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Politics and the Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States just decided District of Columbia v. Heller, holding that a District of Columbia prohibition on the possession of usable handguns in the home violated the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion, and Justices Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito joined him. Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer were the dissenting Justices. Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Boumediene v. Bush, where it held that aliens designated as enemy combatants and detained at Guantanamo Bay have the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus. Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion, in which Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer joined. The dissenting Justices were Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, and Alito. My understanding of these two cases is limited … Read entire article »
Filed under: SCOTUS Cases
Rules v. Standard Practice
Recently, I amused a judge because I followed the text of a rule of criminal procedure instead of doing what everyone else in the jurisdiction does. He told me I deserved a “gold star,” and I’m not sure how I feel about that. According to the rule, which is very clear, I was responsible for editing a copy of a physicians report within 24 hours of receipt and returning it to the court so it could be made available to the State. Apparently, most attorneys just get the report, redact it at their leisure, and give it to the State a day or so before the hearing. At every step of a case, I tend to look at the governing statue or rule whenever there might be … Read entire article »
Filed under: Practice in General, Procedural Rules, Professionalism
Can you get a DUI in a car that doesn't work?
A case that addressed that question, State v. Larriva, cited out-of-state authority for the proposition that “the inoperability of the vehicle does not preclude a finding of actual physical control,” later concluding “that the operability of the vehicle is only tangentially relevant to the determination of actual physical control.” In Larriva, the defendant was stuck on a curb and couldn’t move his car. However, Larriva was later questioned in State v. Dawley, where the court stated in a footnote that “the facts on which we based our decision in Larriva would support a conviction on a theory of driving as shown by circumstantial evidence, as suggested by the special concurrence in that case, not on a theory of actual physical control.” Dawley was dealing with jury instructions, and … Read entire article »
Filed under: Arizona Cases, DUI
Brown & Little, P.L.C. Blog!
We’ve decided to start a blog where we’ll discuss various issues related to the practice of criminal law in Arizona. It seems like we run into some kind of interesting issue almost every day, and it’s our goal to discuss those issues here. Hopefully we’ll each be able to post frequently, so keep checking back! … Read entire article »
Filed under: Uncategorized
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