Did you see the 2002 movie Minority Report? Back then, it was science fiction; now it’s getting close to reality. In Minority Report, police departments had “PreCrime” units where “precogs” (strange psychic bodies that lived in liquid pools) were able to predict when a person was going to commit…
Many of my clients are surprised at the amount of information law enforcement has gathered about them. I wrote awhile back about how ubiquitous law enforcement surveillance is in our everyday lives. Many of my clients learn the hard way. Not only is it impossible to hide from the…
While every defendant has a constitutional right to a jury of his or her peers, criminal charges rarely go to trial. In fact, around 97% of criminal cases are resolved by a plea bargain. A plea bargain is when the defendant pleads guilty or nolo contendere (no contest) to…
When a person is charged with a crime, the prosecution is bound by law to provide all the evidence supporting the charge or charges, including evidence that might exonerate the defendant. Evidence that is favorable to the defendant is called “exculpatory evidence” and back in 1963, the United States…
We cannot walk down our streets, drive our cars, or talk on our cell phones without these activities being caught by ubiquitous law enforcement surveillance. Use a cell phone and your location can be easily discovered. Similarly, the license plates of cars everywhere are being continuously scanned and registered…
Sometimes a person arrested for a crime will swear he or she was nowhere near the location when the criminal incident took place., but the prosecution will allege otherwise…with evidence to prove it. That evidence: tracking of the defendant’s cell phone. Even if the defendant wasn’t using his or…
A POWERFUL TOOL IN THE DEFENSE TOOLBOX: THE MOTION TO SUPPRESS Here’s an interesting case that caught my eye: Narcotics officers in Colorado Springs observed a driver in his parked vehicle conducting what appeared to be a narcotics transaction. The officers made contact with the driver and after a…
Police use-of-force has been big news in this country for several years now. A large segment of the public believes that the police have used fatal force without just cause. They cite many high-profile cases: Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, and so on. These police killings have triggered…
Dystopian films and literature are usually thought of as science fiction, but while this entertainment might be classified as fiction, it often portends a future that may already be here. That is especially true when it comes to crime fighting. In my previous post, I discussed a few of…
In earlier blog posts, I discussed the CalGang Database, a database collected and used by law enforcement throughout California. I discussed how this database is kept in secret and many who are included in the database are unaware of their inclusion and worse yet, many who are listed in…