The Supreme Court’s last 10 decisions of OT 2013, 8 down 2 to go
Last week was a big one at the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices issued eight opinions and only two argued cases remain undecided. The decisions this week covered cell phone searches, abortion clinic...
View ArticleMaine Supreme Court drops a bomb on foreclosure cases
As of July 3, 2014 Maine might be the hardest place in America for a bank to foreclose on a residential mortgage. On that day, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court released an opinion in Bank of America v....
View ArticleFlorida fighting Judge back on the bench, lawyer he hit is out of a job
Some may recall my earlier post about Florida Judge John C. Murphy. He’s the guy who challenged Assistant public defender Andrew Weinstock to a fight for refusing to waive his client’s speedy trial...
View ArticleInteresting items: marijuana search, attempted murder
Here are some of my favorite stories of the past week: Smell of Marijuana is grounds for a search in Maine, not in Massachusetts The Massachusetts High court decided Commonwealth v. Overmyer last week...
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Your Genome is less protected than your iPhone, except in Vermont
Many states have laws mandating DNA collection from people who get arrested. Once analyzed, the arrestee’s DNA profile can be added to a database for use in future investigations. Last term, the U.S....
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Lawyered to death: why California’s death penalty is unconstitutional
In 1995 Ernest Dewayne Jones was sentenced to death in California. He exhausted all his state appeals and lost at every turn. In 2009 Jones applied for federal Habeas Corpus relief claiming that his...
View ArticleSenate considers limiting NSA surveillance & FISA courts
On July 29, 2014, senator Patrick Leahy, introduced the USA Freedom act of 2014. The bill would change the way that the government collects digital surveillance under the Foreign Surveillance...
View ArticleEx-Connecticut mayor who defrauded Maine man loses appeal
Peter DiRosa used to be the mayor of Manchester, Connecticut. Today he’s serving a 57-month federal prison sentence for wire fraud. DiRosa was convicted in Portland’s federal court in 2013 for his role...
View ArticleTeacher charged with “maintaining drug-involved premises,” what’s that?
Noel Thibodeau is a former language teacher accused of allowing his home to be used for drug activity. He was arrested on August 5th and released on bail this monday. Thibodeau is charged with a...
View ArticleSooo…this Ferguson, Missouri sitch got kinda crazy
If you hadn’t noticed already, stuff in Ferguson, Missouri got pretty rugged for a second. The St. Louis suburb was in turmoil after the 8/9/14 police shooting of unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown...
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Ferguson recap 8/19/14, autopsy, tear gas & John Oliver’s take
When I last wrote about the Ferguson Missouri situation, it seemed that the conflict was drawing to a close. Turns out, that was super not what happened. It’s worth considering where we are now and how...
View ArticleIf Michael Brown was the initial aggressor, does it matter?
An account has emerged claiming that Michael Brown was the initial aggressor in the fatal encounter with Ferguson, MO Police Officer Darren Wilson. The account comes from a person identified only as...
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A tour of the guidelines: former VA Governor, Bob McDonnell’s likely sentence
Last week, a federal jury in Virginia returned guilty verdicts against Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen. The two were indicted in January of 2014, just days after Bob McDonnell’s term as Virginia’s...
View ArticleToday’s Pistorius verdict shows differences between South African & U.S. law
The Oscar Pistorius murder trial started in March and today, it’ll be up to the single trial judge to render her verdict. A lot has been said about the possible outcomes and the broader social impact,...
View ArticleSteve Robinson might have committed a felony by recording that conference call
Steve Robinson, a blogger for the conservative “The Maine Wire” might be in trouble. He secretly recorded a conference call between liberal groups planning a reaction to anti-Mike Michaud adds. The...
View ArticleInteresting items: Haitian sex abuse defamation, executing the innocent
Two completely unrelated stories caught my attention today. The first draws a strange connection between a Haitian orphanage, clergy sex abuse and a Maine man with an axe to grind. The second considers...
View ArticlePosse Comitatus? How a military investigation set a child pornographer free
The Posse Comitatus Act is an 1878 federal law that prohibits the military from doing domestic law enforcement. The act doesn’t come up that much and defendants seldom actually win because of it....
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Caius Veiovis: scary looking Mainer gets life on iffy MA murder
Caius Veiovis, FKA Roy Gutfinski Jr. Photo from AP Roy C. Gutfinski Jr. once lived in Augusta Maine and spent 7.5 years in the Maine state prison for aggravated assault. After his release in 2008, he...
View ArticleSupreme Court’s 1st case asks: can cop’s mistake justify a traffic stop?
This term, the U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments on October 6, 2014. The first case, Heien v North Carolina, presents a pretty cool criminal law issue; it considers whether a police...
View ArticleU.S. Supreme Court opens for business: 1st oral argument & new cases granted
Today at 10am the U.S. Supreme Court will hear it’s first oral argument of the 2014 term. The case is North Carolina v. Heien and it asks whether a police officer’s mistaken understanding of the law...
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