Crime & Consequences

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For the term "confrontation".

Labs, Experts, and the Confrontation Clause

by · Jan 10, 2024 4:29 pm

The U.S. Supreme Court today heard oral argument in the case of Smith v. Arizona, No. 22-899. Docket is here. Audio and transcript are here.

It has been 20 years since the high court overhauled its approach to the Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses in Crawford v. Washington, and this is the fourth time it has addressed the application of that approach to expert testimony about lab results without the technician who did the tests being present and available for cross-examination.

Under Federal Rule of Evidence 703 and equivalent rules adopted in most states, an expert can give an opinion based on facts that would not otherwise be admissible in evidence if they are facts that would normally be relied on by experts in that field. How that squares with the Sixth Amendment has not yet been made clear. Continue reading . . .

No Crim. Law Decisions from SCOTUS Today

by · Jun 6, 2024 7:30 am

The U.S. Supreme Court issued three decisions today. All are in civil cases with no law enforcement connection. The next regularly scheduled opinion day is next Thursday, June 13, but in June the high court sometimes releases opinion on other days as well.

We are still waiting on important decisions on crime labs and expert witness testimony and local governments’ ability to cope with illegal encampments. Stay tuned.

SCOTUS Rejects BLM Organizer’s Bid to Avoid Liability for Cop’s Injury

by · Apr 15, 2024 3:58 pm

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal of a Black Lives Matter (BLM) organizer whom a lower court held liable for a police officer’s injury during a protest he organized.  Brianna Herlihy of Fox News reports that during a 2016 BLM protest in Baton Rouge, initiated by organizer Deray Mckesson, a police officer was hit in the head by a rock thrown by a protester, knocking out his teeth and leaving him with a brain injury.  The officer sued Mckesson who organized the event that resulted in his injury.

Continue reading . . .

U.S. Supreme Court Takes Up Two Criminal Cases for the New Term

by · Sep 29, 2023 8:11 am

This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a short orders list taking up twelve cases, two of them criminal, for briefing and argument in the new term. The term begins Monday. Glossip v. Oklahoma, No. 22-7466, in which CJLF co-authored an amicus brief on behalf of the victim’s family and the Oklahoma DA’s Association, is not on the list.

The list is part 1 of the results of the “long conference” last Tuesday. If the Court follows its usual pattern, part 2 will be a long list of denials on Monday. Not all of the cases considered at the conference will be on either list, though. Some will be “relisted” for a second look at a later conference.

Here are the criminal cases taken up: Continue reading . . .

Mental Health Response: The Devil Is In the Details

by · Aug 25, 2023 10:51 am

Finding the best way to respond to mental health crises is a continuing search. One thing we can be sure of is that proposals under the “defund the police” banner are bad ideas. See Michael Rushford’s post yesterday. We need more police, not fewer, regardless of what we do about mental health calls. Beyond that, alternatives need to be well thought out and adequately funded and supported. Too often, they are not. Scott Calvert and Julie Wernau have this report in the WSJ, titled “‘No Hose, No Gun’: Police Alternatives for Mental-Health Crises Fall Short: New units designed to avoid violent and often deadly encounters lack both funding and institutional support.”

Dispatchers at the 911 center in Mesa, Ariz., have three levers to pull: fire/medical, police or mental health. The last one is a relatively new addition, adopted by dozens of police departments around the country and aimed at avoiding violent and often deadly confrontations between police officers and the mentally ill.

“No hose, no gun,” said Mayor John Giles. “Just somebody with a clipboard and an argyle sweater who wants to ask how your day is going.”

Now there’s a disaster waiting to happen, if the person is so far gone as to be a danger to himself or others. Continue reading . . .

The Co-Defendant Confession Conundrum

by · Jun 23, 2023 2:53 pm

Criminal defendants are constitutionally entitled to confront the witnesses against them, a right that places a limit on the admission of out-of-court statements in addition to the general, exception-riddled rule of evidence against hearsay. But witnesses, for this purpose, do not include the defendant himself. So what do we do in a joint trial when a statement of one defendant incriminates them both? The Supreme Court sallied forth “once more unto the breach, dear friends” today in Samia v. United States, No. 22-196. Here is the holding from the syllabus:

Held: The Confrontation Clause was not violated by the admission of a nontestifying codefendant’s confession that did not directly inculpate the defendant and was subject to a proper limiting instruction. Continue reading . . .

Unsound statistical analysis misrepresents racial profiling in California police stop data

by · Jan 30, 2023 1:53 pm

Findings from the California’s Racial & Identity Profiling Advisory (RIPA) Board’s Annual Report released earlier this month have sparked controversy after the results revealed that nonwhites are dispropotionately represented in police stops. The report also claimed that, of those stopped, nonwhites were searched more frequently, arrested more frequently, and more frequently engaged in physical confrontations with police officers. This led many people to conclude that the police are in fact, racist. However, it’s important to note that the practice of policing is far more complicated than what can be captured in datasets. While these data appear straightforward, studying racial bias is complicated.

There are myriad contextual factors at play that affect officer decisionmaking and police-citizen interactions, such that it is nearly impossible to attribute racial disparities solely to any one cause. Unfortunately, contextual factors are often not easily measured, or they might be ignored on the basis that these details are “less important.” But ignoring these key details leaves us with an incomplete understanding of the dynamics influencing these police encounters. So when it comes to the RIPA Board’s report, the findings seem straightforward, but a closer look shows some holes in the methodology that likely undermine the validity of the findings. To this end, the Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC) conducted a critical analysis of the report that highlighted numerous problems with the RIPA data and the methodology used in the report. In this post, I will summarize the key issues raised by the PORAC.

Continue reading . . .

Co-Defendant Statements and Joint Trials

by · 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 . . .