» Entries tagged with "evidence"
New Mimesis Blog Posts
I’m still busy writing posts over at Mimesis Law. Here’s everything from the last month or so: Yeah, Kelvin Melton is probably a bad guy, but let’s quit wasting everyone’s time and money on him. Don’t tape your dog’s mouth shut. People will freak out. Major news outlets suck at writing about criminal cases. The state of the criminal justice system in this country is such that making things suck a tad bit less for fifteen defendants in Philly is newsworthy. That one incompetent vigilante at Home Depot apparently didn’t learn anything. Mexican rock throwers occasionally get killed by border patrol agents, and they may or may not be able to sue. People in power continue to be idiots when comes to alcohol. Homeless guy builds sweet home, authorities destroy it. Thanks, Obama! And today’s: The Sheboygan County sheriff is a … Read entire article »
Filed under: Uncategorized
A DUI Victory! (Mostly…Well A Little, At Least)
In 2012, I discussed the fact there were real problems with the scientific evidence offered by the state in criminal cases and that many courts not only let the questionable evidence come in, but even prevented the defense from bringing up the problems. In 2013, I wrote about the problems with a machine used for blood tests in Scottsdale DUI cases specifically, and about how a superior court judge actually ruled that blood test results in several cases were inadmissible pursuant to Rule 702 of the Arizona Rules of Evidence because the scientific principles and methods weren’t being applied reliably because of their equipment problems. Always the skeptic (and usually right), I was less than optimistic about what the appellate court would do. In 2014, I was (sadly) proven right, and … Read entire article »
Filed under: DUI
Prosecutor of the Year
A wonderful article from the Arizona Republic discusses prosecutorial misconduct in capital cases in Arizona. It’s worth reading in its entirety, but one little part in particular knocked the wind right out of me. It discusses Noel Levy, a former “Arizona Prosecutor of the Year” who seems to have done his best over the years to put people in prison or on death row using every sketchy prosecutor tactic in the prosecution playbook. One particular case involved Ray Krone, who was sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit. Krone was convicted and sentenced to die based on a videotape about bite mark evidence that the defense didn’t have time to review. At Krone’s second trial, Levy got another conviction but only a life sentence. Krone, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Arizona Cases, Death Penalty, Prosecutors
Scottsdale’s DUI Problems
Over a year ago, I complained about courts making the defense prove that the state’s deeply flawed scientific evidence, which you can show for a fact was not just flawed but verifiably false in similar situations, was in fact flawed in your client’s case before you are allowed to tell the jury about issues that came up in other situations. The problem is finally coming to the surface. Imagine a situation where a particular gas chromatograph mixes up names and reference numbers of vials of blood being tested for blood alcohol content in DUI cases. It also stops running completely during tests and deletes baseline information. The state’s “expert” acknowledges those and numerous other problems, and he admits he has no idea why the problems happened. On … Read entire article »
Filed under: DUI
Being Present
In yoga, the focus is often on being present. It’s about understanding what’s going on but not judging. You should feel what your body is doing as you stay in the moment. Most of us in the legal profession got here not by living in the moment, but through significant forethought and strong will. Those aren’t bad qualities, but they’re only helpful in certain aspects of the practice of law. Drafting a motion is one such aspect. The motion doesn’t really exist in time, as the reader reviews it at his own pace. It’s more like painting a portrait than performing a concert. The reader is going to stroll through the gallery and control his own time when he gets to what you’ve created. He doesn’t have to sit down and … Read entire article »
Filed under: Trial
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