Foster v. Humphrey U.S. Supreme Court Decision Last year, I wrote about United States Supreme Court agreeing to hear argument in the case of Foster v. Humphrey. This case is out of the state of Georgia and involves an African American man that was convicted of murder by an all-white jury. Timothy Tyrone Foster was [...]
Case Law: Search and Seizure of Digital Electronics In a separate web posting I detailed the ruling and background pertaining to Riley v. California, a 2014 landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision which said that police cannot search the contents of a smart phone (or flip-top phone) without a warrant. The ruling generally was viewed by [...]
Florence vs. County of Burlington: United States Supreme Court Rules Strip Searches in Jails are always Legal Recently, I had a client who was charged with with simple possession of marijuana. He was actually arrested for an outstanding traffic ticket attachment when the deputies allegedly found a joint on him after a strip search. [...]
Issues of Privacy Rights Pertaining to Computers and other Electronic Devices Winding Their Way Through the Courts In a separate web posting I detailed the ruling and background pertaining to Riley v. California, a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision which said that police cannot search the contents of a cell phone without a judicial [...]
Riley v. California: Supreme Court of the United States Says Law Enforcement May Not Look at Contents of Cell Phone without Warrant Can a cop seize your smart phone or flip-top phone and have his way with it -- combing through such devices (despite the lack of a search warrant) in a desperate effort [...]
Court Agrees to Hear Matter Pertaining to Exclusion of Black Jurors in Georgia Murder Trial - Foster v. Humphrey The famous U.S. Supreme Court case of Batson v. Kentucky in 1986 ruled that prosecutors could not use peremptory challenges (the dismissal of jurors without having to state a valid cause) during a criminal trial [...]
Summary of a Fourteenth Amendment Landmark Case: Batson v. Kentucky 476 U.S. 79 (1986) Facts: When selecting a jury, both parties may remove potential jurors using an unlimited number of challenges for cause (e.g., stated reasons such as bias) and a limited number of peremptory challenges (i.e., do not need to state a reason). [...]