By Mani Dabiri | Published January 26, 2018 | Posted in Civil Business Litigation and Investigations, Federal and State Criminal Defense, Government Subpoenas and Investigations, Post-Conviction Defense and Appeals, White-Collar and Regulatory Defense | Tagged Tags: cannabis, DUIs, expungements, juryselection, laborandemployment, pleabargaining, rehabilitation, rulesofevidence, sexoffenseregistration, warondrugs |
The New Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Now that Neil Gorsuch has been sworn in, we’ll begin to find out how he wields the law as a member of the highest court in the land. Some say he’s a natural successor to the Justice whose seat he fills, Antonin Scalia. Here is a profile of Mr. Gorsuch that compares his views to those of Mr. Scalia Read More
Read MoreThrowing Pitches in a Civil Case
Make that Pitchess with an extra s—as in Pitchess motions. In California, they’re how you ask a court to order the production of a police officer’s personnel file in litigation. We’ve written about them in the context of criminal cases, but the procedure’s the same in civil cases, as a court of appeal recently explained in an employment case. A Read More
Read MoreMurder, Manslaughter, or Self-Defense?
True story. One homeless man killed another in a street fight, and they charged him with first-degree murder. He was convicted at trial, but last week, the California Court of Appeal reversed that conviction and sent the case back. Why? The defendant had pleaded self-defense, but the trial court didn’t let him present expert testimony that homeless Read More
Read MoreCalifornia Supreme Court Revisits the Law of Access to Police Personnel Files
Police officers are human beings who are capable of making mistakes or behaving badly, just like anyone else, and if they testify in a criminal case, their credibility is always at issue, just like any other witness. So what do you do if you believe that an officer previously lied, behaved violently, used excessive force, or otherwise acted in ways that Read More
Read MoreA Riff on California Grand Juries
The Grand-Jury Clause of the Fifth Amendment applies only to the federal government, not the states, but even so, about half of the states choose to require a grand-jury indictment in order to prosecute a felony case. In other states, like California, prosecutors have the discretion to decide whether to proceed by indictment or by complaint, preliminary hearing, Read More
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