By Mani Dabiri | Published April 20, 2016 | Posted in Federal and State Criminal Defense, Post-Conviction Defense and Appeals, White-Collar and Regulatory Defense | Tagged Tags: billofrights, dueprocess, pleabargaining, publicdefense, sixthamendment |
The Importance of Public Defense
Many people observed National Public Defense Day on March 18. Yes, there’s a day on the calendar for everything, but this one’s important. It honors the day in 1963 that the Supreme Court decided Gideon v. Wainwright: the case of a poor defendant who believed the Constitution promised him an effective lawyer if he was accused of a crime. The man had just Read More
Read MoreA Postscript to Last Week’s Open Letter
Following up on last week’s post, readers should understand the timeline of events that brought the misconduct to light. Here are the highlights. In January 2013, a defendant in a murder case filed a motion to get some important information from the prosecution. The trial court found good cause for the motion and granted it, but the district attorney’s office Read More
Read MoreAn Open Letter to the District Attorney of Orange County
Mr. Rackauckas: Just what is going on in your office, sir? I’m not talking about the fight that broke out in a county courthouse three weeks ago between one of your investigators and a defense attorney. Never mind that if a defense attorney did this to a cop, he’d be arrested so fast his head would spin. (Full Read More
Read MoreDo You Have a Good Criminal Defense Attorney?
If you don’t know, here’s some food for thought from the Huffington Post. The author is a former public defender who writes about the realities of our justice system, and he makes five good points that are worth considering in evaluating your lawyer. I’ve paraphrased them below, but you can read his words for yourself right here. Good lawyers advocate zealously for you. Read More
Read MoreBig Brothers Are a Big Problem
As we pine for a digital Magna Carta or a digital Bill of Rights, the scale of the problem is daunting. Part of the problem lies at home. It rears its head when the National Security Agency searches domestic calls, emails, and data that are “incidental” to its surveillance of foreign-intelligence targets but takes liberties in doing so. Or Read More
Read MoreLeading Legal Minds Call for a Digital Bill of Rights
Federal inmates are not the only ones fighting for the right to confide in a lawyer. Earlier this month, at the American Bar Association’s Annual Meeting in Boston, several leaders of national and international bar associations called for stronger coordination among lawyers to combat a growing sense of governmental surveillance attacks on the attorney-client privilege. The leaders, whose panel Read More
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