by Kent Scheidegger · Dec 13, 2022 8:18 am
The U.S. Supreme Court this morning took up a case on the perennial knotty problem of the admissibility of co-defendant statements in joint trials. The case is Samia v. United States, No. 22-196. The out-of-court statement of one defendant is admissible against the defendant who made it, but generally not to incriminate other defendants. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Jan 17, 2022 1:45 pm
At its conference last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court took up three cases related to crime and law enforcement. One raises the question of whether a police officer’s failure to give Miranda warnings creates a civil liability, in addition to making the confession inadmissible in a criminal case. A second involves a challenge to a state’s method of execution, offering an alternative not authorized by state law. A third involves proceedings in federal district court to develop evidence for a habeas corpus petition without regard to whether the evidence could even be considered in deciding the case. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Oct 25, 2021 10:43 am
Is the Federal Death Penalty Act’s evidence provision unconstitutional? Does the defendant have a constitutional right to introduce evidence of marginal probative value outweighed by other considerations, which the statute says the trial judge may exclude?
These are the surprising implications of the defense argument in the Boston Marathon Bomber case, argued in the U.S. Supreme Court October 13. I suppose if you are defending the indefensible you have to argue something. But it is surprising when a lawyer barely mentions the primary ground of the decision she is asking to have affirmed. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Apr 19, 2021 8:00 am
The U.S. Supreme Court today took up a New York case presenting the question of when a defendant “opens the door” to evidence that would otherwise violate the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. Continue reading . . .
by Kym Stapleton · Oct 23, 2020 1:51 pm
On July 31, 1979, a 45-year old mother of four named Dolores Rocha Wulff mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the night with only the clothes she was wearing from her home in Woodland, Yolo County, California. Five weeks later, a torso was discovered by two fishermen 50-miles away in the Benicia Bay. Given the limited scientific technology at the time, the torso was never positively identified. She became known as “Jane Doe 16.”
Immediately after Dolores vanished, the close knit Rocha family searched for her extensively. They knew that she would not have simply walked out of her children’s lives on her own accord. Her husband, Carl Wulff Sr., was looked at as the prime suspect. He was the last one to see her alive and a search of his car produced a bloodstained blanket. Almost five years after she disappeared without a trace, Carl Sr. was charged with her murder. But, his case was subsequently dismissed for a lack of evidence. Carl Sr. died in 2005. Continue reading . . .
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