It’s Just a Misdemeanor

In the 1970’s I worked defending misdemeanor clients in Hennepin County Municipal Court. The felony lawyers in the office were like gods. Sometimes one of them would say “it’s just a misdemeanor.” This would make me grind my teeth, but […]

Getting Democracy Back into the Juryroom

A JUROR’S TRIAL TASK has never been easy and courts are responding with innovations. The 2005 ABA jury standards, juror notebooks, juror witness-questioning, and pre-deliberation discussions are being adopted nationally. The time has never been better for innovative thinking about a juror’s […]

Scottsboro Boys Pardoned – only 80 years later

So the Scottsboro Boys were pardoned by the State of Alabama. According to an article in the New York Times on November 21, 2013, the “Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously during a hearing in Montgomery to issue the […]

Get Mad and Get Even – Prosecutorial Misconduct

"We now hold that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of […]

Biggest Legal Stories of 2013

Andrew Cohen has written on Politico naming the 10 biggest legal stories of 2013.  Coming in at Story #4 is the overcrowding of American prisons.  "Not only are U.S. prisons terribly overcrowded—about one in every 35 adults is either in prison, on probation […]

Geeks and Freaks – There’s an App for That

Admit it – if you’re reading this page you were probably a bit of a freak (or whatever they called it during your generation) in high school. You might have been more outspoken than your friends, maybe thought a little […]

Had Any Interesting Cases Lately?

In fact, I have plenty of interesting cases, yet every time I’m asked about “interesting cases,” I freeze. Will the person who asked find a mentally ill drug addict as sympathetic as I do? Can I even talk about mental […]

What a waste

All I know about Anthony Thornton is what I read in the September 26, 2013 opinion by the Kentucky Supreme Court. I know from that reading that he had two prior felonies at the time that he found himself in the Metro […]

The headline screamed: “Arrest Made In Local Indigent Defense Fraud Investigation.”

The full article and video can be found here It seems that the McLennan County, Texas Sheriff's Department recently hired a deputy to focus on fraud in the public defender program. McLennan County is the home of Baylor University, located in […]

Policymakers take smarter approach to crime, reducing state correctional costs while the crime rate is falling

From 1985 – 2012, there have been unambiguous divergent trends between the incarceration rates and crime rates: US total crime rate down 37.7|PERCENT| US violent crime rate down 30.5|PERCENT| US Incarceration rate up 139|PERCENT| During this period, many believe that […]