Qualified immunity is generally the first defense invoked by a police officer when faced with a lawsuit alleging that he or she intentionally violated the constitutional rights of an individual. The modern standard for this defense was formulated by the…
Category: Criminal Law
2016
Category: Criminal Law | Prosecutorial Misconduct
In 2011, DNA results completely exonerated Michael Morton as the killer of his wife. Morton had spent nearly 25 years in the Texas prison system because of the wrongful conviction.
Former Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley was directly…
2016
Category: Criminal Law | White Collar Crime
FORMER TEXAS GOV. RICK PERRY GETS FREE PASS ON ABUSE OF POWER INDICTMENT
On February 24, 2013, the Texas Court of Appeals put an end to the tortured legal saga involving former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The court dismissed…
2016
Category: Appeals | Criminal Law
Justice Antonin Scalia is dead. He died on February 13 at a West Texas ranch resort. By all accounts it was a peaceful passing. He was devoted to his family and a dedicated friend to those whom he loved. While…
2016
Category: Appeals | Criminal Law
New criminal laws are enacted by the legislative branch of government. Some create new offenses with proscribed penalties. Others are remedial in nature, creating new rules or changing existing rules of procedure. Many of these laws will be challenged in…
2016
Category: Corporate Fraud | Criminal Law | Federal Criminal Law
Americans over the past five or six decades have been lulled into believing white collar crime—crimes committed by the affluent or large companies (fraud, embezzlement, defective products, etc.)—is more socially acceptable than “blue collar” crime—crimes more often tied to street…
2016
Category: Criminal Law | Prosecutorial Misconduct | Sex Crimes
Four detectives (Joe Ryan Hartley, Ryan Wolff, Mike Duffy, and Heather Mykes) and one investigator (Michael Dickson) conducted an investigation into a 2009 burglary and sexual assault of an eight-year-old girl in Douglas County, Colorado.
40 Years Old, 190…
2016
Category: Appeals | Criminal Law | Federal Criminal Law
Ivan Garcia-Lopez probably wishes he had taken his meal somewhere else on the evening February 5, 2014. He was living in a single-wide trailer home in Wharton County, Texas, with Jaime Garcia and his brother, Yonari.
Felony Arrest Warrant…
2016
Category: Criminal Law | Illegal Pornography
Political scandals tend to always have a sordid beginning. That is the nature of the “porngate” scandal currently rocking Pennsylvania’s judicial and political systems at their core.
Sandusky Surfaces Again
Ironically enough porngate has its origins in the…
2016
Category: Criminal Law | Drug Trafficking | Federal Criminal Law
Bowling Green State University criminologist Philip M. Stinson is recognized as probably the nation’s best authority on police misconduct. Over a ten-year period, beginning in 2005, Stinson compiled a database of 11,000 cases of misconduct involving nearly 9,000 officers.
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