» Entries tagged with "suppress"

Then Versus Now

My post this morning at Fault Lines is about cops speeding. Someone who goes by LawDog put up this quote as a comment: “Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself. Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). Like a lot of snippets from old Supreme Court cases, it’s … Read entire article »

Filed under: SCOTUS Cases

Somebody Must Have Read Catch-22

A member of the East Valley DUI Stasi Task Force apparently decided to park himself outside of a local bar one night last year. According to at least one witness, the cop then proceeded to stop one person after another for neither a traffic violation nor on reasonable suspicion of impaired driving. He was basically a one-man DUI checkpoint at the exit of a local bar, they said. My client, who was stopped that night by that officer at that location for a traffic violation he denies committing, wanted to prove what the officer was doing. In most of my DUI cases, I find that clients don’t complain much about the stop. On the other hand, I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered a stop made by an officer … Read entire article »

Filed under: DUI, Police

Justice v. Efficiency

The criminal justice system is broken. Many judges are little more than prosecutors in robes. The courts fuss and fume when you need an extra week or two to make a decision. They push you into whatever plea comes your way. In Phoenix City Court, you usually spend the pretrial stages in front of a single judge. After you decide to fight it, though, they shuffle you elsewhere. The order says you’ll be going to trial in thirty days, but the court struggles to get you in front of a judge in sixty. You won’t know which judge you’ll get for fifty-nine. When everyone assumed you’d plead, they rushed you to a decision. After they realized you were going to fight, they stretched it out as long … Read entire article »

Filed under: Courts, DUI, Trial

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