Ed. Note: Chris Halkides has been kind enough to try to make us lawyers smarter by dumbing down science enough that we have a small chance of understanding how it’s being used to wrongfully convict and, in some cases, execute defendants. Chris graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Ph.D. in biochemistry, and teaches biochemistry, organic chemistry, and forensic chemistry at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.

Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield was arrested because of his alleged involvement in the Madrid Train Bombing on 11 March 2004. The most probative evidence against him was a fingermark on a bag. The FBI had identified Mr. Mayfield as the source of the fingermark, and even a defense expert concurred. The Spanish authorities did not, and within a few weeks Mr. Mayfield was released and given an apology. The Brandon Mayfield case was among the most highly publicized failures of fingermark/fingerprint evidence. Continue reading →

When you heard the name “Audubon,” what came to mind? A guy who created the authoritative illustrations in Birds of America? Bird sanctuaries? The protection of nature and critters? If so, then you are not woke. If you were woke, something different came to mind.

John James Audubon, for whom the Audubon’s shearwater is named, was an unrepentant slaveholder who opposed emancipation.

But that was merely the start, not the end, of the progressive correction of history to conform it to only those who meet today’s woke virtue. Continue reading →

At the New York Times, Carlos Lozada takes a provocative position by arguing that a Biden-Trump rematch may not be the election anyone wants, but it’s the election American needs.

Yes, both men are unpopular, remarkably so. Only a third of Americans view President Biden favorably, and two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters want to nominate someone else for the presidency (no one in particular, just someone else, please). Trump is the overwhelming favorite to become the Republican nominee for the third consecutive time, but his overall approval rating is lower than Biden’s. And while 60 percent of voters don’t want to put Trump back in the White House, 65 percent don’t want to hand Biden a second term, either. The one thing on which Americans seem to agree is that we find a Biden-Trump 2024 rematch entirely disagreeable.

Continue reading →

Elise Stefanik, born shortly after I was admitted to practice law, was considered a rather pedestrian upstate New York moderate Republican congresswoman when she was first elected to office in 2015, which meant she faded into the crowd. She apparently aspired to bigger things, so went full Trump. For her loyalty, she was made House Republican Conference Chair, replacing the traitorous Liz Cheney. And she’s still climbing.

Representative Elise Stefanik, a member of the House Republican leadership and an ally of former President Donald J. Trump, filed an ethics complaint Friday attacking the judge presiding over Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial, the latest salvo in a right-wing war against the case.

Continue reading →

Prefatory note: this is part three of the latest series of Sheriff Roy stories. For parts one and two please see “A Car Story” and “The Kollision King” respectively—CLS

Big Homey’s Global Car Sales was a fairly off-the-map dealership in Mobile, Alabama. Run by Erwin “Big Homey” Steele, the dealership was well respected by patrons and had a five star rating on Yelp. Continue reading →

Law firms have already made clear that they will not tolerate new lawyers who have chosen to take the side of terrorism against Jews, but what about judges and their law clerks?

Judges are looking at student actions in the wake of October 7th and drawing a line in the sand  for those who would want to clerk for them. Judge Matthew Solomson said,

To me, it’s a simple proposition that just like no judge would hire anyone who endorsed the KKK or the Nazis, anyone who endorses or approves or otherwise gives comfort to — in writing — Hamas, should not be hired. Continue reading →

It was still a little different when my kids were young. My daughter, at about 15, desperately wanted a Blackberry, then affectionately known as a “Crackberry” for its addictive qualities. It was already obvious that “screens,” as we called them, presented a danger to kids. Too shiny. Too attractive. Too addictive. Once they had them, they would never put them down, so we were the mean parents who refused to let our children have screens.

I got a Blackberry box from the cellphone store and we filled it with blackberries we purchased from the fruit counter at the supermarket. On her birthday, we gave it to our daughter, who lost her mind when she ripped off the wrapping paper, only to find the punchline to our joke. She was heartbroken. We then gave her our real gift, a Motorola flip-phone. She was somewhat mollified, although it wasn’t a crackberry. Crackberries were cool. Flip-phones were for old fogies. Like us. Continue reading →

It’s never been clear to me what “censure” accomplishes. Sure, it’s a condemnation, like telling a wayward child that what they did was wrong and he should feel ashamed of himself. But he still gets dinner, gets to go out and play, gets to otherwise go about his life as if nothing happened. So the House censured the Representative of Palestine, Rashida Tlaib, for trying to spin her support of terrorists.

Does anyone expect she’ll change her evil ways, or wear her censure with pride, like the Keffiyeh she wore on the House floor when she denied the meaning of the terrorist slogan “from the river to the sea”? Continue reading →

In a combination of two rather lengthy posts, Eugene Volokh provides the background and some discussion of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government professor Marshall Ganz rejecting a project for his class, “Organizing: People, Power, Change.”  Three Israeli students proposed their project including a description of Israel as a “jewish Democracy.” Ganz said no.

• When the Parties met on February 27, 2023, Professor Ganz told the Students they could not describe Israel as a “liberal-Jewish democracy” because Israel is not democratic. Continue reading →

The argument is a fairly obvious extension of the rationalization for in rem asset forfeiture, to “take the profit out of crime.” It’s a great slogan, given that crime is bad and profit is its motive. When the money seized was the cash in a traveler’s pocket, seized not because there was any particular basis to believe that a crime was committed or that money snatched was either derived from or used in crime, but just cash that cops could grab, however, the slogan rang hollow.

But that was cash, and there was more money to be had. And much like drug dealers might carry suitcases filled with cash, bad dudes might use banks to hold, launder and pay for bad purposes. Something must be done, activists cried. And so something was done. Continue reading →