Assessing Malingering and Miranda Rights WaiverApril 24 (VA) If you want to get away from the cold and visit a pretty place, you might want to check out this excellent training down in Charlottesville, Virginia. Richard Rogers, whom most of you all know as a leading forensic psychology practitioner and…
Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog
A resource.
Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence (2d ed. 2000), Federal Judicial Center. A third edition is in the works.
Death by causes.
A little off message, but I suppose this item could be squeezed into previous posts about forensics. No longer "death by natural causes": The Associated Press writes, "police and medical examiners who thought a man died of natural causes changed their minds after funeral-home workers found bullet holes in his…
CAAF Judicial Conference.
The full agenda for this year's Judicial Conference is now available on line.
Law enforcement lay and expert testimony, potential for confusion.
United States v. Lopez-Medina, 461 F.3d 724 (6th Cir. 2006). Federal Evidence Review draws attention to this case on the issue of law enforcement testimony. The case involved drugs. In military prosecutions we have similar situations where law enforcement testifies about drugs. The circuit concluded that plain error resulted: “We…
More on Collateral Consequences
Internal Exile: Collateral Consequences of Conviction in Federal Laws and Regulations, A Collaboration of the American Bar Association Commission on Effective Criminal Sanctions and the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, January 2009. The Introduction says: This study collects and describes the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction…
3rd party hearsay in public documents
In a cautionary tale, Prof. Colin Miller, If You Were In The Public Eye: Kentucky Court Finds That Third Party Statements Were Properly Excluded From A Public Report, EvidenceProf Blog, 24 February 2009. Professor Miller draws attention to a Kentucky case which has relevance to Mil. R. Evid. 803(4), the…
Rivera v. Illinois
The oral argument transcript is now available in Rivera v. Illinois.
Huuum, improvidently granted?
United States v. Rivera may not be the case to watch after all if the analysis is correct. Lyle Denniston, Analysis: How many ways to lose a case?, SCOTUSBlog, 23 February 2009. In summary, By the time Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asked a government lawyer which of several ways he…
Victims and witnesses.
In his first public statements since a 2005 double-murder arrest in Iraq, now-acquitted Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez of Rensselaer County said Tuesday he was "very, very innocent" of the slayings — yet expected a guilty verdict. This is reported at Veterans for Common-Sense.org, and is a reprint of: Robert Gavin,…