An interesting legal issue came up in Municipal Court. When city prosecutors accuse someone of committing a crime, they have to give them a document called a “criminal complaint.” It’s supposed to tell them what law they broke and how they broke it. Due to the high volume of cases churning through the system, however,… Read More
Defense Community abuzz
The defense community is abuzz with a major privacy case that just got handed down by the Oregon Supreme Court. In State v. Lien, 364 Or. 750 (2019), police officers discovered incriminating drug-related evidence in defendants’ garbage by having a sanitation company manager specially pick up defendants’ garbage bin on trash pick-up day, transport it… Read More
Representing Unpopular Defendants
My career as a defense attorney specializing in sex crimes started in 2004, during my first “night” arraignment shift at the old Criminal Court building on Schermerhorn Street in downtown Brooklyn. Two details of that night are fixed in my memory. First, the rats. Second, the pile of sex offense cases, each marked with a… Read More
How long after smoking weed do I have to wait before I can drive?
Short answer: we’re not sure. Philadelphia DA’s Office (run by a former defense attorney) won’t prosecute marijuana users for DUI unless they are actually stoned (“Krasner said his office will not prosecute cannabis DUIs ‘unless people show active — I repeat, active — psychoactive amounts of cannabis in their system that rise to a level… Read More
COMPELLED DECRYPTION
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ Fourth Amendment Center released a helpful new primer for defense lawyers on the topic of compelled decryption, which is when law enforcement seeks to require an individual to unlock and decrypt their personal electronic devices. “More and more such cases are finding their way into the courts,” they… Read More