- Follow the federal funding: “Stop giving out awards for arrests” [Andrew Sullivan]
- NYC cops shoot at mentally disturbed man, hit bystanders instead, charge him with their injuries [Scott Shackford, Popehat]
- Electric car owner charged with stealing 5 cents worth of power [Chamblee, Ga.: WXIA, auto-plays]
- Claims re: sex trafficking in US fast spiraling into absurdity. Keep going [Maggie McNeill, earlier] “Perverse Incentives: Sex Work and the Law” [Cato Unbound symposium] “California to Open Victim Compensation Funds to Prostitutes” [Shackford]
- Illegal ticket quotas at the LAPD, inmate beatings at the county sheriff’s jail: Los Angeles policing hit by multiple scandals [L.A. Times: editorial on charges against 18 sheriff’s deputies, LAPD ticket quota]
- Massachusetts crime lab test faker Annie Dookhan gets 3-5 year sentence [ABA Journal]
- “Overcriminalization in the states” [Vikrant Reddy, Texas Public Policy Foundation, draft; related Mother Jones] Conservatives call for reforms in New Mexico justice system [Rio Grande Foundation via @PatNolanPFM]
- Also: “Chief Judge For 9th Circuit [Alex Kozinski] Cites ‘Epidemic’ Of Prosecutor Misconduct” [Radley Balko]
Posts Tagged ‘prosecutorial abuse’
Police and prosecution roundup
- Why license plate scanning is an up-and-coming front in the surveillance wars [Radley Balko]
- Prosecutor whose lapse sent innocent man to prison for 25 years will go to jail — for ten days [Adler, Shackford]
- “Nurse fights charges she helped father commit suicide” [Phil. Inq., Barbara Mancini case, via @maxkennerly]
- California inmates released, crime rates jump: a Brown v. Plata trainwreck? [Tamara Tabo, Heather Mac Donald/City Journal]
- Driver arrested under Ohio’s new law banning hidden compartments in cars even though he had nothing illicit in the compartment [Shackford] Tenaha, Tex. traffic stops, cont’d: “Give Us Cash or Lose Your Kids and Face Felony Charges: Don’t Cops Have Better Things to Do?” [Ted Balaker/Reason, earlier]
- Arizona Republic series on prosecutorial misconduct [4-parter]
- Few act as if they care about Mr. Martin-Oguike’s fate at hands of a false accuser [Scott Greenfield]
Wisconsin: special prosecutor raids Walker supporters
A secret special prosecutor wielding “kitchen-sink” subpoenas takes aim at persons and groups who supported Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in his recent showdown with public employee unions. “The probe began in the office of Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf, though no one will publicly claim credit for appointing Mr. Schmitz, the special prosecutor. The investigation is taking place under Wisconsin’s John Doe law, which bars a subpoena’s targets from disclosing its contents to anyone but his attorneys. … [Wisconsin Club for Growth director Eric O’Keefe] adds that at least three of the targets had their homes raided at dawn, with law-enforcement officers turning over belongings to seize computers and files.” [WSJ “Review and Outlook”]
Ethics roundup
- Eliciting false testimony among sins: “Ninth Circuit finds ‘textbook prosecutorial misconduct'” [Legal Ethics Forum]
- Syracuse: jurors say insurance company lawyer observing trial got uncomfortably close [Above the Law]
- South Carolina: “Prosecuting attorney is accused of dismissing charges in exchange for sexual favors” [ABA Journal]
- Judge, handing down six-year sentence, calls defense lawyer’s briefing of witness a “playbook on how to lie without getting caught” [Providence Journal]
- Kentucky high court reinstates $42 M verdict against lawyers for fleecing fen-phen clients [Point of Law] Accused of bilking clients, prominent S.C. lawyer surrenders license, pleads to mail fraud [ABA Journal]
- Former Kansas attorney general accused of multiple professional violations: “Phill Kline is indefinitely suspended from practicing law” [Kansas City Star]
- “Nonrefundable ‘Minimum Fee’ Is Unethical When Fired Lawyer Will Not Refund Any of It” [BNA]
Police and prosecution roundup
- Stop and bleed: Tennessee rolls out “no refusal” blood-draw DUI driver checkpoints, which already go on in Texas [WTVF, Reddit, Tom Hunter/Liberal America, Charles “Brad” Frye (Texas practice)]
- Issues raised by growing practice of placing government “monitors” inside businesses to police compliance [Veronica Root, Prawfs]
- “Faulty Justice: Italian Earthquake Scientist Speaks Out against His Conviction” [Scientific American]
- California: suit could probe patterns of harassment against Orange County officials who’ve resisted police union demands [Krayewski, earlier]
- Illinois “[makes] it a felony to flick cigarette butts onto streets for the third time” [Gideon’s Trumpet]
- Before making laws intended to benefit sex workers, take time to listen to them [Popehat via Maggie McNeill]
- Report: state of Florida investigating Zimmerman prosecutor Angela Corey over sacking of alleged whistleblower [Washington Times, earlier] “A Visitor’s Guide to Florida’s Most Notorious Law Enforcement Agencies” [Mike Riggs, Atlantic Cities]
Judge blasts prosecutor misconduct in New Orleans police abuse case
“Citing the ‘grotesque’ misconduct of federal prosecutors, a judge on Tuesday granted a new trial for five former New Orleans Police Department officers convicted in the deadly shootings at the Danziger Bridge after Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent cover-up.” [Juliet Linderman, New Orleans Times-Picayune, embedded PDF; earlier here, here, etc.]
More: J. Christian Adams (why no consequences for supervisor in Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division?), Stephen Gillers.
Martha Coakley runs for governor in Massachusetts
The Massachusetts attorney general is now running for governor of the state after losing a Senate run three and a half years ago, so this makes a good occasion to revamp a 2010 post slightly so as to remind readers of Coakley’s central role in the Amirault travesty of justice, described so well by Dorothy Rabinowitz here. Earlier on the Amirault case here and here; on Coakley’s prosecutorial record here. More: John Stossel and (via Memeorandum): Bronwyn’s Harbor, No Quarter (citing views of Jeralyn Merritt/TalkLeft); Dan McLaughlin, RedState; Dan Riehl (Woodward, Souza cases). Yet more: on Coakley’s offer to a deal to one defendant on condition that the experienced defense counsel handling the deal agree not to represent a second defendant in future, see Scott Greenfield (characterizing the move as “a deliberate effort to undermine the constitutional right to counsel”), Kenneth Anderson/Volokh, and John Steele/Legal Ethics Forum. In 2010 we wondered whether Coakley’s Senate-race nosedive under critical public and press scrutiny amounted to the first time a Massachusetts prosecutor had paid a price for being wrong in the Amirault episode.
Police and prosecution roundup
- Body cameras protect both police and the citizenry [Steve Chapman]
- “Federal Prosecutor Disciplined for Making False Statements” [John Steele, Legal Ethics Forum]
- “The more popular view is that the role of a jury is to deliver a guilty verdict when the government accuses someone of a crime” [Ken at Popehat]
- More on forfeiture following New Yorker piece [Steve Greenhut, ABA Journal, earlier]
- How feds went after maker of secret automotive compartments [Brendan Koerner, Wired, April; Amy Alkon] Held at gunpoint for half hour+: massive Texas SWAT raid on organic farm yields okra, no pot [Radley Balko] Mother Jones magazine is perfectly happy to cheer on Drug War lunacy when that affords a chance to bash big pharma [Cathy Reisenwitz, Thoughts on Liberty]
- “Law Enforcement Wants To Weaken Section 230: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” [websites’ immunity for content left by visitors; Popehat]
- Eliot Spitzer’s prosecutorial sins catalogued [Lawrence Cunningham]
August 2 roundup
- Radley Balko on a roll with harrowing, Louisiana-focused piece on misbehaving prosecutors and the system that protects them [HuffPo] “Former Cops Speak Out About Police Militarization” And a BBC interview (auto-plays video);
- Judge Alsup: pay-to-play allegations against Democratic Attorneys General Association, Mississippi attorney general Jim Hood, MSPERS won’t derail class action [Courthouse News]
- “Smoker’s Son Recovers $12.8M for Loss of Consortium” [NLJ]
- How easy is it to get a free federal cellphone (or two or three) without actually qualifying? [Jillian Kay Melchior, NR]
- “‘Total’ly Milking the FCPA Cash Cow?” [Koehler, FCPA Professor]
- “The unfair attack on arbitration” [Hans von Spakovsky]
- How public interest litigators got 501(c)(3) charitable status [Scott Walter, Philanthropy Daily; related earlier]
Police and prosecution roundup
- Detroit police blasted for arresting Free Press photographer who filmed arrest with her iPhone [Poynter]
- “The discomfort of principles” in criminal defense matters [Gideon’s Trumpet]
- House Judiciary panel on overcriminalization and mens rea shows genuinely useful bipartisanship [Jonathan Blanks, Cato] One in four new bills these days to create criminal liability lacks mens rea [Paul Rosenzweig/Alex Adrianson, Heritage]
- Auburn, Alabama: “Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Ticket and Arrest Quotas” [Reason TV]
- Film project on overturned Death Row convictions [One for Ten] “Forensics review reveals hair evidence was possibly exaggerated in 27 capital cases” [ABA Journal]
- Critics of Stand Your Ground seem to be having trouble coming up with examples to back their case [Sullum]
- Maine: “Hancock County prosecutor admits violating bar rules in sexual assault trial” [Bill Trotter, Bangor Daily News]