Important Decision on Interrogation of Suspects with Low IQs – Providing Guidance to Courts and Counsel
by Jill Paperno, Esq. author of Representing the Accused: A Practical Guide to Criminal Defense All too often, we represent defendants who are intellectually limited, due to genetic or birth defects, lead poisoning, traumatic brain injury or other causes. We struggle to persuade prosecutors and judges that these disabilities should be considered during plea negotiations. But sometimes we fail to recognize the effect that mental disabilities may have on a defendant’s ability to understand Miranda warnings,...
read moreAs we wait . . .
The result of the Ferguson, MO grand jury investigation into the shooting death of Michael Brown is scheduled to be announced any time now (authorities indicated that the results could be made public as early as yesterday). No one but the grand jury knows what that result will be. That would not be the case, were the situation reversed. If a black man in Ferguson had shot a police officer (who, unlike Michael Brown,...
read morePhysical Helplessness, Mental Incapacity and the Difference Between the Two
by Jill Paperno, Esq. Author of Representing the Accused: A Practical Guide to Criminal Defense Sometimes our clients are charged with engaging in sexual contact with complainants who are old enough to consent, but claim that based on their mental or physical condition, they could not. The penal law provides for prosecution if a complainant is physically helpless ormentally incapacitated. The distinction between a complainant who is physically helpless and one who is mentally incapacitated. is...
read moreEthan Nadelmann examines the failure of the war on drugs
Here’s a provocative TED Talk, published today, by Ethan Nadelmann, former professor at Princeton University and founding executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, “the largest and most influential organization promoting drug policies grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights.” Mr. Nadelmann contends that the drug laws have more to do with the sublimation and control of disenfranchised groups of our society than the control of drug use and sale, contending, among other things, that...
read moreThe Second Circuit revisits the concept of curtilage for Fourth Amendment purposes
The recent Second Circuit decision in Harris v. O’Hare, 2014 WL 5471749 [2nd Cir. 2014], decided on October 30th, addresses and expands upon the concept of curtilage, a topic infrequently addressed in judicial opinions (common though it may be in dinner party and happy hour conversation). The Court’s examination of curtilage was important in Harris (and may be useful in other cases) because it delineates an area in which an individual enjoys an expectation...
read moreWhy Innocent People Plead Guilty
Roughly 10% of those defendants who were later exonerated by DNA evidence through the efforts of the Innocence Project pled guilty to a crime they did not commit. What would lead a person to do that? Hon. Jed S. Rakoff, United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York examines that question in the above-entitled thought-provoking article (found here) in the November 20, 2014 issue of the New York Review of...
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