The state of Texas has many dubious distinctions. It leads the nation as being the “worst” or near the bottom of the “worst” in many categories, like being the worst in nursing home care. But one of the state’s more…
Author: John Floyd
2016
Category: Prosecutorial Misconduct
Prosecutorial, police and expert witness misconduct are a blight on the nation’s adversarial criminal trial process.
The ideal purpose of a criminal trial should be a search for truth and justice, but given the overwhelming competing interests in the…
2016
Category: Drug Manufacturing | Federal Criminal Law
Twenty-five states, the District of Columbia, and two U.S. territories (Guam and Puerto Rico) have all adopted medical marijuana laws. Polls in individual states show support for medical marijuana laws reaching as high as 90 percent; and, according to…
2016
Category: Criminal Justice Reform | Criminal Law
The Harris County Jail (HCJ)is the third largest jail in the United States, and the largest in the State of Texas. It houses roughly 9,000 inmates, nearly 7,000 of whom are pretrial detainees, of which close to 80 percent are…
2016
Category: Appeals | Criminal Law | Murder
Let us start by stating that most police officers are decent, hardworking people who make good faith efforts to fulfill their sworn duty to protect and serve. On a daily basis, they face dangerous, and often fatal, risks as they…
2016
Category: Federal Criminal Law | Internet Sex Crimes
In 1984, the U.S. Congress established the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). The organization was reauthorized by the Congress and the President in 2013 with $40 million in government funding. The group calls itself a “private, non-profit…
2016
Category: Cyber Crimes | Federal Criminal Law
The computer network of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was recently hacked into by cyber criminals. National media outlets have reported that federal officials tried to warn the DNC months before the intrusion about a potential breach and the group…
2016
Category: Criminal Law | Sexual Abuse
In 2012, a judge in Sacramento placed a 17-year-old rape victim in juvenile detention because she failed to appear in court on two occasions to testify against the suspected 37-year-old serial rapist who abducted and raped her.
Incarcerating Victims…
2016
Category: Drug Crime | Drug Trafficking | Federal Criminal Law
In March of 2015, Neftali Avarez-Nunez (“Nunez”) was arrested in Catano, Puerto Rico. The arrest came after the police observed Nunez discarding a weapon outside a bar. The police retrieved and examined the handgun. It was loaded, fitted with an…
2016
Category: Prosecutorial Misconduct | Sex Crimes | Sexual Abuse
The National Registry of Exonerations has recorded 1855 exonerations to date. Roughly 15 percent of them involved false sexual assault cases. DNA exonerations in the sexual assault cases reveal a much higher percentage of wrongful convictions.
Rape is a…