. Attorney Paul Argentieri alleges that Facebook, Zuckerberg and the company’s general counsel, Colin Stretch, defamed him in a statement…

Oct 21, 2015 10:40 AM CDT

Federal judge says neuroscience is not ready for the courtroom—yet

Neuroscience has been creeping into the nation’s courtrooms with greater frequency. Yet the science, while much of it promising, is not quite ready for use as evidence in most legal cases, U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff told a group of neuroscientists gathered in Chicago. Rakoff, a judge for the…

Oct 20, 2015 3:55 PM CDT

Husband’s tears weren’t protected by spousal privilege, appellate court rules

A husband’s tears during a private drive with his wife could be used as evidence to help convict him in a rape case, a North Carolina appeals court ruled Tuesday. It rejected a defense lawyer’s argument that the man’s crying was essentially an admission by silence and hence a privileged…

Oct 20, 2015 2:30 PM CDT