Evidence

Manslaughter charge is reinstated though lawyer-client conversation was recorded and transcribed

The Indiana Supreme Court has reinstated a voluntary manslaughter charge against a man whose attorney-client conversation was recorded during a break in police questioning, then transcribed and distributed to prosecutors.

Jul 3, 2018 7:05 AM CDT

The Chicago police legacy of extracting false confessions is costing the city millions

Of the 29 wrongful conviction rulings involving false confessions in the United States in 2017, 13 were in Cook County. Of the more than 260 false confession cases since 1989, about 25 percent have come from Cook County.

Jul 1, 2018 12:15 AM CDT

Supreme Court won’t hear case of Brendan Dassey, teen featured in ‘Making a Murderer’

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear the appeal of Brendan Dassey, the teen convicted of helping his uncle kill a woman in a case featured in the Making a Murderer Netflix series.

Jun 25, 2018 9:57 AM CDT

Judge refuses to toss money laundering charge against Manafort, upholds search of storage unit

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has refused to dismiss a money laundering charge against Paul Manafort and refused to exclude evidence seized from his storage unit.

Jun 22, 2018 1:32 PM CDT

How could someone confess to a crime they didn’t commit? Watch ‘The Confession Tapes’ and see

Every defense attorney has heard it more than once: “I was coerced!”

Jun 20, 2018 7:00 AM CDT

US intends to call Akin Gump lawyer in Manafort trial; lawyers seek to block storage unit evidence

Lawyers for Paul Manafort learned Wednesday that the government plans to call a partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld to testify in the trial of President Donald Trump’s former campaign chair. The name of the partner, Melissa Laurenza, had been redacted in court documents, Law360 reports. She reportedly…

May 24, 2018 10:42 AM CDT

From paper to digital documents, Judge Andrew Peck traveled (and set) the discovery trail (podcast)

For litigators accustomed to conducting discovery inside large warehouses surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of cardboard file boxes, combing through several forests' worth of paper to find the few relevant documents was like trying to find the needle in the haystack.

May 16, 2018 8:00 AM CDT

Does forensic hypnosis produce reliable evidence? 2 death row inmates say it’s junk science

Two Texas death row inmates are contending forensic hypnosis was wrongly used to put them behind bars.

May 15, 2018 2:28 PM CDT

School lawyer asks about birds-and-bees talk, mom’s terminated pregnancy in teen’s bullying suit

A lawyer representing Nashville, Tennessee, schools wants to know how a teen suing the school has “developed sexually” and whether she is aware of her mother’s sexual history.

May 15, 2018 7:30 AM CDT

Forensic search of cellphone seized at border requires some form of suspicion, 4th Circuit says

Some form of individualized suspicion is needed before the government can use forensic software to search a cellphone seized at the border, a federal appeals court said Wednesday. The decision by the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was considered a victory by privacy advocates, though the Turkish…

May 10, 2018 4:20 PM CDT

Does Stanley have a mustache? ‘The Office’ illustrates issues with cross-racial identification

As I’ve been writing this column on law and pop culture over the past year or so, I’ve started to realize that my wife has a helluva legal mind. She just gets it. She’s not educated in the law (she has a masters in nonprofit management), but she’s pretty spot-on.…

May 7, 2018 8:00 AM CDT

Murder conviction of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel is tossed because of ineffective assistance

The Connecticut Supreme Court on Friday overturned the 2002 murder conviction of Michael Skakel, the nephew of Robert F. Kennedy’s widow, Ethel Kennedy. The court ruled 4-3 that Skakel is entitled to a new trial because of ineffective assistance by his trial lawyer, report the Hartford Courant, the Associated Press…

May 4, 2018 4:08 PM CDT

Investigators who found Golden State Killer through DNA website borrowed idea from another case

The idea of using a DNA website to catch a serial murderer began with a search for the identity of an abandoned 5-year-old girl named Lisa. That sleuthing led police to a suspected serial killer believed to have killed Lisa’s mother, giving a California investigator the idea of using the…

May 4, 2018 2:01 PM CDT

New York considers changing discovery rules that often leave defense lawyers in the dark

Advocates have dubbed New York’s discovery scheme the blindfold law, arguing that the lack of information requires defense counsel to prepare for trial, or advise clients about plea bargains, without ever seeing the evidence.

May 1, 2018 1:45 AM CDT

SCOTUS to hear inmate’s claim that rare medical condition would make execution particularly painful

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider the case of a Missouri inmate who contends a rare medical condition would make being put to death by lethal injection “gruesome and painful” beyond the pain inherent in an execution. The court granted cert in the case of Russell Bucklew,…

Apr 30, 2018 4:39 PM CDT