The police can lie, deceive, manipulate and fabricate to obtain confessions from criminal suspects. And it’s legal for them to do so, as long as their interrogation techniques are not “coercive.” This caveat notwithstanding, it is shameful when the police…
Author: John Floyd
2014
Category: Federal Criminal Law
Khalil Kenyon Blackman learned a bitter lesson: crime pays, but not always for the criminal. With broad forfeiture statutes, and aggressive law enforcement policies, in place, the Government is now in the game.
In 2011, Blackman and a host…
2014
Category: Federal Criminal Law
There’s a couple old sayings: First, “if it wasn’t for bad luck, wouldn’t have no luck at all;” and, second, “if it can go wrong, it will.” Well, it’s time to add a third, quite simple saying: “Bergman’s Luck.”
…
2014
Category: Drug Crime | Federal Criminal Law
The prestigious Cato Institute, with its National Police Misconduct Statistics and Report Project (NPMSRP), tracks police misconduct on a daily and annual basis. And there is a lot of misconduct to track. In the institute’s 2010 statistical report, which compiled…
2014
Category: Federal Criminal Law
The People for the American Way has said the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is “dominated by right wing ideologues” who have the “last word” on more important laws of this nation than any other…
2014
Category: Federal Criminal Law | Sex Crimes
The road of Hades is sometimes paved with good intentions. This is so with the case of Luis A. Montalvo-Cruz (“Cruz”) whose appeal to the First Circuit Court of Appeals was decided on March 17, 2014. Through a guilty plea,…
2014
In 2013, there were 1,032,326 bankruptcies filed nationwide, a marked decreased from the number of such filings the previous three years: 2012—1,185,238; 2011—1,379,658; 2010—1,561,225. According to the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI), this represented a 24 percent decrease in 2013, the…
2014
Category: Federal Criminal Law
Attorneys and their clients do not always get along. Unpaid fees, differences in defense tactics, false or misinformation shared between the two, and sometimes just plain personality conflicts can create an impractical, if not impossible, mutual working relationship. When these…
2014
Category: Federal Criminal Law
The U.S. Supreme Court over the last decade has grappled with the often gut-wrenching decision of how our criminal justice system should treat juveniles who commit serious violent offenses, including capital murder.
In 2005, the Supreme Court in Roper…
2014
Category: Federal Criminal Law
This question has been answered in the affirmative by every court of appeals that has addressed it—the Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth. The Third Circuit on March 12, 2014 followed their lead in United States v. Woronowicz. The decision came…