Cops. I've always known that police officers get special treatment when accused of a crime, but I always assumed it was just a good deal that the cops gave to other cops. I never knew there was an official court ruling about it. Radley Balko points to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article about the Garrity Rule: In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court resolved it with what came to be … [Read more...] about Who Gets the Best Fifth Amendment Treatment in the Country?
Abuse, Involving Children
Matt Brown at the Chander Criminal Defense blog had a client who was accused of hurting her child, but the prosecutor dropped the charges. Nevertheless, Arizona Child Protective Services apparently ignored all that and conducted their own investigation. Brown blogged his account of their interview with his client. It's one of the most chilling things I've ever read. The … [Read more...] about Abuse, Involving Children
Surviving Scott Greenfield
A few days ago, Rachel Humphrey Fleet started a blog called The Compelling Brief Blog, which was apparently going to be all about writing legal briefs. Her first post was called "Tweeting the Judge: How Legal Writing is Like Social Media." (For the moment, it's available in the Google cache here.) The post caught the eye of Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice, who … [Read more...] about Surviving Scott Greenfield
The Best Rock ‘n’ Roll Song In the World
Well, maybe not for anyone else, but it is for me. It was 1982. the Commodore 64 was the cool new thing, Britain and Argentina went to war over the Falkland islands, spymaster Yuri Andropov rose to power in the Soviet Union, and Vic Morrow and two chidren died in a helicopter accident while filming Twilight Zone. Disney opened EPCOT to the public, John De Lorean got busted for … [Read more...] about The Best Rock ‘n’ Roll Song In the World
A Lockpicking Answer
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I'm fascinated by the idea of lock picking, but I wondered if it was actually legal to own lock picks here in Illinois. So I posted a question in Avvo Answers, an online service in which lawyers give out free advice, to see if anyone could or would tell me what the law was. I wasn't spectacularly impressed with the response. Fortunately, I had … [Read more...] about A Lockpicking Answer