Archive for the 'Criminal Courts' Category

Last week a federal judge tentatively rejected two motions to dismiss charges against a mother in a MySpace hoax that allegedly led to the suicide of a 13-year-old girl.

The mother, 49, helped set up a MySpace account with her daughter and another teen, posing as a 16-year-old boy. She allegedly flirted with the girl under the boy’s identity and later sent her cruel messages saying the world would be better off without her. Shortly thereafter, the girl hanged herself.

Prosecutors charged the mother with one count of conspiracy and three violations of the anti-hacking Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The mother pleaded not guilty to the charges. This is the first time the statute has been used in connection with a Web site’s terms of service prohibiting misrepresentation by people setting up new accounts.

The defense attorney said the indictment should be dismissed because the prosecutors were overstepping their power by bending the statute and because the charges were too vague.

During a hearing, the judge said that he intends to take more time to consider a third motion to dismiss the case against the mother.

Some experts have criticized the prosecutors for using the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, saying it sets a dangerous precedent that could mean anyone who violated a Web site’s terms of service could potentially be charged with a felony.

The judge is expected to make a decision on whether the charges will be dropped this week. He set an October 7 trial date.

To learn more about this case, read Total Lawyers’ article.

After complaints of lewd behavior, state park officials announced they would crackdown on nudists at a popular beach known for its bare bodies in northern California.

Signs banning nakedness suddenly appeared on the property and officials warned that after the Labor Day weekend, if you weren’t properly covered, you would be ticketed.

Nudists sued the California Department of Parks and Recreation, saying that the sudden crackdown on nudity required a public hearing.

For nearly 30 years, the park department followed a policy saying that fully exposed people would be subject to enforcement only if a private citizen complains.

An Orange County Superior Court Judge sided with the nudists, ruling that officials must follow the current policy of permitting full nudity and any change to the policy requires a public hearing under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Nudists rejoiced in the ruling and said the complaints of lewd behavior were related to riffraff happening in the beach’s parking lot, which was unrelated to them.

Park officials said they would abide by the judge’s ruling. It has yet to be seen if the department plans to hold a public meeting in an effort to attempt once again to ban the bare beachers.

For more interesting court rulings and criminal defense articles, check out Total Criminal Defense’s unusual case files.

A California Supreme Court ruled that a sexual assault that leaves a victim pregnant could result in a harsher sentence for the offender. It further said that a pregnancy could be considered a “great bodily injury.”

The case involved a man who repeatedly had sexual intercourse with his 13-year-old stepdaughter. The teen became pregnant and the man arranged for her to have a surgical abortion when she was 25 weeks pregnant.

The accused man appealed, arguing that a pregnancy without complications is not a substantial injury and neither is an abortion he did not perform. The court agreed with the man on the abortion matter, but decided the pregnancy legally qualified as a significant injury.

Even though they ruled on this particular case, the justices did split 5-2 on whether every pregnancy from a sexual assault would amount to a great injury—the majority said it was a question for juries to decide, which the jury in this case did.

Per a Law.com item, the state of Louisiana has called for the US Supreme Court to reopen the case Kennedy v. Louisiana, which the court ruled on one month ago. The court had ruled that the death penalty was inappropriate for a child rape, despite the horrific nature of the crime.

The state’s request is unusual, but is based on its failure to consider a national law that was implemented in 2006 that authorizes the death penalty for members of the military who are convicted of child rape. This would undermine the court’s statement in its official opinion, written by Justice Kennedy, that there is a “national consensus” against execution for rape.

The state’s lawyers, who were not aware of the law to include it in the legal defense, are hoping that the court’s failure to consider the military law will cause it to reopen the case.

In a busy week for the court after an equally busy spring, the Supreme Court has made two rulings in the last couple of days that address issues that lie at the very heart of U.S. law and its constitutional foundations.

The most recent verdict, issued this morning, D.C. v. Heller, strikes down a 32-year-old ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., ruling that the ban is unconstitutional according to the Second Amendment.  The 5-4 ruling was the first broad interpretation of the Second Amendment’s provision that citizens have “the right to bear arms” since its ratification in 1791.  The majority opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia stated that the Constitution does not provide for “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.”

A verdict yesterday touches on a still-more controversial issue, that of child rape.  In another 5-4 decision, the court overturned a death penalty in Louisiana given to a man who was convicted of raping his 12-year-old stepdaughter.  The majority of justices ruled that the despite the awfulness of the crime, it does not warrant capital punishment.  The court interpreted the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” to include death penalty in the case of rape in a ruling in 1977, and the recent decision clarifies this precedent in the case of children.

For more analysis of Supreme Court decisions past and present, visit the Total Criminal Defense article section.

The New York Supreme Court recently upheld the removal of Judge Robert Restaino.  Restaino was removed from the bench following an episode last March during which he snapped and had 46 people thrown in jail because a cell phone rang in court.

During a domestic violence trial in his courtroom, Restaino heard someone’s phone ring and became infuriated when no one would admit that it was their phone.  Since he could not find the one person who should have been punished, Restaino went berserk and had everyone in the courtroom taken to jail.  He ordered their release after he cooled down later that day.

Restaino had no prior record of improper behavior in the courtroom and told the commission and Court of Appeals that he was under a lot of personal stress at the time of the incident and that he knew he was wrong and that it would never happen again.  He was right - it won’t happen again because the state Commission on Judicial Conduct voted 9-1 for his removal in November and the New York Supreme Court has unanimously upheld that decision according to a report by the Associated Press.

A 70-year-old Utah woman, Betty Perry, was arrested, handcuffed and charged with failing to maintain her landscaping and resisting arrest after she refused to give her name to an officer who had come to her home to give her a citation.  During the arrest Perry struggled and fell, injuring her nose.

Outside the courthouse, power lawyer Gloria Allred waved handcuffs around for the cameras and spoke on behalf of Perry.  Allred made a plea for sanity in law enforcement, saying,  “I ask the citizens of Orem: How many of you would like to have your great-grandmother taken from her home with bruises and blood and placed in handcuffs for failing to water her lawn?”

The mayor and City Council in Orem, Utah have apologized and said that the situation could have been handled differently.  The city attorney had refused to drop the charges against Perry and she will appear in court again next month.

At the time of her arrest, the water at Perry’s home had been turned off for about 9 months, at her request.

Montgomery County, Maryland Circuit Court Judge Katherine Savage dismissed three year old charges of child rape and sex abuse against Mahamu Kanneh. The Judge said the nearly three years of delay violated the Liberian immigrant’s right to a speedy trial.

According to the Washington Post, Savage said “This is one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make in a long time.” She added she was mindful of “the gravity of this case and the community’s concern about offenses of this type.”

Kanneh demanded an interpreter of the Vai language, spoken by about 100,000 people, mostly in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Prosecutors argued Kanneh was not entitled to a translator. They pointed out that Kanneh attended high school and community college in Montgomery and spoke to detectives in English. A court-appointed psychiatrist recommended Kanneh be provided a translator and judges who handled subsequent hearings heeded the advice.

Officials could not find a competent interpreter of Vai who would stay in the case. The first interpreter couldn’t handle the testimony and quit. The second was rejected for faulty work. A third had to bail out to attend to a family emergency. The Washington Post, however, reported that it identified three Vai interpreters in one day, including one in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Prosecutors said the dismissal, after they searched exhaustively to find an interpreter, was fundamentally unfair. They have not yet decided whether to appeal the decision.

According to the Tennessian.com, Nashville, Tennessee’s night court proceedings are about to go online. Live internet feeds will allow anyone to tap into people’s worst moments: when they’re being booked into jail.

Since 2006, Nashville courts have been conducting initial appearances through closed circuit video and microphones, rather than actually bringing defendants into court. The proposed system will use the internet, allowing the public to view the proceedings.

Davidson County Public Defender Ross Alderman said he worries about the effect of the public broadcasts on potential jurors. Alderman said that unfortunately, we tend to publish the accusation, and not worry about correcting the error when someone gets exonerated.

Judges in Nashville Tennessee who are fed up with defendants coming to court wearing flip-flops, “wife-beater” t-shirts, saggy drawers, and gangster wear are clamping down.

As reported by the Gannett News Service, Nashville attorney David Collins said he’s seen fishnet-type shirts worn by defendants who are wearing no bra, pants or shorts that hung down so low on the body that it’s almost a case of indecent exposure.

But the Davidson County Court Criminal Court Judge Cheryl Blackburn is instituting a strict dress code, borrowed from the public schools: Pants worn at the waist, no sagging or low-riding pants. No do-rags, bandanas, haimets, or hoods are to be worn on the head. Visible undergarments and see-through clothing are banned, as are bare backs, chests or midriffs.

General Sessions Judge Angie Blackshear Dalton said: “This is court. It’s serious, and I think a part of coming to court is people letting us know that they’re taking it serious.”

General Sessions Judge Dan Eisenstein has ordered people in his courtroom to wear a blue paper hospital smock if they aren’t dressed appropriately. Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins has thrown defendants in jail for repeatedly failing to heed his warnings about their attire.

While General Sessions Judge Casey Moreland also objects to some the things some people wear in his courtroom, he cuts others some slack. He’s got no problem with mechanics and construction workers coming to traffic court greasy and dusty. They’re working and coming to court on a break

I would love to see dress codes adopted in my jurisdiction. I’ve never understood why a defendant would come to court looking like a thug when he wants to convince the judge he’s a good guy.