There are roughly 3,000 certified Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (“SANEs”) in the United States. SANEs now operate in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. The past decade has seen SANEs become both ubiquitous and controversial in criminal trials…
Author: John Floyd
2021
Category: Criminal Justice Reform | Death Penalty
The United States carried out seventeen executions during the pandemic year 2020. Seven of those executions were carried out by five states (Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Missouri), while the federal government carried out the remaining ten. Texas led the…
2021
Category: Federal Criminal Law
The events of January 2, 2021 will go down in history as one of the nation’s darkest hours. Six months later arrest of individuals involved in the Capitol insurrection Capitol are beginning to work their way through the court system…
2021
Category: Federal Criminal Law | Tampering with Consumer Products
Who would think that pizza dough could lead to federal charges?
Well, as it turns out, when you tamper with consumer products, the federal government takes it very seriously.
Last year, a man pled guilty to tampering with…
2021
Category: Civil Disorder | Federal Criminal Law
Protests and other forms civil disobedience have been in the news lately. When such events result in property damage or injuries to other people, suspects have increasingly been subject to federal civil disorder charges.
This past May a Pennsylvania…
2021
Category: Crimes Against Children | Criminal Law | Sex Crimes | Sexual Abuse
Following the horrendous kidnapping and murder of nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford in 2005, Florida enacted Jessica’s Law. The statute was intended to create tough penalties for sex offenders, such as 25-year minimum sentences for certain offenses and a lifetime of electronic…
2021
Category: Sex Crimes | Sex Crimes Against Children
Article 38.072 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure—more commonly known as the “outcry” statute—is thorny legal terrain in child sex cases.
The statute was enacted in 1985 as an exception to the longstanding prohibition against hearsay testimony in…
2021
Category: Criminal Justice Reform | Police Misconduct | Prosecutorial Misconduct
The National Registry of Exonerations (“NRE”) is a combined project of the University of Michigan Law School, Michigan State University College of Law, and the University of California Irvine Newkirk Center for Science & Society. “The Registry collects, analyzes, and…
2021
Category: bail reform | Criminal Justice Reform
Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott does not like the constitutional right to bail.
Under Article 1, Section 11 of the Texas Constitution’s Bill of Rights, “all prisoners shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, unless for capital offenses, when the proof is…
2021
Category: Sex Crimes | Sex Crimes Against Children | Sexual Assault
The rules of evidence generally prohibit the use of crimes, wrongs, or other bad acts to prove a person’s character to show that a person acted accordingly on a particular occasion. This rule assures that the person accused is tried…