When I first read Gideon’s post at A Public Defender, it had the wrong smell, the wrong feel.  It was an awful story, about how a judge refused to remove a juror in a child rape case who made it as clear as possible that she was biased.  The point of the story was the efforts put in to create the appearance of rehabilitation.

The prosecutor then asked the juror: “You haven’t heard any evidence. How would you vote?”  Juror 112 responded, “I would have to vote guilty.

The judge asked if she could return a verdict of not guilty if the government couldn’t prove it’s case beyond a reasonable doubt.

“I don’t think I would be able to,” the juror replied.

The prosecutor tried again: “Let me ask you this flat-out. Let’s say the victim takes the stand [and] you flat-out don’t believe her. In fact, you think she’s lying. You look at her [and conclude] ‘I don’t believe a word coming out of her mouth.’ Are you going to convict this man anyway?”

Juror 112 responded before the first witness in the case had been called, “That depends. I still feel he was at fault.” Continue reading →

Cameras. Dash cams. Body Cams. The cure for police transparency, that protects and proves that the police conducted themselves properly, with the added benefit of providing a record of the defendant’s wrongdoing and statements. What’s not to like?

Apparently, enough that the Los Angeles Police Department found out that some of its officers screwed with their mandated cameras so that they wouldn’t work.

Los Angeles police officers tampered with voice recording equipment in dozens  of patrol cars in an effort to avoid being monitored while on duty, according to  records and interviews.

An inspection by Los  Angeles Police Department investigators found about half of the estimated 80  cars in one South L.A. patrol division were missing antennas, which help capture  what officers say in the field. The antennas in at least 10 more cars in nearby  divisions had also been removed. Continue reading →

Ace crime reporter Oren Yaniv broke the story of Jonathan Fleming’s release in the Daily News, reminding us yet again of the good fortune of not living in a state where executions are available.  After nearly a quarter century in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, Fleming is “elated.”

Brooklyn prosecutors are slated Tuesday to set free a man who spent more than two decades in prison — the latest in a spate of conviction reversals.

The murder conviction of Jonathan Fleming, 51, will be tossed following a reinvestigation of the August 1989 slaying that landed him in prison for over 24 years, the Daily News has learned.

In August, 1989, Darryl Rush was murdered in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  Of this, there is no doubt. Continue reading →

It was nearly seven years ago that I read GW lawprof Dan Solove’s book, The Future of Reputation.  After doing so, I sat down with my kids and had a nice talk about doing stupid things on the internet, and how that could come back to bite them in the butt later.

The upshot was to teach them to think ahead, to understand the potential unintended consequences of doing something that might seem cool or fun at the moment, but could have dire consequences later.  The point was to protect their reputation in the future, despite whatever they felt like doing today.

As I read a BBC post promoting the revenge porn advocates’ efforts to get criminal laws enacted, a quote by a baby lawyer from Brooklyn was quite disconcerting: Continue reading →

The Daily News reports that Bronx Criminal Court Judge John Wilson dismissed a rape charge.  The defendant was cut loose.

The defendant, Segundo Marquez, had been held at Rikers Island for more than eight months awaiting trial on reduced misdemeanor rape charges stemming from a 2010 incident.

And then, it was gone.  The reason, however, is not so easily dismissed.  It wasn’t until summation at Marquez’s trial that all hell broke loose.

The two week-long trial had reached closing arguments when one of Teesdale’s supervisors informed the judge about a note on the case file referring to the contradictory testimony.

The prosecutor trying the case, Megan Teesdale, got caught. Continue reading →

At the Faculty Lounge, Charlotte lawprof Brian Clarke “came out.”  No, not about sexuality, but something still hidden in deeper, darker places where society has yet to begin to accept.

I will admit to being a bit nervous about even raising this topic.  (Given the nature of many anonymous internet commenters, I think most people would be hesitant to bare even a minute portion of their souls online and attempt to engage with a very serious subject, only to be subject to snarky or mean-spirited attacks.)  Plus, mental illness and suicide are not comfortable subjects for most people.  There remains a very real stigma attached to mental illness.  Many people believe that suffering from clinical depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, or a host of other mental illnesses is a character flaw or a weakness.  Having one of these diseases has been seen as something of which the sufferer should be ashamed.  This attitude has been in place for too long for people to easily change their perceptions and opinions.

However, as lawyers and law professors, we must to do more.  It is clear that our students need us to do more.  When you are depressed, you feel so terribly alone.  You feel different.  You feel ashamed.  You feel weak.  You feel like you will never feel better and that you can never be the person you want to be.  Continue reading →

At the WaPo Conspiracy, David Post raises an interesting issue relating to the “seizure” by the TSA when one crosses an imaginary security line at the airport:

But even worse is this:  while waiting on the hoi polloi line, I started watching the TSA video that was running on the monitors overhead, and I was struck when the narrator said:  ”Once you enter the screening area, you will not be permitted to leave without TSA permission.”  Really?! Actually, I am permitted to leave without TSA  permission, whether they like it or not, because the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on “unreasonable . . . seizures” gives me that permission. We have a word for this, too, in the law, when government agents don’t allow us to leave freely:  ”being in custody.”

While his point makes sense from a logical perspective, his fellow traveler, Orin Kerr, notes that the law doesn’t quite agree: Continue reading →

In yet another screwy screed, Georgetown Law’s Bill Otis at Crime & Consequences, who fancies himself a leader in the war against the Smarter Sentencing Act, boosted by the recognition of C&C as the “top-rated pro-prosecution blog” according to a scam link-bait survey that’s been desperately trying to find fools pathetic enough link back to it, says the feds can’t reduce their prison population.  It just won’t work.

In debating the Heroin Dealers Bonanza Act Smarter Sentencing Act, I hear one question again and again:   Since some states like Texas and Michigan have reduced their prison populations over the last few years and  have seen the decline in crime continue, why can’t the federal prison system do the same?

Who, exactly, Otis debates with, aside from the voices he hears in his own head and the occasional dog, is unclear. But as strawmen go, it’s a fair question, even if framed in a self-serving manner.

Even if prison reduction programs work for the states, they are not going to work for the feds.  The feds prosecute precisely the kind of drug gangs, and drug offenders, who are the most violent, the most entrenched, and the most prone to recidivism. Continue reading →

The New York Times business section profiles Brooklyn Law School, as Dean Nicholas Allard takes the bold move of refusing to play the U.S News & World Reports ratings game.

Brooklyn will hold tuition at its current level — $1,800 a credit, or $53,850 a year — for the class entering this fall. Next year, it will introduce an across-the-board 15 percent cut in tuition. It is also reducing some kinds of merit aid, increasing need-based aid and offering a curriculum that allows some students to graduate in two years rather than the standard three. “It’s still expensive, and I wish we could do more,” Mr. Allard said.

While holding tuition at current levels isn’t exactly radical (or inexpensive), the cut in merit aid is the kicker. Continue reading →

Walter Olson shreds the conduct of the FBI in seizing the antiquities collection of 91-year-old Don Miller in Indiana.

FBI agents Wednesday seized “thousands” of cultural artifacts, including American Indian items, from the private collection of a 91-year-old man who had acquired them over the past eight decades.

The aim of the investigation is to determine what each artifact is, where it came from and how Miller obtained it, Jones said, to determine whether some of the items might be illegal to possess privately.

Jones acknowledged that Miller might have acquired some of the items before the passage of U.S. laws or treaties prohibited their sale or purchase.

What is happening to Miller reflects a conundrum facing anyone who had the misfortune of getting caught in the net of modernity, the effort to revisit the rules in light of current sensibilities by demanding that things that happened in the past somehow match the rules of the day. Continue reading →