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	<title>CRIMINAL JURISDICTION</title>
	<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog</link>
	<description>CRIMINAL JURISDICTION: Criminal Law Blog by Defense Lawyer John Floyd and Mr. Billy Sinclair</description>
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		<title>THE CLERGY PRIVILEGE</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Clergy Privilege Protects Communications Made In Confidence, Waived if Called as Character Witness

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

In a previous post, we outlined the case of Ernest “Randy” Comeaux, an inmate serving six life sentences for a series of rapes from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s in Lafayette Parish, Louisiana. The background of the case can be found here. In November of 1998 Lafayette Police Department Captain James Craft received an anonymous telephone call that linked Comeaux to the rapes. Prior to his arrest, Comeaux reportedly spoke in confidence to an attorney and a priest—the only other persons who knew about the rapes, except Comeaux. We have already dealt at length with the attorney-client privilege implications in a case such as Comeaux’s. We now turn our attention to the clergy privilege implications.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2012/02/10/the-clergy-privilege/</link>
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		<title>ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Special Rule of Privilege in Criminal Cases Provides Greater Protection to the Criminally Accused

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

Ernest “Randy” Comeaux is currently an inmate serving six life sentences, without the benefit of parole, at the David Wade Correctional Center in Homer, Louisiana. The facts of Comeaux crime were detailed by a Louisiana Court of Appeals in the matter of Smith v. Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Department on April 24, 2004:]]></description>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2012/02/04/attorney-client-privilege/</link>
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		<title>CONFIDENTIAL AND PRIVATE</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Evidentiary Privileges in the American Legal System

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
                                                 
Writing in the Pittsburgh Law Review, University of California Law Professor Edward J.  Inwinkelried discussed in detail the history and legal parameters of evidentiary privileges. He opened his treatise with this observation: “From society’s perspective, the rules governing privileged communications, such as those between a client and his or her attorney are arguably the most important doctrines in evidence law.” ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2012/01/29/confidential-and-private/</link>
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		<title>CONDITIONS OF BAIL IN DWI CASES CAN BE HARSH</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Politics and Profit Motive Lead to Unreasonable Conditions of Bond in First Time DWI Cases

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

The Texas Legislature in 1999 gave courts the general authority to impose “reasonable conditions” of pre-trial release. This authority was codified in Chapter 17 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. Art. 17.40(a) and has been used by some courts to impose draconian “conditions” of bond in DWI cases on the dubious claim they are related “to the safety of the community.”  Unfortunately, some courts, with pressure from tough on crime advocacy groups who often endorse judges during election cycles, have added such burdensome conditions of bond as to amount to punishment prior to a finding of guilt, disregarding the fundamental principle of “innocent until proven guilty.” ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2012/01/26/conditions-o-bail-in-dwi-cases-can-be-harsh/</link>
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		<title>TWO CONFESSIONS: DIFFERENT CONSTITUTIONAL STANDARDS</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Confessions after Illegal Search Should be Suppressed if Influenced by Underlying Illegality, Violation of Forth Amendment

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

There are primarily two types of unlawful confessions: custodial confessions obtained in violation of the Fifth Amendment and confessions obtained as products of an illegal search in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had a recent opportunity in United States v. Shetler to address the latter.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2012/01/23/two-confessions-different-constitutional-standards/</link>
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		<title>THE IMPACT OF SMITH V. CAIN</title>
		<description><![CDATA[High Court Misses Opportunity to Discuss Ethical Obligations of Prosecutors

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

For reasons we discussed in a previous post, the U.S. Supreme Court had an opportunity in Smith v. Cain to discuss the ethical discovery obligations of both federal and state prosecutors—an idea strongly suggested by the American Bar Association in their amicus brief filed in the case. While the issue before the Court was whether Louisiana prosecutors had committed a Brady violation in a murder case by suppressing favorable evidence, the ABA had encouraged the Justices to use the case to emphasize that a prosecutor’s pre-trial ethical obligations to disclose exculpatory and mitigating evidence under Rule 3.8(d) of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, 3.09(d) in the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, are broader and distinct from the post-conviction Brady analysis. In its amicus curiae brief, the ABA framed the issue as follows:]]></description>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2012/01/19/the-impact-of-smith-v-cain/</link>
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		<title>FEDERAL DISCOVERY AND INSPECTION PROCEDURES</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Tunnel Vision Interferes with Duty to Comply with Discovery Obligations

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

Most litigation in federal criminal cases regarding discovery of evidence, or lack thereof, is based on claims of violations of due process protections found in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.  These constitutional protections create duties upon the government to disclose to the defendant certain types of evidence that is favorable to the accused because it either questions the defendant’s guilt, exculpatory evidence, or is useful in impeaching a government witness.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2012/01/12/federal-discovery-and-inspection-procedures/</link>
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		<title>“JUNK SCIENCE” ONCE AGAIN PUTS TEXAS IN NATIONAL FOREFRONT</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Defense Lawyers Need to Challenge Questionable Expert Testimony and Conclusions

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

In October 2010 we posted piece titled “Dog Witnesses Kicked Out of the Courtroom” concerning a capital murder case in San Jacinto County. The accused, all members of the same family—Richard Lynn Winfrey Sr. and his son, Richard Jr., and daughter, Megan—were arrested in 2006 for the brutal murder of Murray Wayne Burr, a longtime custodial worker at the high school attended by the Winfrey siblings. Local law enforcement officials considered Winfrey and his two children as “persons of interests” shortly after Burr was murdered in his home, even though DNA evidence found at scene excluded the Winfreys. The proverbial “break in the case” came in 2006 when Richard Sr., who was housed in the Montgomery County jail, told another inmate David Campbell that “some kind of gun and some kind of knife collection” had been taken from Burr’s home, as well as other details about the murder, including the victim’s body being dragged from one room to another. Campbell repeated this information to the authorities.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2012/01/05/%e2%80%9cjunk-science%e2%80%9d-once-again-puts-texas-in-national-forefront/</link>
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		<title>WRONGFUL CONVICTION AND PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Filing Grievances, Request for Courts of Inquiry in Wrongful Conviction and Exoneration Cases

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

On December 12, 2011, writing for Mother Jones, Beth Schwartzapfel and Hannah Levintova published a piece titled “How Many Innocent People Are In Prison?”—a piece based in part on research conducted by University of Michigan Law Professor Samuel Gross. Gross’s research, with the assistance of the New York-based Innocence Project and the Center on Wrongful Convictions, determined there have been as many as 850 exonerations in this country since the late 1980s. The Innocence Project lists 282 exonerations since 1989 based on DNA evidence alone. Extrapolating from these two figures, Schwartzapfel and Levintova conservatively estimate that 1 percent of the total prison population in the United States have been wrongfully convicted. Put it raw numbers, this means that approximately 20,000 inmates in the nation’s prison system were wrongfully convicted.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2011/12/28/wrongful-conviction-and-prosecutorial-misconduct/</link>
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		<title>HARDY V. CROSS: CONFRONTATION CLAUSE QUAGMIRED IN LEGAL UNCERTAINTY</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Confusing Logic from SCOTUS and Conflict Among Appellate Courts Leave Trial Courts Guessing The Meaning Of Confrontation

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

The Sixth Amendment is one of the most important amendments of the United States Constitution. It ensures that an “accused shall enjoy the right … to be confronted with witnesses against him.” In 1988 the U.S. Supreme Court, in Coy v. Iowa, observed that “it is always more difficult to tell a lie about a person ‘to his face’ than ‘behind his back.’” Just two years later, in Maryland v. Craig, the Court made this follow up observation: “[F]ace-to-face confrontation enhances the accuracy of fact-finding by reducing the risk that a witness will wrongfully implicate an innocent person.” That observation is critically important because, as pointed out by the New York-based The Innocent Project, roughly 75 percent of the nation’s 282 DNA exonerations involved eyewitness misidentification.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.johntfloyd.com/blog/2011/12/20/hardy-v-cross-confrontation-clause-quagmired-in-legal-uncertainty/</link>
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