Posts Tagged ‘defense attorney’

The unprecedented California budget crisis has now resulted in the San Diego Superior Court closing every third Wednesday of the month, effective September 1, 2009. Court clerks have already cut-back to a shorter work day, and the court closing will put further strain on a majority of criminal court defendants and defense lawyers. The budget mess has also forced the California Legislature to consider a number of proposals to allow for early release of prisoners.  The early release will lighten the budget load as the higher cost of housing prison inmates will be eased by the lower cost of parole supervision. This proposal, of course, does not apply to inmates in county jails serving a probationary sentence.  There are a few county sheriffs, however, that take a creative approach to the meaning of “custody” by allowing their county inmates to “serve custody” in ways ranging from electronic surveillance to work release. In this way their budget load is lightened.

The budget mess is clearly both helping and hurting criminal defendants.

No CommentsTags: attorney, budget crisis, California Legislature, county jail, court clerks, criminal courts, criminal defendant, criminal lawyer, custody, defense attorney, early release, electronic surveillance, inmate, parole, prisoner, prisoner release, probation, san diego, sentence, sheriff, superior court, work releaseRead More

The United States Supreme Court in on the verge of abolishing the exclusionary rule prohibiting the use of unlawfully obtained evidence against a criminal defendant. The recent case of Herring v. United States portends a court trend in favor of illegal search and seizure at the expense of the integrity of the entire criminal justice system. This is a dangerous and unnecessary trend. Law enforcement has long taken as their own the maxim “give them an inch, they take a mile.” For example, police already have such a long list of permissible justifications for traffic stops, car searches, home invasions and general rummaging through your belongings that they can always come up with an after-the-fact justification hiding the real basis for their conduct, and thereby making illegal conduct extremely difficult to uncover even for a very experienced criminal defense attorney. We see this type of conduct, for example, in “wall stop” cases, where the police hide illegal conduct by masking their activity behind a second, outer layer of law enforcement. Nonetheless, law enforcement is deterred to the extent that they may have to justify their activity in a court against the exacting scrutiny of an aggressive criminal defense lawyer; there is really no other effective deterrent to the police from invading your privacy as they see fit.  The Herring decision threatens to erode accountability for police misconduct.

Perhaps the new composition of the Supreme Court, with Justice Sotomeyer, will resist repeal of the exclusionary rule. Time will tell.

No CommentsTags: agressive criminal defense lawyer, car searches, criminal justice system, defense attorney, exclusionary rule, Herring v. United States, home invasions, illegal search and seizure, Justice Sotomeyer, law enforcement, police misconduct, privacy, traffice stops, U.S. Supreme Court, wall stopsRead More