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Virtual Reality Creating Jury Reality
FEATURED
January 7, 2025
Virtual Reality Creating Jury Reality
By: James Trusty
A Florida Judge may have unwittingly ushered in a new age of criminal justice, where slickly made virtual reality (“VR”) presentations turn judges and jurors into witnesses, and VR headsets provide subjective “testimony” in a powerful and difficult to challenge manner. Broward County Judge Andrew Siegel agreed to don a virtual reality headset in a preliminary proceeding[1] where the defendant was accused of aggravated assault. Miguel Albisu, the defendant, was accused of waving a gun at wedding guests and he claims self-defense. The defense hired an artist to create a “defendant’s perspective,” and the result is a historical first—the judge took in a defense expert’s testimony about self-defense that included a guided tour of the reality contained on a VR…
How Thick is the Blanket? – Preemptive Pardons as a Presidential Power
December 6, 2024
How Thick is the Blanket? – Preemptive Pardons as a Presidential Power
By: James Trusty
As the presiding judge scolded Hunter Biden’s attorneys this week, “The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 1, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history.”[1] But what exactly is that history he claims is being re-written? Judge Scarsi was challenging…
Supremely Improbable
July 30, 2024
Supremely Improbable
By: James Trusty
President Biden’s pronounced objectives for Supreme Court “reform” are improbable, politically lifeless under a particularly lame duck presidency, and motivated by transparently November-driven calculations. But even if the proposed changes are doomed from the start, they push public discourse on a couple of issues that are red meat for the democrats. The stated reforms are superficially simple ones: 1) to “clarify” that “there is no…
Why Is an Assault on Congress Member a Federal Crime?
January 12, 2011
Why Is an Assault on Congress Member a Federal Crime?
By: Ifrah Law
The charges against Jared Loughner for shooting Representative Gabrielle Giffords put into sharp focus a little-known federal statute, 18 U.S.C. 351. This law provides for a death penalty for killing a member of Congress, a presidential or vice presidential candidate, or a Supreme Court justice, as well as imprisonment up to life for attempting to kill such a person. Loughner is charged under this statute…
A Tragic Result of the Stevens Case
January 3, 2011
A Tragic Result of the Stevens Case
By: Ifrah Law
We have discussed the fallout from the Ted Stevens prosecution several times in this blog. See this post, this post, and this post. The Jan. 3, 2011, issue of the New Yorker magazine has a fascinating article about another, very sad result of that case – the September 26, 2010, suicide of Nicholas Marsh, a Department of Justice attorney who was part of the prosecution…
Judges Push Back Against Prosecutorial Abuses
December 23, 2010
Judges Push Back Against Prosecutorial Abuses
By: Ifrah Law
Prosecutorial overreaching is still occurring in courts across the nation, but judges are beginning to push back. In the Ted Stevens case, the former senator was prosecuted on charges that he failed to properly report gifts from a lobbyist—only for the government to later drop all charges against him, saying that his jury conviction should be dismissed because government prosecutors and investigators improperly withheld evidence…
Federal Strike Forces Will Boost Medicare Fraud Enforcement
December 17, 2010
Federal Strike Forces Will Boost Medicare Fraud Enforcement
By: Ifrah Law
In October 2010, federal enforcers announced a plan to nearly triple the number of its Medicare fraud strike force units around the nation. In view of the magnitude of health care fraud, this plan is understandable, but the vast majority of providers, who comply with the law, will also see their compliance and other costs increase. The new strike force teams are a central feature…
ISPs Take Note: Court Rules E-mails Have Full 4th Amendment Protection
December 15, 2010
ISPs Take Note: Court Rules E-mails Have Full 4th Amendment Protection
By: Ifrah Law
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit has just issued a trail-blazing opinion that is good news for anyone who has ever sent an e-mail – and that needs to be carefully read and adhered to by all Internet service providers (ISPs). We noted six months ago that ISPs have been all too ready to satisfy prosecutors’ requests for access to customer e-mails…
