This week we received the decision of the Army Court of Criminal Appeals of a client accused of homosexual sexual assaults. He had been convicted and sentenced to 14 years of confinement. We raised many issues during his appeal. The Army Court found a serious error by the military judge…
On 20 March 2012, NMCCA decided United States v. Jones; and in doing so they have answered a question that was not unexpected, but took a little while to come. In United States v. Miller, 63 M.J. 452 (C.A.A.F. 2006), CAAF decided prospectively that defense counsel must advise a client…
Thanks to LawProfsBlog here is a link to an interesting article: Regulating the Plea-Bargaining Market: From Caveat Emptor to Consumer Protection Stephanos Bibas, University of Pennsylvania Law School, U of Penn Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 10-33, California Law Review, Vol. 99, Forthcoming Abstract: Padilla v. Kentucky was…
Daily Commercial reports: To police Chief Ed Nathanson, it doesn’t matter where you’ve been convicted as a sex offender or predator. It only matters that you’ve been convicted. So, if you are convicted out of state or in a court martial, your conviction still counts in Lady Lake, and you…
Danger Will Robinson. United States v. Parker and Woodruff In these consolidated appeals, the Government challenged the district court’s orders dismissing its 18 U.S.C. § 4248 (2006) petitions for civil commitment of Lonnie Parker and James Woodruff, who were both convicted of various sex offenses and sentenced in military court-martial…
Swinging a Sledge: The Right to Effective Assistance of Counsel, the Law of Deportations, and Padilla v. Kentucky, August 31, 2010, Joseph Ditkoff In Padilla v. Kentucky, the Supreme Court decided that the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of the effective assistance of legal counsel requires that counsel inform his client whether…
Here is a piece from Kitsap Sun: A doctor who is being expelled from the Navy was charged by Kitsap County prosecutors Thursday with failing to register as a sex offender, according to attorneys familiar with the case. State law requires people convicted of certain sex crimes to register as…
In United States v. Eyster, decided by the 3rd Cir. on 14 July 2010, the appellant claimed he was improperly sentenced because the court considered a 1988 court-martial conviction for rape. On appeal, Eyster argues that the District Court erred by increasing his criminal history from Category II to Category…
Here is an unpublished opinion in United States v. Jones, No. 09-15005 (11th Cir. 17 June 2010). I’ve commented before about how nuanced sex offender registration issues can get. Christopher Martin Jones appeals from his sentence imposed following his conviction for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. On appeal,…
The U.S. Supreme Court decided City of Ontario v. Quon today. Quon is a case about searching pagers and cellphones. Our clients convicted of child pornography offenses and certain other offenses in which the internet is case related are restricted in computer access post-release. I mention Quon because of an…