A Massachusetts woman’s conviction for involuntary manslaughterwas upheld by that state’s high court after a lower court found her guilty of the charge after she encouraged her boyfriend by text messages to follow through on his suicide. The Massachusetts involuntary manslaughter law is very similar to the law in…
In 2017, California instituted a new lawthat prohibits law enforcement from seizing any asset valued over $40,000 in what is known as civil asset forfeiture. Civil asset forfeiture is nothing more than official theft by the state under the color of law. Basically, it allows law enforcement to seize…
The top health story of 2018 according to WebMD was the opioid addiction crisis. This crisis is not only a health crisis but a legal crisis too. Opioid addiction creates a huge black market for purveyors of all variety of opioids, including heroin. The addiction also causes many addicts…
The Felony Murder Rule is a rule that attributes liability to an accomplice for a murder even if the accomplice was not the actual killer. In California, an accomplice (also referred to as an aider and abettor) to a crime can be charged, convicted, and sentenced for first- or second-…
Popular crime shows would have you believe that the analysis of forensic evidence is the key to finding the perpetrator of a crime. But is forensic evidence reliable? DNA evidence, blood spatter patterns, bite marks, finger prints and other common types of forensic evidence have been subjected to scrutiny…
Not just in California, but across the county, bail reformis a hot topic. Why? Because the bail systemeffectively consigns many defendants to incarceration before they are found guilty…or innocent. Defendants who are unable to come up with the funds to make bail often remain incarcerated until final judgment, but…
Back in the mid to late 1980’s law enforcement and prosecutors started using the new technology of DNA testing to solve crimes. Soon thereafter, criminal defense attorneys recognized that DNA testing can not only help solve crimes but can also be used to exonerate individualswrongly accused or convicted of…
When a person accused of a crime hires a defense attorney, every communication between the defendant and his or her attorney is privileged communication, meaning anything the accused tells the attorney cannot be divulged by the attorney nor can the attorney be forced to give up information the client…
For some mentally ill defendants, alternative sentencingoptions aren’t available, they might not be eligible for court ordered treatment under Laura’s Lawor the treatment failed, or perhaps they have been in a repetitive cycle of Penal Code section 1368 mental incompetencytreatment. Whatever the failures of the justice system to adequately…
Continuing my discussion on mental illness and the criminal justice system, I now turn to a little-known California law that was enacted in 2002, known as Laura’s Law. This legislation, codified in the California Welfare and Institutions Code, sections 5345 et seq., permits the court to order certain persons…