Criminal Procedure

Supreme Court Rules Judges Don’t Have to Warn of Tougher Sentences

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that judges don’t have to warn defendants when they are considering a sentence tougher than recommended in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. The court ruled in the case of Richard Irizarry, sentenced to 60 months in prison for threatening to kill his ex-wife and her…

Jun 12, 2008 5:49 PM CDT

NYT Columnist Raps Lerach’s ‘Brazen’ Article Defending Kickbacks

A New York Times business columnist says an article by a former securities class action lawyer serving time for paying kickbacks is “a brazen, shameful piece of work.” “Some guys just don’t know when to shut up,” writes columnist Joe Nocera. “William S. Lerach is one of those guys.” Lerach…

Jun 9, 2008 12:26 PM CDT

Judge in R. Kelly Trial Threatens to Jail Reporter for Not Testifying

A Chicago judge overseeing the child pornography trial of R. Kelly has threatened to jail a newspaper reporter who failed to appear today to testify as scheduled. Jim DeRogatis, a music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, was supposed to testify about his role in receiving from an anonymous source and…

Jun 3, 2008 7:41 PM CDT

Former FBI Chief Calls Death-Row Inmate’s Defense ‘Woefully Deficient’

Former FBI director William S. Sessions in an op-ed published today blasts the lawyer who represented death-row inmate Curtis Osborne. Osborne is scheduled to die tomorrow after a denial of his final bid for clemency by a Georgia pardons board. He was convicted of killing two people in a dispute…

Jun 3, 2008 4:01 PM CDT

Supreme Court Turns Down Appeal of Ex-Illinois Governor

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal by former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who was convicted of racketeering and fraud. Ryan had argued U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer committed error when she continued the trial after dismissing two jurors for failing to disclose criminal records, the Associated…

May 27, 2008 3:44 PM CDT

Canada Must Give Interrogation Info to Omar Khadr

A Canadian citizen captured by the U.S. in Afghanistan at age 15 and held at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has a constitutional right to materials related to interviews conducted there by Canadian officials in 2003, Canada’s highest court decided today. In what a lawyer for…

May 23, 2008 6:03 PM CDT

RIP: Recanter Who ‘Opened the Floodgates’ to DNA Exonerations

A woman who falsely accused an Illinois man of rape and later recanted after the man spent eight years in jail died of breast cancer May 15 in New Hampshire. She was 46. Cathleen Crowell Webb’s decision to recant led to the DNA exoneration of Gary Dotson and opened the…

May 21, 2008 8:09 PM CDT

Prosecutor Asks Supreme Court to Block Suit by Wrongfully Convicted Youth

An Ohio prosecutor is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block a civil lawsuit against her for the role she played in the conviction of a 12-year-old boy that was later overturned. The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in January (PDF) that prosecutor Amanda Spies of Tuscarawas…

May 15, 2008 5:02 PM CDT

After 6 Years, R. Kelly Trial Begins

After a six-year delay, jury selection began today in Chicago in the child pornography trial of R&B star R. Kelly. Kelly, 41, whose full name is Robert Kelly, is accused of having sex on videotape with a girl as young as 13, although the alleged victim, now 23, denies that…

May 9, 2008 6:45 PM CDT

Appeals Court Upholds Victims’ Right to Be Heard in BP Plea

A federal appeals court has ruled that a law giving crime victims a say in the plea bargain process was violated when prosecutors forged a deal in the 2005 BP oil refinery explosion. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas should not…

May 8, 2008 1:06 PM CDT

Lingering Questions Surround Death Penalty Representation

An ACLU lawyer tells the New York Times that the problem with the death penalty is not the method of execution, but rather “poor people getting lousy lawyers.” The ACLU Capital Punishment Project represented North Carolina inmate Levon Jones, the third death row inmate in the state to win his…

May 7, 2008 2:49 PM CDT

Cert Petition Claims New Evidence Entitles Convicted Killer to Reversal

Former Milwaukee police officer Laurie Bembenek has filed a cert petition with the U.S. Supreme Court that seeks a reversal of her conviction based on new evidence of innocence. Bembenek pleaded no-contest to second-degree murder in 1992 in the death of her then-husband’s former wife, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.…

May 1, 2008 4:29 PM CDT

Mickey Sherman, Unplugged

With his regular gigs on several news networks, it’s easy to forget that talking legal head Mickey Sherman actually practices law for a living—his office is in Stamford, Conn. And it’s his experience in the courtroom, defending real people accused of real crimes, that makes his first foray into nonfiction—a…

May 1, 2008 1:03 PM CDT

Closed Courtroom Sought in High-Profile Capital-Case Sentencing

Federal prosecutors in Boise, Idaho, filed a motion yesterday seeking to close the courtroom for a high-profile sentencing in a case that reportedly involves child sexual abuse as well as kidnapping and murder. It would be emotionally difficult for the one surviving child kidnapped by Joseph Duncan in May 2005…

Apr 30, 2008 10:18 PM CDT

Lawyers Cite Bad Childhood in Convicted Sniper’s Appeal

Lawyers for convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad have filed a habeas appeal seeking to overturn his death sentence because jurors were not told of his abuse as a child or his brain damage. Muhammad received a death sentence for the slaying of Dean Meyers in a trial in Prince William…

Apr 28, 2008 1:34 PM CDT