Among the many great fictions of the legal system is that juries follow instructions.  In fairness, it can work to either side’s advantage, based on the circumstances.  An inadvertent instruction can serve as the basis for reversal, even though no one on the jury could possibly have had a clue what the judge was talking about.  The very notion that a jury can follow all that legal mumbo jumbo has always been absurd, but lacking an alternative way to tell the jury what the law is, we persist in the fiction.

But every once in a while, a jury returns with a verdict that shows just how ridiculous the whole concept can be, and that happened in Stamford, Connecticut manslaughter trial of Robert Bell: Continue reading →

For no good reason, I neglected to write about a fascinating 4th Circuit opinion yesterday in United States v. Robinson.  which wouldn’t have mattered much had Orin Kerr not written about it first.

The facts in Robinson are relatively ordinary.

On April 14, 2011, the Durham Police Department received a call reporting an altercation in MacDougald Terrace. The caller stated that three African-American males in white t-shirts were chasing an individual who was holding a firearm. Officer Doug Welch drove to the area in his patrol car. Continue reading →

If you’re not @CBSAndrew, you should not be reading this.  Didn’t you see the “personal and confidential” thing in the title? Yeah, you won’t listen to me. Dang. Never mind.

I’m not only appreciative of Andrew Cohen’s articles at The Atlantic, but a huge fan. Cohen is one of the handful of journalists who addresses the ugliness, the nastiness, the wrongfulness, of the criminal justice system with depth and thoughtfulness.  While I may not always agree with him, I appreciate him. I hope that makes sense.

But I have a nit to pick. Continue reading →

When a judge rails against the evils of crime, the reaction ranges from applause to re-election.  When a judge rails against the evils of prosecutorial misconduct, there is a very different reaction.  Via the Post and Courier:

Beatty, elected to the Supreme Court in 2007, told the audience of prosecutors they had “been getting away with too much for too long” and the high court will no longer turn a blind eye to unethical conduct such as witness tampering, selective and retaliatory prosecutions, perjury and suppression of evidence.

He added that “you better follow the rules or we are coming after you and will make an example,” according a summary of his comments. Continue reading →

There is a beauty in old structures. Houses, public buildings, even courtrooms. Especially old courtrooms, perhaps. Whether simple and utilitarian or ornate and majestic, they reflect our history. And yet, as with history itself, they sometimes reflect mistaken ideals.

Judge Richard Kopf, at Hercules and the Umpire, was off to preside over a trial in Sioux City, Iowa, in a courtroom he described as “stunning.”

This week and next, I have the privilege of using  the stunning old but restored federal courtroom in Sioux City, Iowa to try a jury case. It is pictured below: Continue reading →

Among the magic words that police will use, and judges will approve, to justify a person’s seizure at will, perhaps the worst offender is “too.”  Too much of anything places a person outside whatever the officer feels is “normal,” thus raising suspicions.

Of course, it may be that the person stopped merely fails to conform to whatever expectations the officer has. Or has other things going on in his life that the officer is unaware of.  Or that it’s just an excuse to seize and pursue further investigation, since it’s just an itty, bitty word and only requires three letters to type it into a report. Most cops are up to the task. Continue reading →

Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, to his enduring credit, cares about the reality that New York has far more poor than lawyers for the Legal Aid Society could ever hope to represent.  While his tenure as Chief Judge will be short lived, he plans to leave behind the machinery to make a dent in the gaping hole called “access to justice.”  From the New York Times:

Lawyers who work for big corporations in New York but are not licensed to practice law in the state will be allowed to do pro bono work under a new rule meant to ease an acute shortage of legal representation for the poor, the state’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, announced on Monday.

The rule change, which takes effect on Wednesday, is the latest in a series of measures that Judge Lippman has championed in recent years to reduce what he calls “the justice gap.” New York is the fourth state to let out-of-state lawyers working as counsel for corporations offer their services to the poor, without restrictions. Continue reading →

And the desire to invent the next cool thing moves forward. So what if it’s not really new? So what if it’s hardly cool? So what if it has the ability to cause all sorts of mischief? We love apps, and seriously, isn’t that what the digital world is all about?

Via the Tampa ABC affiliate:

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — In a high-tech effort to battle crime, the Tampa Police Department recently launched a free smartphone app.

With a few clicks, city residents can submit anonymous tips to police and learn about unsolved crimes and “most wanted” criminals on their iPhones or Androids. Continue reading →

When I received the email from Dan Hull at What About Clients/Paris? it wasn’t hard to imagine the look of exasperation on his face.  There are few people in the blawgosphere who have had their content ripped off more consistently than Dan, and unlike the rest of us whose posts ended up on some scammer’s website, Dan’s was different. The thief always seemed to be a lawyer.  Lawyers just wanted what Dan wrote.

This time it was a young Dallas/Fort Worth criminal defense lawyer named , who had lifted wholesale one of Hull’s best known and most appreciated posts, his 12 Rules of Client Service. This was first posted in 2006 and may be the post for which Hull is best known. Continue reading →

Best line:

The right to divorce isn’t as upbeat a topic as the right to marry…

While discussion of gay marriage tends to focus on equality and the right of every person, no matter what their sexual preference, to be part of a loving relationship, the fact is that marriage isn’t merely an “institution,” but a legal status.  And when loving relationships turn less loving than they once were, the ending of that legal status can only be accomplished by another legal status, divorce. Continue reading →