In recent news, an Illinois man, Joshua Spudich, pled guilty to aggravated driving under the influence and was sentenced to 11 years in prison by Kane County Judge Susan Clancy Boles. In his system, he had a mixture of five different drugs when he got behind the wheel. He then…
This past week the New Jersey Supreme Court has reversed itself from its prior ruling imposing greater restrictions on law enforcement conducting searches of automobiles. In its 5-2 decision, the Supreme Court relaxed this prior precedent. Under the prior decision, authorities could conduct warrantless searches if “exigent circumstances” existed. An…
On September 2015, prosecutors in Monroe County, Pennsylvania released the gruesome details of a college hazing of a Baruch college student. The release of the grand jury transcript reveals a pledge member, Chun Hsien Deng, of the Baruch’s Delta Psi chapter, an Asian American cultural fraternity, was made to wear…
On September 8, 2015, Santa Clara California sheriff’s officers arrested a man, Jose Salazar, for riding his bicycle without a functioning headlight. In effectuating the arrest, officers allegedly slammed Salazar to the ground and then kneed and kicked him. Salazar suffered a broken elbow and forearm along with other injuries…
Judge Joe Brown, reality TV Judge, whose show aired from 1998 to 2013 was recently released after serving a 5 day jail sentence in Tennessee. The sentence stemmed from a courtroom incident in March 2014 in which Brown, now a lawyer in private practice, was representing a client in a…
On August 28, 2015, a New Hampshire jury convicted Owen Labrie, a former prep school student at the prestigious Saint Paul’s preparatory high school, of one felony charge and several misdemeanor sexual assault and child endangerment charges against a 15 year old victim who was a freshman at that school…
Jared Fogle, formerly Subway’s public spokesman, pled guilty this past week in federal court to multiple counts of child porn charges. This includes engaging in sex with minors on multiple occasions. In exchange for his plea deal the prosecutor has agreed not recommend more than 12 and one-half years in…
After 17 years of incarceration and numerous filings and litigation with the New Jersey appellate courts that Rodney Roberts receive the answer he sought for so many years on post-conviction relief: not guilty, conviction vacated. This was a long journey, fraught with both set-backs and victories that led to the ultimate…
The shocking and horrific acts of terrorism committed by convicted defendant, Dzhkohar Tsarnaev, in the Boston Marathon bombing have revived discussions of the applicability of the death penalty in Massachusetts. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and New England has always been at the forefront of great legal scholarship, has been home to some of…