In May of 2012, New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals, rendered a decision that a Marist College professor could not be held criminally responsible for the presence of child pornography on the hard drive of his computer. The Court held, the police and the prosecutors failed to show he knew the page had been assigned to the unused space on … [Read more...]
Miranda Warnings as Applied to Children
How old must a child be before he or she can understand the Miranda warnings? The Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of J.D.B. vs. North Carolina, dealt with this issue. The court, in this case, rendered a ruling that police must take a suspect's age into consideration when evaluating whether to give the Miranda warnings before … [Read more...]
Nassau County Loses Marijuana Evidence
Recently, Nassau County, New York lost two bags of marijuana. The bags of marijuana had been seized as evidence by police officers. Due to problems with Nassau County's crime laboratory, the marijuana was being shipped to a laboratory in Pennsylvania for drug testing. The shipment was carried by Federal Express. Unfortunately, the marijuana never … [Read more...]
Talking Sense About Gun Control
It has been three months since the killings in Tucson, Arizona. President Obama recently spoke about gun control issues. In an article written in the Arizona Daily Star, President Obama asked both gun control supporters and gun rights advocates to discuss reasonable and sensible gun legislation. He was specifically interested in dealing with the … [Read more...]
Heckling – A Felony in California?
On February 8, 2010, Israeli Embassador Michael Oren was to give a speech at the University of California in Irvine. The room was packed with more than five-hundred people. As Embassador Oren started to give his speech, on four separate occasions, individuals in the audience stood up and shouted. He was drowned out. He eventually walked off the … [Read more...]