Does Recording Legal Calls From Jail Violate Sixth Amendment?

Clients in the jail often call their attorneys and investigators from jail house phones. Often that is the only way to communicate between jail visits. Can we challenge those recordings as violating the Sixth Amendment?

A California public defender reportedly is using a novel constitutional argument to support his contention in a state-court lawsuit that the local district attorney's office is unfairly listening into conversations on public jailhouse telephones to gain information about criminal cases.

Although such eavesdropping has withstood Fourth Amendment challenge, Contra Costa County Public Defender David Coleman is arguing that it violates the Sixth Amendment. The practice, he contends, does an end run around defendants' right to legal counsel by, in effect, contacting a defendant who is known to be represented by legal counsel, according to the Contra Costa Times.

Full article here

Champion for Justice-Attorney Keeps His Mouth Shut

In a follow-up to Monday's fecal attack on public defender earlier this week by his client, Deputy Alternate Public Defender Jeffrey Martin called the attack “a very unfortunate incident” in an interview. He mentioned that his client is very mentally ill and that he felt sympathy for his client.
Full Story here.

Nassau County in New York Announces It Will Start Video Taping Interrogations

An interesting thing about listening to police testify about interrogations is often the he said/she said that goes something like this in trial or in a motion to suppress statements:
Officer: "Then the defendant said 'Fill in the blank with confession.'"
Client (whispering): "I never said that"
Of course it always begs the question, if you want the best record of what actually took place wouldn't a recording be better evidence? Well, Nassau County, New York has decided that it is

From Newsday.com, full article here
BY ANN GIVENS
Nassau police are about to start videotaping all interrogations in homicide and serious robbery cases, a move that both law enforcement officials and defense lawyers say will make prosecutions more fair.

Police and prosecutors said the videotapes will be useful tools at trial, and that they will also help protect police against false allegations that they denied defendants their rights. Defense lawyers also applauded the move, saying that it will protect their clients from coerced confessions and police abuse.

"We don't want to tell jurors what happened," said District Attorney Kathleen Rice at a news conference Friday. "Ideally, we want to show them."

Text Messaging Privacy Case

We all love to text, lol. The Ninth Circuit denied en banc (full court) review on a ruling that the Ontario Police Department violated an employee’s right to privacy when supervisors examined the contents of text messages sent on department pagers.

A panel of the court ruled in June that the department violated the Fourth Amendment rights of Sgt. Jeff Quon and three others to whom he sent text messages when the department obtained transcripts from the service provider and examined the messages’ contents to determine whether a monthly overage charge resulted from personal use.

The case, Quon v. Arch Wireless, 07-55282, decision available here, will not be heard en banc. For more analysis of the opinion and how to use it, check out this post from the Ninth Circuit Blog.

Hey Man, You Got A Second So I Can Fire You?

How are we doing today? How we doin'? Great, great. You're looking good. Love the shirt. Let me guess: Christmas present? Knew it. Great. Hey man, whenever you get a sec—and it's no biggie—I was hoping you could just pop on over to my office real quick so I can fire you.

Nothing to worry about. Trust me. Just a short little one-on-one session about you being fired. We'll have a bit of unnecessary and degrading small talk and then I'll clunkily segue into terminating your position here. I'll follow up by apologizing like I care and that'll be that. The whole thing will take a second out of your day. Promise.

You'll be in and out and unemployed in no time.

Keep working on whatever it is you're working on. I don't want to interrupt. Just want to terminate your source of income. That's all. Go ahead, take your time and finish whatever you need to do now, because afterward you won't be allowed back in here. And we'd really love it if we could get as much work as possible out of you before you go. Okay? So when you've got a free minute, just drop by my office to get fired.

Full article here.

Rappin' Reply Brief

From the (new) legal writer:

A pro-se litigant appealing an attorney-fee award submitted a reply brief “utilizing rap/rhyme in the argument topics to better emphasize strong concept points.” It worked. According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the appellate court reversed the attorney-fee award. To read the rhyming reply, click here. (Hat tip to Howard Bashman.)

A sample from the brief:

Regarding frivolous filings, one thing is clear,
Notice to show cause and proper service before you appear.
And if Industrial vs. Marquardt is any measure,
Its the frivolous allegations, not the venue of your endeavor.
But the allegations, how could they be frivo-lous?
Erlandson has a seizure the only day she deals with us.

Oh Crap-Just Represent Yourself Then

In news of the public defender weird this week, a mistrial was declared on Monday January 26th when a defendant smeared feces on his public defender and threw some at jurors during trial:
From ABA Journal

By Debra Cassens Weiss

A defendant who wanted his public defender removed from the case will get his wish after smearing feces on his lawyer’s face and flinging the material at jurors.

Weusi McGowan was on trial in San Diego for a home invasion and robbery when he brought in a baggie filled with excrement during a midmorning break, City Wire reports in a story posted on 10News.com and SanDiego6.com. McGowan smeared the feces on the face and in the hair of Deputy Alternate Public Defender Jeffrey Martin, then flung the material toward the jurors, the story says.

The excrement missed Juror No. 9 but hit his briefcase.

Judge Jeffrey Fraser had denied McGowan’s request to represent himself, the story says. The judge declared a mistrial and said McGowan would have to get a new lawyer.

ABA Journal Article-"Incarceration Policy Strikes Out"

As noted on Sentencing Law and Policy the February 2009 ABA Journal published this article, entitled "Incarceration Policy Strikes Out: Exploding prison population compromises the U.S. justice system." The essay is by Ben Trachtenberg. Some excerpts:

At midyear 2007, U.S. prisons and jails held 2,299,116 inmates, meaning more than 1 percent of American adults were incarcerated. We top the world in per capita imprisonment, increasing our lead every year. Since 2000, while the total U.S. population increased by 7 percent, our prison population has grown by 19 percent. Our massive imprisonment costs needless billions and, perversely, hinders effective crime control. We need to re­duce our prison population....

A rational criminal justice system would — while shortening sentences of certain offenders — keep others out of prison altogether. With alternative treatments and punishments, a state shrinks its prison budget, allows convicts to keep their jobs and support their families, and makes recidivism less likely....

By adopting “smart on crime” programs instead of knee-jerk toughness, states can reduce crime while spending less. Reworked federal incentives would encourage smart state policymaking. While no one supports freeing rapists and murderers, warehousing every offender wastes money, destroys lives and contributes to our shameful status as the world’s leading incarcer­ator. We need Washington to reward good policy, not costly grandstanding that bankrupts our state governments and confines more than one of every 100 American adults.

Rachel Maddow Interviews ACLU's Jameel Jaffer on Guantanamo-Congratulates President Obama But Cautions Work Still To Be Done

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Eyewitnes Identification

The Eyewitness Identification Research Laboratory in the Psychology Department at the University of Texas at El Paso focuses on research in eyewitness memory, eyewitness identification, expert testimony and many aspects of face recognition. Established at UTEP in 1992, the Laboratory is an outgrowth of the program of research into face recognition and eyewitness identification begun by Professor Roy S. Malpass in the late 1960s. Professor Christian A. Meissner joined the UTEP faculty and the Eyewitness Lab in 2005, and established the Investigative Interviewing Research Laboratory. The site contains useful information for researchers, law enforcement officers and attorneys in the criminal justice system. The Laboratory provides educational and expert witness services for law enforcement and the courts.

The site is worth browsing as there is access to stimulus materials or sample videos from experiments that the Laboratory has conducted in eyewitness identification.

Guantanamo Closed In One Year-Population Already Moving

From ACLU

WASHINGTON – The new Obama administration circulated a draft executive order Wednesday calling for the closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp within a year and halting all military commission trials in the meantime.

The following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union:

"This is the first ray of sunlight in what has been eight long years of darkness, of trampling on America's treasured values of justice and due process. The order is remarkable in its timing and its clear intent to close down Guantánamo and unequivocally halt the Bush administration's shameful military commissions. While the order leaves some question as to how some detainees will be released or prosecuted, we trust that's not President Obama's intent and hope that any ambiguity is due to the fact that this order was done on day one in record time. We are confident that President Obama understands that indefinite detention without trial must end once and for all and that detainees should be either prosecuted in a federal court or, if there is no evidence against them, released or transferred to countries where they will not be tortured. Our centuries-old justice system is well-equipped to handle these cases, and it's a great relief to finally have a president who is committed to upholding American values and the rule of law. Although we have a long road ahead to get to an America we can be proud of again, change has begun."

The ACLU, through its John Adams Project with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, has sponsored civilian attorneys who have been assisting the under-resourced military defense counsel at Guantánamo.

A copy of the draft executive order can be found online at:

More information about the ACLU's work to close Guantánamo can be found online

Barack Obama Inauguration Speech, Part 1 of 2

Washington State Patrol Manuals

If you have a case involving the Washington State Patrol all the manuals are available on-line including the Drug Recognition Expert Manuals. These manuals can be valuable in evaluating traffic stops from the Washington State Patrol. There is also an interesting section on drug information (with pictures and a powerpoint entitled "Inside the Mind of the Marijuana User").
There is also the DWI Detection and Standardized Field Sobriety Testing Manual put together by the Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Happy Birthday, Dr. King

Kid Strip-Search Constitutional?

From ACLU Blog

You may have heard the infamous case of the 13-year-old girl who was strip-searched by school officials for allegedly possession ibuprofen (Advil). Perhaps as surprising as the strip search itself is today’s news that the U.S. Supreme Court has granted review in the case — meaning it will reconsider a lower court’s ruling that the student’s constitutional rights were violated.

The Issue Presented to the Supreme Court is: Whether the Fourth Amendment prohibits public school officials from conducting a strip search of a student suspected of possessing and distributing a prescription drug on campus in violation of school policy. ScotusBlog has the order and Petitions for Certiorari.

Fone Finder Handy Tool for Finding Telephone Provider

Fone Finder is a free site that allows you to enter a telephone number and find the service provider. You can search United States, Canada, and even International phone numbers. You can also search by city name or by zip code if you don't have the complete number. It is a handy tool when looking for a service provider for a phone number for an investigation if you need to subpoena records.

Due Diligence With Social Networks

From Law.com:

Gone are the days when due diligence, or a litigation background check, amounted to reviewing a resume and examining public records -- or even Googling!

Today, a witness, juror, expert or potential business partner is more likely to have a social networking site than a criminal conviction. Many painstaking attorneys would be sure to check for court records, but they might miss out on the additional benefits of this new information arena.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that 66 percent of Internet users under the age of 30 have a social networking profile. CareerBuilder.com found that 37 percent of employees they surveyed did too. By contrast, only 9.5 percent of potential hires have criminal convictions.

Social networking activity can be quite revealing -- a kind of informal resume and kitchen table chat, not tailored to a specific event or situation, and very likely full of unguarded admissions.
Even if preparation of an Internet profile isn't your primary objective, regularly check these sites, particularly if you will be preparing a due diligence declaration. These days, judges know the value of a Google search and have begun to expect that as a standard practice in locating people.

Here's the scoop on the kinds of information to be gleaned from social networking sites. In general, people participate in interactive Web sites with their friends, co-workers, school and professional colleagues, as well as Internet-only acquaintances. The self-generated content, along with comments from other participants, provide insight into a person's values, activities, biases and self-image. Most people mention past education and employers, as well as other people in their network, interest organizations and leisure activities. A breezy reflection on a summer vacation spot may point to a place to search for state and county court records.

Full article here.

Supreme Court Eases Limits on Evidence

From the New York Times:

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that evidence obtained from an unlawful arrest based on careless record keeping by the police may be used against a criminal defendant.
The 5-to-4 decision revealed competing conceptions of the exclusionary rule, which requires the suppression of some evidence obtained through police misconduct, and suggested that the court’s commitment to the rule was fragile.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, said that the exclusion of evidence should be a last resort and that judges should use a sliding scale in deciding whether particular misconduct by the police warranted suppressing the evidence they had found.

“To trigger the exclusionary rule,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “police conduct must be sufficiently deliberate that exclusion can meaningfully deter it, and sufficiently culpable that such deterrence is worth the price paid by the justice system.”

That price, the chief justice wrote, “is, of course, letting guilty and possibly dangerous defendants go free.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the dissenters, argued for “a more majestic conception” of the exclusionary rule, and a more categorical one.

Full article here.

Panel: Update Science and Technology Restrictions

From Federal Computer Week:

Many visa and export controls that the United States developed during the Cold War-era now harm the country’s security and economy and should be restructured immediately, according to a report released by a committee of the National Academies’ National Research Council. 

The report, “Beyond Fortress America: National Security Controls on Science and Technology in a Globalized World,” released Jan. 8 said the U.S. should update its policies to reflect current national security and economic realities. That should be done first at the presidential level through an executive order and will eventually require legislative reform, the committee said in a news release. 

The committee also urged creating specific principles that would be used to determine which goods or technologies should be placed on the export control lists. The lists are regularly expanded but rarely shortened, and the panel recommended adding a sunset rule that would remove items after a specified amount of time. 

The U.S. “needs to change to a philosophy that everything is open and restricted only when it is demonstrated that it needs to be," Brent Scowcroft, president of the Scowcroft Group and a former national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush,  said in a news release. Scowcroft co-chaired the committee. 

Full article here.

Unarmed Man Shot on BART Platform

On New Year’s Eve, Oscar Grant was shot execution-style by a transit police officer in Oakland, California. He was shot in the back while face-down on a subway platform–unarmed and posing no threat. A disturbing video showing what happened, along with a petition to have the California Attorney General and Department of Justice look into the case is available here.

Oscar Grant is the third man murdered by BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) police in the past 17 years. All three victims were Black and none posed a serious threat. In each case, BART and county authorities have failed to hold the officers accountable.

Key DOJ Spots-Stay Tuned

From Sentencing Law and Policy

More news about likely key players in Obama Administration's Justice Department

The Blog of Legal Times has this new post titled "More Names Emerge for Key DOJ Slots." Here are snippets that should be of particular interest to those interested in key players for the federal criminal justice system:

We're getting a clearer picture of the new Justice Department’s top ranks, as Attorney General nominee Eric Holder Jr.’s confirmation hearings begin.

The leading candidate to head the Justice Department's Criminal Division, Lanny Breuer, who is Holder’s partner at Covington & Burling, was named by the The Washington Post last week. The BLT has learned of a few more frontrunners for top DOJ slots:...

Georgetown law professor Neal Katyal, who successfully argued the landmark detainee rights case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld before the Supreme Court, is the top pick for principal deputy solicitor general, the office’s No. 2 spot, the sources say. From 1998 to 1999, Katyal (Yale Law) served as Holder’s national security adviser in the Justice Department.

Guantanamo Update

On NPR this evening "All Things Considered" contained an interesting audio segment, "Trying Guantanamo Detainees Might be a Problem".

President-Elect Barack Obama has made it clear that closing Guantanamo will be one of his first executive order. But the question remains, what happens next and what to do with the more than 250 detainees? NPR has some thorough coverage here.

How Smart Is Your jury Panel? IQ By State

I just located an interesting IQ map from JuryVox who runs a jury and consulting firm. The map has the IQ average for every state (Washington's average is 99.6). The data source for the IQ map is NAEP, Richard Lynn, AE

Judge Fines Spokane County Washington Prosecutor's Office

The Spokane County prosecutor’s office was sanctioned Monday and fined $8,000 by a judge angry over mishandling of a critical detail surrounding a home-invasion case that could send several men to prison for the rest of their lives.

At issue was a last-minute change Monday by Deputy Prosecutor Eugene Cruz, who altered the date – from April 15 to April 17 – that the robbery and attempted first-degree murder occurred on, effectively gutting defense preparations for the trial. At least two of the four men charged with the crime had strong alibis for the original date that prosecutors used in filing criminal charges, including one who was attending a court-ordered alcohol monitoring test.

Full Story Here

Anatomy Of An Uproar: What's The Big Deal?

The story started innocently enough: the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was unveiling state-of-the-art technology to beef up security at airport checkpoints. Often ridiculed for its inefficiency and incompetence, TSA finally had good news to report.

Then earlier this year, a "privacy vs. security" furor erupted and newspaper headlines screamed: "X-Rated X-Ray," "Naked Came the Passenger" and "Government: Don't Dare Scan My Body." The target of the alarm: a new high-tech body scanner, aka "the Peeper." When passengers walk through it, it uses radio waves to peep underneath their clothing - a digital strip search that reveals if someone is concealing anything suspicious, like a gun or a bomb.

Before rolling out the machines, TSA put in a lot of privacy safeguards. The images would not be visible anywhere at the checkpoint - not to passengers, or the TSA. The pictures would be examined by a lone TSA worker via computer in a separate location, and then immediately destroyed.

Nevertheless, the thought of "Big Brother" taking pictures of us naked was too irresistible for headline writers, and angered civil liberties groups as well. The ACLU claimed the images would reveal highly personal details, like a mastectomy or colostomy, as well as the size of breasts and penises.

Full story here.

Facebook Twitter Effective Emergency Management

Before many people check the news, they check their twitter or facebook account. Researchers at the University of Colorado recently published a study that found that blogs, maps, photo sites and instant messaging systems were better at providing warnings, help and lists of how individuals were affected than traditional sources. The research, published in the New Scientist, suggested that sites such as Twitter and Google Maps were able to assist residents of California, during wildfires in 2007, exchange information and track the fires' progress even when the residents did not have access to traditional news sources. Because anyone with a mobile phone that has an internet connection could access these services, researchers found that the information exchanged was often more complete and reliable than information available through traditional means.

Click here for full article.

Iran Using Fronts to Get Bomb Parts From U.S.

From the Washington Post:

The Iranian businessman was looking for high-quality American electronics, but he had to act stealthily: The special parts he coveted were denied to Iranians, especially those seeking to make roadside bombs to kill U.S. troops in Iraq.

With a few e-mails, the problem was solved. A friendly Malaysian importer would buy the parts from a company in Linden, N.J., and forward them to Iran. All that was left was coming up with a fake name for the invoice. Perhaps a Malaysian engineering school? "Of course, you can use any other company as end-user that you think is better than this," the Iranian businessman, Ahmad Rahzad, wrote in an e-mail dated March 8, 2007.

The ruse succeeded in delivering nine sensors called inclinometers to Iran, the first of several such shipments that year and the latest example of what U.S. officials and weapons experts describe as Iran's skillful flouting of export laws intended to stop lethal technology from reaching the Islamic republic.

Despite multiple attempts by the Bush administration to halt illegal imports -- including sanctions against several Dubai-based Iranian front companies in 2006 -- the technology pipeline to Tehran is flowing at an even faster pace. In some cases, Iran simply opened new front companies and shifted its operations from Dubai to farther east in Asia, the officials said.

Full story here.

Verizon Subpoena Compliance - Internet Records

Contact Number: 888-483-2600
Fax Number: 325-949-6916

Mailing Address:
Verizon Legal Compliance
Custodian of Record
TXD01613
P.O. Box 1001
San Angelo, TX 76902

Hours of Operation: Monday - Friday 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Chicago Police Department Records and Procedures

Guidelines for Requesting Police Reports from the Chicago Police Department.


Members of the general public may obtain a copy of a case report or other document containing information to substantiate a personal injury, a loss or damage to property. Such reports, except for Traffic Crash Reports, are reviewed by Department personnel prior to their release in order to remove the investigative portions and other such sensitive information.

Members of the general public may initiate this process:

1 . In person, at Central Police Headquarters, 3510 S. Michigan, 1st Floor, Room
1043, with payment of applicable fees as designated below.
2 . By mail:
Addressed to: Chicago Police Department Records Inquiry and Customer
Service Section, Unit 163 3510 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL 60653.

Please be sure to include the following information:
1) The victim or reporting person’s name and address,
2) the type of location of incident
3) the RD number, (a report number given by the Police at the time a report is made.)
4) accompanied by a:
1) self-addressed stamped envelope;
2) check or money order payable to the “Department of Revenue, City of Chicago” in the amount of the payment of the applicable fee as designated below.

Applicable Fees
1) .50 cents for each copy of a case report.
2) $5.00 for each copy of a Traffic Crash Report
3) $20.00 for a report generated by an accident reconstruction officer or
accident reconstruction team in the case of traffic crash.

Is this Lawman your Facebook Friend?

From the Boston Globe:

When a Wilmington man in his early 20s overdosed on heroin the day after Christmas, local police Detective Pat Nally turned to his computer. He wanted to look at the deceased's Facebook and MySpace pages for possible clues about the source of the drug and who might have been using it with the man.

"People arrange to buy and sell drugs on Facebook; there's talk of what they may do and where they may go," said Nally. "We'd be foolish not to use it as an investigative tool." The Wilmington investigator is not alone. In an informal survey of 14 departments in this area, officials in half of them said they use social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace in detective work - particularly in investigations involving young people.

In Harvard, the police signed on to such sites about three years ago, after a woman was sexually assaulted and beaten by three men whom she met on MySpace and invited to her house. Police contacted MySpace and tracked the assailants using their online usernames and accounts, said Chief Edward Denmark.

Now even the chief has a Facebook page himself.

Full story here.

"Hey, I don't have a problem with Black people, some of my closest friends are Black."

From the Washington Post:

Justices Will Hear Challenge to Voting Rights Act

The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to examine whether a central component of landmark civil rights legislation enacted to protect minority voters is still needed in a nation that has elected an African American president.

The court will decide the constitutionality of a provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that seeks to protect minority voting rights by requiring a broad set of states and jurisdictions where discrimination was once routine to receive federal approval before altering any of their voting procedures.

The Supreme Court has upheld the requirement in the past, saying the intrusion on state sovereignty is warranted to protect voting rights and eliminate discrimination against minorities. But challengers say it ignores the reality of modern America and "consigns broad swaths of the nation to apparently perpetual federal receivership based on 40-year-old evidence."

Full story here.

How Technology May Soon "Read" Your Mind

From 60 Minutes:

How often have you wondered what your spouse is really thinking? Or your boss? Or the guy sitting across from you on the bus? We all take as a given that we'll never really know for sure. The content of our thoughts is our own - private, secret, and unknowable by anyone else. Until now, that is. 

As correspondent Lesley Stahl reports, neuroscience research into how we think and what we're thinking is advancing at a stunning rate, making it possible for the first time in human history to peer directly into the brain to read out the physical make-up of our thoughts, some would say to read our minds. 

Full story here.

States' Budget Crises Prompting Urgent Prison Policy Reforms

From The Huffingtonpost.com

Their budgets in crisis, governors, legislators and prison officials across the nation are making or considering policy changes that will likely remove tens of thousands of offenders from prisons and parole supervision.

Collectively, the pending and proposed initiatives could add up to one of biggest shifts ever in corrections policy, putting into place cost-saving reforms that have struggled to win political support in the tough-on-crime climate of recent decades.

"Prior to this fiscal crisis, legislators could tinker around the edges _ but we're now well past the tinkering stage," said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, which advocates alternatives to incarceration.

Full story here.

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The DEA But Were Afraid To Ask

If you happen to be wondering how many hits of hallucinogens or pounds of marijuana the DEA seized in 2007 (5,636,305 units of hallucinogens and 356,472 kilograms of marijuana) look no further than their own website. How many arrests in 2007? 27,870. How much net $ deposited from forfeitures as official accounting transactions in 2008? $1,327,604,903(!) The website is packed with other information as well including press releases, studies, and, most entertaining, operations. The operation include names like "Operation Raw Deal", "Operation Imperial Emperor Phase II", and (an apt title) "Operation Omnipresent". The operations are detailed which, when reviewed together, reveals trends valuable to investigations and operations by the DEA. 

Under law enforcement section, there are links to several publications with intriguing titles like "Guidelines for Law Enforcement for Cleanup of Clandestine Drug Laboratories" and "Microgram-Forensic Science Publication", which publishes a newsletter. There is a section on training that gives an overview of the training agents receive. 

Finally, there is a little curious bit of propaganda..."Anti-Legalization Information" with interesting quotes like "Crime, violence, and drug use go hand-in-hand." Co-mingling of executive and legislative branch perhaps? It's all worth a perusal in understanding the DEA and its work.

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS ANIMATION

Because We Love Boise

Couldn't resist posting this gem of a video-What happens when Americans start acting fiscally responsible and can't afford to go out anymore...and they live in Boise? The video has some cool shots of a great city. Full article here

New York Cabs Might Get Cameras-Many Cities Have Already Installed

Complete article at The Village Voice

Cabs companies around the world either installing cameras or asking for them to increase driver and passenger safety. Taxi Worker's Alliance president Bhairavi Desai calls the cameras "an invasion of privacy," and cab company group Committee for Taxi Safety wants the program to be voluntary, owing to costs.

Keep in mind, many cities already have cab cameras-both a blessing and a curse, cameras can lead to evidence where there might not have been any before but the trade-offs are the privacy issues.

For All Those Fourth Amendment Buffs Out There

Here is a link, via Fourth Amendment.com, to an excellent new law review article entitled, "The High-Crime Area' Question: Requiring Verifiable and Quantifiable Evidence for Fourth Amendment Reasonable Suspicion Analysis". The article, authored by Andrew Guthrie Ferguson & Damien Bernache, starts off describing a scenario: two men in two different neighborhoods in America are standing on a street corner with a paper bag. Police officers patrolling each neighborhood see the men, and they flee when seeing the officers. One man runs through a poverty-stricken neighborhood with a high crime rate while the other runs through an affluent neighborhood with a low crime rate. Under current Fourth Amendment law, suspicious action and unprovoked flight occurs in a “high-crime area” alters the Fourth Amendment reasonable suspicion
analysis.

The article is an interesting read into what goes into reasonable suspicion analysis, and can help when figuring out how to investigate and prepare those suppression motions.

Suggestive Identification Practice-A Texas Story

Perusing Grits for Breakfast, I noticed this blog post by Houston Defense Attorney John Floyd. The post is a great primer on DNA exonerations and eyewitness identification in Texas over the last several years.

Speaking of Texas, on January 3rd, Mr. Floyd put a post on his blog analyzing Article 33.021, Texas Penal Code, which prohibits “sexually explicit” communications between someone who is 17 years or older and someone who “represents himself or herself to be younger than 17 years of age.” Hmmm..First Amendment problems?

Remembering Yesterday Looking Towards Tomorrow

This coming week marks the seven year anniversary of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Amnesty International and ACLU groups are holding a candlelight vigil on January 13, 2009 to remember what rights we have lost, and to look towards how we can start to undo the damage with the new year (and new administration).

For more information, click here.