“A courtroom is a dynamic thing that changes with the mood of the participants, the types of cases on the calendar, the weather outside, the witnesses who appear, and what the drive to the courthouse was like.” Not to be confused with “It’s Alive,” the post does contain decent advice, rhetorical excess notwithstanding. “Then again, sometimes excessive figures of speech can be delightful.” Hmm: but not if your “prose alternates between bureaucratic and grandiose, resulting in sentences that manage to be pompous and clueless at the same time.”
“There was no way for me to cross-examine the dog.”
“Judges, Go to Prison!” (To which we would add: if you don’t already subscribe to Michael O’Hear, you’re only short-changing yourself.)
Poll: Voter confidence in Wisconsin Supreme Court plunging. (Related?)
Fourth Amendment:
- United States v. Wells, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 16330 (8th Cir. 8/8/11) (homeowner “could reasonably expect that members of the public would not traipse down the drive to the back corner of his home, from where they could freely observe his entire backyard,” therefore police violated reasonable expectation of privacy when they proceeded down driveway to back of house). More curtilage: State v. Ryder, 2011 Conn. LEXIS 287 (August 9, 2011) (warrantless entry into gated driveway, to investigate report of missing teenager, not justified) – oh, by the way, and the evidence ordered suppressed? A 6 0r 7 foot croc found in the tub.
- People v. Buza, 2011 Cal. App. LEXIS 1006 (8/4/11) (seizure of arrestee’s DNA, without judicial determination of probable cause, violated 4th A); but: United States v. Mitchell, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 15272 (3d Cir. 7/ 25/11) (en banc) (no it doesn’t, likening collection and analysis of DNA samples from arrestees and pretrial detainees to collection of fingerprints, albeit by razor-thin 8-6 margin). Also: 9th Circuit to take up similar question, en banc.
- Police can’t use warrants to obtain cell phone location of person wanted under arrest warrant, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 85638 (D.Md. 2011). (Result ” is pretty clearly wrong,” says Orin Kerr.)
From the academy:
- John F. Pfaff, “The Causes of Growth in Prison Admissions and Populations.” (Spoiler alert: increased felony filings.)
- Michael H. Graham, “Confrontation Clause – Crawford/Davis/Melendez-Diaz: 2010 Application Summary – Recent Chaos.” (Future chaos assured.)
- (Wisconsin’s own) Michael D. Cicchini, “Dead Again: The Latest Demise of the Confrontation Clause.” (The title says it all.)
- Margaret Colgate Love, ” Collateral Consequences after Padilla v. Kentucky: From Punishment to Regulation.” (Padilla not limited to deportation; but you already knew that.)
- Thomas H. Cohen, “Who’s Better at Defending Criminals? Does Type of Defense Attorney Matter in Terms of Producing Favorable Case Outcomes.” (Spoiler alert: “negligible differences in case outcomes between defendants with public defenders and private attorneys” … but: “defendants with assigned counsel receive less favorable outcomes.”
Lawyers behaving badly:
