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Criminal Justice News This Week (Week of 3-1-2021)

Criminal Justice News This Week (week of 3-01-21)

 

Justices to consider whether "hot pursuit" justifies entering the home without a warrant "At issue in Lange v. California is whether, when police are pursuing someone for a misdemeanor, that is always an 'exigent circumstance' that will allow the officer to follow the suspect into a house without a warrant...Ten different 'friend of the court' briefs were filed in support of Lange, representing a wide range of views – everything from the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to a group of gun owners."

 

Supreme Court to Hear Cases on Abortion Referrals and Immigration "The cases, both challenges to Trump administration initiatives, may become moot if the Biden administration reverses course."

 

Bruce Springsteen’s Drunken-Driving Charges Are Dismissed "A prosecutor said the musician’s blood alcohol level was well below the legal limit. Mr. Springsteen pleaded guilty to drinking in an area where it was barred and was fined $540."

 

DUI Protocol "The drug recognition evaluation protocol, which police officers use to determine whether a driver may be under the influence of drugs other than alcohol, counts as scientific evidence and trial courts should determine the scientific validity of that evidence before admitting it, an appeals court in Alaska ruled."

 

'Stress Upon Stress': Experts Say Lawyers Are Increasingly Vulnerable "Not everyone is convinced, but some experts say the strains of struggling to pay bills can cause a lawyer who had been a straight arrow to run their practice in an imprudent or illegal manner."

 

Study finds cognitive bias in how medical examiners evaluate child deaths “A new study in the Journal of Forensic Sciences suggests the role medical examiners play in the criminal justice system is far more subjective than commonly thought. It also suggests their analysis might be tainted by racial bias.”

 

App trackers secretly sell your location data to the government. App stores won’t stop them. "Google can’t stop trackers in its apps from selling location data to the government. Maybe the government can."

 

How to help someone coming out of the criminal justice system "In 2020, around 2.3 million Americans were in some sort of criminal justice confinement, according to an analysis by advocacy group Prison Policy Initiative. That includes state prisons, local jails, juvenile centers and immigration detention facilities. And according to the Department of Health and Human Services, more than 600,000 people will be released from prison each year. When someone leaves prison, there is a high likelihood they will be either arrested or put back in detention. Non-profits, corrections offices and legal aid groups are trying to lower that high rate of recidivism by mitigating the struggle of adapting to everyday life."

 

 Evidence-based paths toward criminal justice reform "As recent events at the Capitol make clear, criminal legal reform is a moral and civic imperative for the new Biden administration. President Joe Biden ran, in part, on a promise of reducing the United States’ outsized reliance on incarceration, correctional supervision and fines and fees and committed himself to addressing systemic racism in the criminal system. Recent events have only increased the urgency for smart, compassionate criminal legal reforms that are based on empirical evidence, rather than on instinct or past practice."

 

'I Knew I Was Wrong': Discipline for Frustrated Lawyer Who Cursed in Court "Utterance of a profanity led to a presentment for a family law attorney."

 

California doctor attends Zoom court hearing during surgery: ‘I’m in an operating room right now’ "A Sacramento judge delayed a traffic hearing after the defendant continued to perform surgery during the live-streamed meeting."

 

 

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