Most of the time mandatory minimums are discussed in the context of federal cases, the discussion involves drugs. Over the past few years, Congress has passed various pieces of legislation that have reduced some of the more excessive punishments meted…
Author: John Floyd
2014
Category: Federal Criminal Law | Immigration Crimes
Walter Yovany Vasquez Macias (“Vasquez”) is a citizen of Honduras. He has a long and convoluted immigration history in the United States. Sometimes during or before 1990 he was detained in California for being in the country illegally. He voluntarily…
2014
Category: Federal Criminal Law
Ted Nugent’s recent racially inflammatory “subhuman mongrel” comment directed at the President of the United States has triggered a national debate about whether individuals suffering from mental illness or who abuse drugs/alcohol should enjoy a Second Amendment right to gun…
2014
Category: Federal Criminal Law | Sex Crimes
The maze of Federal post-conviction habeas corpus can be a procedural nightmare as illustrated in a February 13, 2014 decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Vosgien v. United States.
In 2006, Kelly Vosgien entered a guilty…
2014
In a recent post, we discussed the general parameters of the prosecution’s duty to preserve materially exculpatory evidence under a pair of U.S. Supreme Court decisions: Trombetta v. California (1984) and Arizona v. Youngblood (1988).
Trombetta established the rule…
2014
In the criminal law context, spoliation is the loss or destruction of evidence that either supports the prosecution’s theory of the case or tends to negate the guilt of the defendant.
The U.S. Supreme Court made it abundantly clear…
2014
Category: Federal Criminal Law
Two recent events in Texas reinforce what the evidence shows: Texas has a market for hate. The most recent event is the outrageous comments by pro-gun rights advocate and former rocker Ted Nugent calling the President of the United States,…
2014
The facts in the Charles Dunn case in Florida are pretty straightforward, and for the most part undisputed. The 47-year-old Dunn, a software developer, pulled into a Jacksonville gas station on November 23, 2012. A Dodge Durango with four teenagers…
2014
As the “scandals” continue to mount around New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, there are a lot of he said/she said allegations flying about. There has been more than one challenge issued by opposing parties for state employees to undergo polygraph…
2014
Category: Federal Criminal Law
An Alford plea is a plea of “no contest” or “nolo contendere” to a criminal charge. In such situations the defendant does not plead guilty to the elements of the offense, but rather enters a plea that he will not…