One of the central ideas of our criminal justice system is the promise of a speedy trial. Felony cases in the Bronx have seen the longest delays in New York City. Seven in 10 cases have surpassed the state’s guidelines, which require that most felony crimes be tried within 180 days. Cases are piling up […]
READ MOREInsurance Fraud Scandal in New York’s Russian Foreign Ministry
For the past six months, New York prosecutors and the FBI have collected evidence concerning health insurance fraud, perpetrated by Russian diplomats. They are now confident that they have enough evidence to mount a solid case. According to Prosecutor Preet Bharara, the diplomats falsified income statements and other information regarding marital status and nationality to […]
READ MORETo Testify or Not to Testify…That is the Question.
Few topics are discussed among lawyers more. Should you put your client on the stand or not? Sometimes it’s just not an option for any number of reasons. Maybe your client has a criminal history that has too much to impeach with. Maybe your client told so many inconsistent versions of a story to the […]
READ MOREUST Complaint Against Countrywide
The US Trustee filed a complaint against Countrywide on February 28, 2008 alleging various abusive and improper conduct in a particular chapter 13 case in Atlanta. The complaint alleges that Countrywide filed two motions for relief that it ultimately withdrew because the debtor was not in fact late, it added unsubstantiated charges to its claim, […]
READ MOREInside Traders Beware: Sentencing Commission Pushing for Much Harsher Penalties
In the wake of recent Wall Street scandals and the growing perception of corruption within the financial industry, the federal government is taking dead aim at insider trading. Within the last few years, we have seen the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act and a series of highly publicized insider trading prosecutions, including the one resulting […]
READ MOREPredicting Dangerousness and Flipping Coins
On April 20, NPR’s Morning Edition broadcast an interview with Phillip Merideth, “a forensic psychiatrist and the chief medical office for Brentwood Behavioral Healthcare in Mississippi [and] a lawyer who teaches about mental health and the law.” According to Dr. Merideth, “[p]sychiatric literature in the past has shown that efforts to predict — and I’m […]
READ MOREArrests Rise, Prisons Empty?
The biggest observation over the last few years is that the crime rate in New York City has fallen. Unbelievably, the New York Post reports that aggressive policing can also lower prison population. This certainly does not seem obvious, but studies have shown that New York State’s prison population has fallen and yet we’ve all […]
READ MOREPeople v. Ward: Due Process and Equal Protection Challenge to California Crack
The disparity between the treatment of powder and crack cocaine under California criminal law does not violate principles of due process or equal protection, the Second District Court of Appeal held 10/1/08 in People v. Ward, B200354. The defendant in Ward argued that the sentencing disparity violated substantive due process and equal protection principles because […]
READ MORELA Times on the SSDP Lawsuit
The LA Times ran a rather frustrating editorial this weekend on the ACLU and Students for Sensible Drug Policy’s lawsuit challenging the denial of federal financial aid to individuals with drug convictions. The last three graphs, in particular, left me scratching my head The ACLU is going down the wrong path with a lawsuit against […]
READ MOREFollow-up on 911 calls as “non-testimonial”
I spoke to Louis Turchirelli, who was the lawyer on Pitts v. State, which I wrote a post on recently. I asked him if he was going to take the case up on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. He advised me that there was a similar case pending already. I went to the Supreme Court […]
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