The Seventh Circuit finally ruled in that case and found that the controversial law “likely violates the First Amendment’s free-speech and free-press guarantees.” The appeals court also barred Cook County prosecutors from enforcing that law.

The Chicago Tribune reports:

The law “restricts far more speech than necessary to protect legitimate privacy interests,” wrote Judge Diane S. Sykes, who was joined in the decision by Judge David F. Hamilton. Judge Richard A. Posner dissented.

The ruling stated that Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez staked out “an extreme position” in her support of the law.

“She contends that openly recording what police officers say while performing their duties in traditional public (places) — streets, sidewalks, plazas and parks — is wholly unprotected by the First Amendment,” according to the ruling, which calls the stance “an extraordinary argument.”

The eavesdropping law makes it a felony to make an audio recording of any conversation without the consent of all parties being recorded. The law carries a sentence of up to 15 years if a police officer is recorded without their knowledge.

Last summer the Boston-based First Circuit ruled that citizens have a constitutionally protected right to videotape police officers who are making an arrest.

If you are in need of criminal defense lawyer in California, please contact the Fresno based law firm of Hammerschmidt Broughton Law Corporation.  Our attorneys can be reached at (559) 772-4614. We are also on the Web at www.hbcriminaldefense.com.

An en banc panel of the First Circuit has now ruled that Governor Chafee must hand over the inmate to federal authorities to face trial.

“Were Pleau and Governor Chafee to prevail, Pleau could be permanently immune from federal prosecution,’’ wrote Chief Judge Michael Boudin in the appeals court’s opinion (PDF). “He is currently serving an 18-year term in Rhode Island prison and, if the writ were denied, might agree to a state sentence of life in Rhode Island for the robbery and murder. Even if Pleau served only his current 18-year term, needed witnesses for federal prosecution could be unavailable two decades from now. Instead of a place of confinement, the state prison would become refuge against federal charges.’’

“Today’s ruling by the First Circuit Court of Appeals affirms our position from the outset, that is, that the governor does not have the right to prevent a defendant properly charged by a federal grand jury from appearing in federal court to face federal charges,’’ said U.S. Attorney Peter F. Neronha in a statement.

Governor Chafee issued a statement, calling the ruling a “close vote.”

“Given the divided panel, the considerable states’ rights issues involved, and the fact that a human life could be at stake, we will carefully evaluate all of our options,” said Chafee.

If you are in need of criminal defense lawyer in California, please contact the Fresno based law firm of Hammerschmidt Broughton Law Corporation.  Our attorneys can be reached at (559) 772-4614. We are also on the Web at www.hbcriminaldefense.com.

The San Jose Mercury News reports:

The revelation that a prosecutor was able to order sheriff’s deputies to secretly and illegally record a privileged conversation raised concerns throughout the county’s defense attorney community about whether other conversations have been recorded illegally.

“This incident has placed the Public Defender’s Office on red alert,” said Diane Bellas, the county’s public defender. “It is a felony to record the conversation between an inmate and her attorney or others who are presumed to maintain confidentiality on the inmate’s behalf.”

“Effective representation under these conditions is not just difficult, it is impossible,” Bellas added.

Inmates’ conversations with visiting family members and friends can be recorded by the county’s two jails. Inmates are made aware of such recording ability via posted sign as well as by a recording played before a call is made from the jail.

However, while prosecutors routinely use such jailhouse recordings as evidence against defendants during trials, jails are not permitted to record conversations between an inmate and their counsel, or with anyone representing their counsel, such as a private investigator or hired expert.

“A prosecutor’s intrusion into a defense preparation in this way severely undermines the right to counsel and the ability of a defendant to investigate a case,” said Charles Weisselberg, a professor of law at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Law School. “It’s pretty egregious and striking.”

Jo Ann Kingston, the inmate’s defense attorney, called for independent investigation into London’s conduct as well as the conduct of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office for illegally recording her client’s privileged conversations.

“It’s so blatantly illegal it’s beyond the pale,” Kingston said. “I feel strongly that there should be an independent investigation done.”

District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, who immediately suspended London, made it clear that she takes the matter very seriously.

“Any actions that impinge on a defendant’s rights will never be tolerated by this office,” O’Malley said in a statement. “I want to state loud and clear that I do not believe nor do I want the actions of a few to be representative of the ethical standards that each of us practice as members of this office.”

If you are in need of criminal defense lawyer in California, please contact the Fresno based law firm of Hammerschmidt Broughton Law Corporation.  Our attorneys can be reached at (559) 772-4614. We are also on the Web at www.hbcriminaldefense.com.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana was recused from the case because Conour was previously married to a current employee of the office.

In a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois, which was assigned to prosecute the case, stated that the complaint against Conour alleges that he “engaged in a scheme to defraud his clients from December 2000 to March 2012, using newly obtained settlement funds to pay old settlements and debts. The affidavit alleges that Conour kept a majority of his clients’ settlement proceeds for his own use and benefit and that the full amount of client settlements were not deposited into client ‘trust’ accounts. Instead, Conour allegedly funded the trusts on a yearly basis with funds only sufficient to enable the client to receive monthly payments for a year.”

The complaint’s allegation describes an instance in which Conour failed to inform a client that he had received settlement monies on the client’s behalf, and that the client never received the proceeds. Instead, it is alleged Conour used the settlement funds for his own personal use.

If convicted of the federal wire fraud charge, Conour could face a maximum of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

If you are in need of criminal defense lawyer in California, please contact the Fresno based law firm of Hammerschmidt Broughton Law Corporation.  Our attorneys can be reached at (559) 772-4614. We are also on the Web at www.hbcriminaldefense.com.

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, “Superior Court Judge Joan Weber ruled that the defendants in the case were denied a representative jury when prosecutors challenged the selection of a gay man to be on the panel. She said she found the actions of the San Diego City Attorney’s Office ‘shocking.’”

Prosecutors, who have appealed Judge Weber’s ruling, claim that the potential juror’s sexuality was not at issue, but that because he had indicated on a questionnaire that he had protested in supported of gay rights issues in the past, they determined he would not be a suitable juror for the case.

Attorneys for the defendants say prosecutors had intentionally excluded gay citizens from the jury pool. The defense attorneys further raised motions after prosecutors challenged the selection of two potential jurors who had indicated they were gay.

“There has been a fundamental violation of a constitutional right to a jury trial by my client’s peers,” said Todd Moore, who represents one of the defendants.

Dan Greene, an attorney for another of the defendants, said that while it’s common for defense attorneys to file motions of this nature, it’s extremely unusual for a judge to grant the motions.

“This was something that had to be done,” Greene said.

If you are in need of criminal defense lawyer in California, please contact the Fresno based law firm of Hammerschmidt Broughton Law Corporation.  Our attorneys can be reached at (559) 772-4614. We are also on the Web at www.hbcriminaldefense.com.

“These scams are probably one of the largest cost drivers involving workers compensation fraud,” said Donald Marshall, chairman of the state Fraud Assessment Commission. “Any time a provider or a person bills the workers compensation system in excess of what should be paid, then it impacts every employer in California because the impacts their rates.”

If convicted, both individuals could face up to 13 years in prison, $500,000 fine per count, and would be required to pay full restitution.

If you are in need of criminal defense lawyer in California, please contact the Fresno based law firm of Hammerschmidt Broughton Law Corporation.  Our attorneys can be reached at (559) 772-4614. We are also on the Web at www.hbcriminaldefense.com.

At the trial in the prison chapel, Lilly was convicted and sentenced to six years imprisonment. The appeals court reversed the conviction and sentence, and ordered a new trial.

Melinda Fletcher, an attorney with the Special Prosecution Unit who argued the state’s case, said prisoner cases have been held inside the prison for years because the county courthouse doesn’t have the capacity to hold many prisoners awaiting proceedings. “When they have court in the prisoner cases and they’ve got six or 12 prisoners and they’ve got no place to hold them,” said Fletcher. “What they have done in the past is the prisoners have sat in a bus and the courthouse is surrounded by armed guards. And they’d take them in and out. The courthouse sits literally in the middle of town. The citizens became quite alarmed when they would come into town and there were armed guards everywhere.’”

A spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said that, as a result of this case, the prison chapel will no longer be used for hearing prisoner cases.

If you are in need of criminal defense lawyer in California, please contact the Fresno based law firm of Hammerschmidt Broughton Law Corporation.  Our attorneys can be reached at (559) 772-4614. We are also on the Web at www.hbcriminaldefense.com.

At issue is a decision by the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which dismissed Wood’s 2008 habeas petition as untimely, holding that he filed it after the statutory one year filing deadline which ended for him in April 1997. However, in the lower district court the State had deliberately waived its right to argue on the timeliness of the petition. This fact was crucial in the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“[W]e hold that the Tenth Circuit abused its discretion when it dismissed Wood’s petition as untimely,” said Justice Ruther Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the opinion (PDF) for the high court. “In the District Court, the State was well aware of the statute of limitations defense available to it and of the arguments that could be made in support of the defense. [. . .] Yet the State twice informed the District Court that it ‘will not challenge, but [is] not conceding’ the timeliness of Wood’s petition.  [. . .] Essentially, the District Court asked the State: Will you oppose the petition on statute of limitations grounds? The State answered: Such a challenge would be supportable, but we won’t make the challenge here.”

While the Supreme Court recognized that “Courts of appeals . . . have the authority — though not the obligation — to raise a forfeited timeliness defense on their own initiative in exceptional cases,” the Tenth Circuit should have followed the district court’s lead in choosing to refrain from “interposing a timeliness ‘challenge’” to Wood’s petition.

If you are in need of criminal defense lawyer in California, please contact the Fresno based law firm of Hammerschmidt Broughton Law Corporation.  Our attorneys can be reached at (559) 772-4614. We are also on the Web at www.hbcriminaldefense.com.

Last year a study authored by Ninth U.S. Circuit Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Loyola Law School professor Paula M. Mitchell revealed that “California taxpayers have spent more than $4 billion on the death penalty since it was reinstated in 1978. It represents roughly $308 million for each of the 13 executions carried out since.” The study further revealed that the death penalty in California costs $183 million more to administer than life without possibility of parole. The study also forecasted that the cost of maintaining the death penalty will rise to $9 billion by 2030.

“Our system is broken, expensive and it always will carry the grave risk of a mistake,” said Jeanne Woodford, the former warden of San Quentin who is now an anti-death penalty advocate and an official supporter of the measure.

Joining Woodford in support of the measure are: “Ron Briggs, who ran the 1978 campaign for a successful ballot initiative that expanded the reach of California’s death penalty; Donald J. Heller, an ex-prosecutor who wrote the 1978 initiative; […] and former L.A. County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, who said his experience as D.A. helped change his mind about the fairness of the system.”

If you are in need of criminal defense lawyer in California, please contact the Fresno based law firm of Hammerschmidt Broughton Law Corporation.  Our attorneys can be reached at (559) 772-4614. We are also on the Web at www.hbcriminaldefense.com.

Law.com reports:

U.S. District Judge Mark Bennett found that Drug Enforcement Administration investigator David Jensen “acted in bad faith” when he failed to mention the repeated GPS monitoring of vehicles in reports detailing the investigation of Angel Amaya of Sioux City.

The judge scoffed at Jensen’s claim that he was trying to protect investigative techniques, noting that the technology is widely known. Bennett said DEA policy requires agents to indicate such tracking in reports to avoid suggestions that evidence was concealed, “the precise situation that arose here!”

Bennett blamed the concealment for causing a mistrial in the case in December.

In his reports Jensen used the phrase “surveillance showed” instead of specifying the GPS tracking. He claimed that he kept the details of the GPS tracking out of his report because he felt he was “safeguarding a sensitive investigative technology” and believed he was abiding by DEA policy.

The judge rejected Jensen’s argument and found that the he made “an intentional, conscious decision to withhold this information.”

A hearing is scheduled for April 30 to determine what sanctions, if any, will be imposed upon prosecutors. Among the possible sanctions that the judge could impose include taking away the prosecution’s closing argument or limiting their ability to choose jurors during the upcoming retrial.

If you are in need of criminal defense lawyer in California, please contact the Fresno based law firm of Hammerschmidt Broughton Law Corporation.  Our attorneys can be reached at (559) 772-4614. We are also on the Web at www.hbcriminaldefense.com.