Category: Blog

          In May 2004, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer, as a material witness in an investigation of terrorist attacks on commuter trains in Madrid, Spain.  The FBI Laboratory maintained that Mayfield's fingerprint was found on a bag of detonators in Madrid that was connected to the attacks.  Two weeks after […]

          In the case of United States v. Francis, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit stated that the defense of entrapment consists of the following two elements:             1.  Government inducement of the crime; and             2.  A lack of predisposition on the part of the defendant to commit […]

On January 25, 2009, I posted an article on this website entitled "Judge Throws Out More Than 100 Breathalyzer Tests."  The article discussed how two different appellate courts affirmed the rulings of Manatee County Court Judge Doug Henderson that evidence of breath alcohol tests in more than 100 drunk-driving cases could not be presented at […]

          Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Herring v. United States in which the issue presented was whether evidence found during a search incident to arrest must be excluded in a later prosecution when that evidence was seized by the police in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.   […]

          The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that searches conducted by the police without first obtaining a search warrant are unlawful unless those searches fall within certain recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement contained in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  One of those exceptions permits police officers to conduct warrantless searches during or […]

When a person is arrested for a State crime in Florida, he is typically taken before a judge within twenty-four hours of his arrest so that the judge can set the conditions of his release from jail.  That hearing is called a first appearance, and it is governed by Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.130. Sometimes, […]

          In the case of Wiles v. Bagley, Boyce F. Martin, Jr., a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, stated that "[c]apital punishment in this country remains 'arbitrary, biased, and so fundamentally flawed at its very core that it is beyond repair."           In this particular case, Mark Wiles […]

In the case of Jacobson v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Mr. Jacobson after finding that agents of the federal government entrapped him when they overstepped the line between trapping an unwary innocent person and trapping an unwary criminal. In 1984, Mr. Jacobson ordered two magazines and a brochure from […]

         In the case of Jacobson v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Mr. Jacobson after finding that agents of the federal government entrapped him when they overstepped the line between trapping an unwary innocent person and trapping an unwary criminal.          In 1984, Mr. Jacobson ordered two magazines and a brochure from […]

          In the two cases of United States of America vs. Powers and United States of America vs. Buckius, both Mr. Powers and Mr. Buckius were indicted for failing to register as sex offenders as required by the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (otherwise known as "SORNA").  After being indicted, both defendants filed motions […]