byTChris

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed the conviction imposed upon Javid Naghani for interfering with flight attendants. Naghani, an Iranian, had been drinking prior to boarding the Air Canada flight from Los Angeles to Toronto. Flight attendants caught Naghani smoking in an airplane bathroom "and made him sit near the lavatory in a jump seat, where he become angry."

Flight attendants then said they heard Naghani threaten to sue Air Canada and either say that "my people will kill all Americans" or "I will kill all Americans." Naghani, a native Farsi speaker who speaks English with an accent, denied making such statements but was convicted in December 2001 and in March 2002 received a 33-month sentence.

The court justified the sentence by explaining that Naghani diverted flight attendants from their duties, creating a risk if an emergency happened to occur elsewhere on the airplane. Keep that in mind next time you divert a flight attendant's attention by requesting an extra pillow.

Naghani's drunken smoking and ranting were undoubtedly disturbing, and other passengers were inconvenienced when the flight returned to the LA airport (escorted by fighter jets). Nonethless, 33 months is a ridiculous sentence for rude behavior that caused no serious harm.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court today ruled today in the case of the public defender who was jailed for refusing to continue representing a defendant in a rape and murder trial after he had punched her co-counsel in court. The Court ordered her to stay on the case.

In an emergency ruling, the court let stand a judge's decision to hold attorney Andrea Konow in contempt of court for refusing to represent a man accused of murdering a 6-year-old girl after he sucker-punched his other defense lawyer during his trial. The lawyer, Fred Goodman, was not hurt by the unexplained attack, which came Monday just after prosecutors rested their case. He was allowed to withdraw.

Issuing a stay in this case would reward the capital defendant for his misconduct by providing him with an unwarranted new trial _ which may very well be the reason he punched one of his lawyers in the face in the first place," Castille wrote. Castille also chided Konow for "flouting her ethical obligation to the court." In a footnote, he wrote that if it was true she had suddenly become too afraid of El-Shabazz to represent him, she "may want to consider another line of work."

The Court's opinion is available here. One Justice dissented but hasn't filed her opinion yet.

Background on the case is here and here. Ms. Konow, by the way, is not only a supervisor in the Philadelphia Public Defender's homicide unit, she is also "staff" (i.e., regular faculty) at Gerry Spence's Trial Lawyers College in Wyoming. [hat tip to Peter Goldberger for the info and links.]

This is a classic case of what we call purchased testimony. Testimony bought with promises of leniency. Here's the story:

A federal judge in New York has overturned a murder conviction in a Brooklyn gang case because prosecutors relied on "blatant, critical perjury by all of the key witnesses."

The judge, John Gleeson, stopped short of saying the federal prosecutors in Brooklyn knew that their witnesses were lying at a jury trial in April. But in an extraordinary 60-page decision, the judge was clearly distressed by the actions of the prosecutors from the office of the United States attorney, Roslynn R. Mauskopf. Judge Gleeson said he feared that an innocent man had been convicted on "patently incredible testimony" and had a "concern that perjury was deliberately elicited'' by the prosecutors.

The decision was a raw judicial exploration of familiar claims by defense lawyers that prosecutors rely excessively on witnesses who get lenient plea deals and lie.

After the judge's ruling, prosecutors made a deal with Angel M. DeAngelo, the once-convicted killer: They dropped the murder in aid of racketeering charge and allowed him to plead guilty to making a false statement --denying he had been present at the murder. He's already been released:

"How many other people did they do this to?'' Mr. DeAngelo asked yesterday in a telephone interview from Latham, N.Y., near where he now lives. "They believe anything these people say. It's all about a collar; it has nothing to do with justice.''

A federal judge in California has allowed defendants to raise medical marijuana use as a defense to cultivation charges:

Monday's ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Nora M. Manella to allow Anna Barrett and her husband, Gary, to make such a case comes in the wake of a December ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The December ruling concluded that a congressional act outlawing the drug may not apply to sick people with a doctor's recommendation in states with medical marijuana laws.

This is a blow to Ashcroft and the Justice Department. And it's only one judge in one jurisdiction. It's why we need to pass the Truth in Trials Act.

by TChris

Editorial writers in the New York Times and Washington Post are unpersuaded by Justice Scalia's 21-page justification of his decision to sit in judgment of his hunting buddy's task force. The Post questions Justice Scalia's objectivity while defending itself from his charge that its editorial page had misleadingly described an oil company executive as an "oil company executive." The Times concludes that Justice Scalia "comes across as more concerned with defending his right to accept 'social courtesies,' like rides on the vice president's jet, than with protecting the Supreme Court's integrity.

TalkLeft recently gathered other editorials here.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces issued an interesting opinion today. Here are the issues:

I. Whether appellant was denied the fundamental right to conflict free and effective assistance of counsel when the lead defense counsel and appellant engaged in a secretive homosexual relationship. II. Whether the army court of criminal appeals erred when it determined that appellant’’s sexual relationship with his lead defense counsel did not create a conflict of interest denying appellant effective assistance of counsel.

The ruling: Military defense attorneys may not engage in homosexual sex with their military clients. "For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that Appellant did not receive effective assistance of counsel and reverse."

A federal court in Alabama has rejected a government effort to obtain a protective order, under 18 U.S.C. § 1514(b)(1), to prohibit a defendant from maintaining a web site that will provide news about his case and ask witnesses to come forward if they can assist his defense.

The defendant plans to feature information that has been made public, including identities of the lawyers, witnesses (snitches), agents, etc. The government claimed that it could possibly result in retaliation against witnesses and/or law enforcement and wanted the court to order it shut down,or severely restrict what could be posted. After an evidentiary hearing, the Magistrate Judge issued an eleven page opinion denying relief.

Magistrate Judge Delores R. Boyd, in an opinion made public Wednesday, said Carmichael has constitutional rights to freedom of speech and a speedy trial. The judge also said the court is not free to simply embrace a governmental belief that an intent to post identities and photographs is an obvious attempt to intimidate or harass informants. [Defense Attorney Stephen] Glassroth also said his client wants residents to be able to read documents and transcripts at their convenience because deadlines limit newspapers and radio and television stations in their reporting. The defense also said it wants to receive information via the Internet about people Carmichael believes are lying about him and are not trustworthy.

Overruling a 1980 decision, the Supreme Court today strengthened the right of an accused to confront his accuser. The decision was written by Justice Scalia. Our favorite quote from the opinion:

``Dispensing with confrontation because testimony is obviously reliable is akin to dispensing with jury trial because a defendant is obviously guilty,'' Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the court. ``This is not what the Sixth Amendment requires.''

While the facts of the underlying case were not of national importance, the impact of the decision will be.

The ramifications of today's ruling may not become clear immediately, but they could affect a number of previous convictions across the country. The testimony of a witness who cannot be cross-examined during trial may still be allowed, but only if the defense has had a chance to cross-examine him or her at an earlier stage in the case.

The case is Crawford v. Washington, No. 02-9410 and you can read the full opinion here (pdf). The ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers ( NACDL) submitted amicus briefs in the case.

Update: The New York Times report on the decision is here. Scotus Blog has a detailed analysis as well.

by TChris

A.M. was eleven years old in 1993 when Anna Gilvis, 84, was murdered in her Chicago apartment.

None of the boy's fingerprints were found in the home and a bloody palm print and a bloody shoe print could not be matched to the boy. No physical evidence linked him to the crime.

A.M. was charged with the murder a year later even though a blood trail suggested the 173-pound victim had been dragged from the kitchen to the bathroom. The boy was about 5 foot 1 and weighed 88 pounds at the time.

With no physical evidence connecting A.M. to a crime he probably couldn't have committed, why was he charged? Because he confessed, or so said Chicago Detective James Cassidy.

According to A.M., Cassidy yelled and swore at him, then promised that he could go home to his brother's birthday party if he would just tell the truth. Cassidy claimed that A.M. wasn't in custody, even though he was questioned in a police interrogation room, and that A.M. "spontaneously confessed" during the questioning.

The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit -- ordinarily no friend to the accused -- concluded that an eleven year old with no prior criminal justice experience is "in custody" when he's questioned for two hours in a closed interrogation room with no access to a parent, lawyer, or way home. The court of appeals ordered expungement of A.M.'s conviction if he isn't given a new trial within 120 days.

The court was critical of the appellate courts in Illinois for failing to question Cassidy's account of the interrogation that led to A.M.'s alleged confession. Cassidy has a track record of getting innocent kids to confess.

In 1998, four years after Cassidy said A.M. had confessed, Cassidy said he obtained similar confessions from two boys, ages 7 and 8, in the investigation of the murder of 11-year-old Ryan Harris.

The boys were later exonerated by DNA tests that were linked to Floyd Durr, who was charged with the murder and is awaiting trial.

In 2001, a Tribune review of 10 years of homicide cases in Cook County spotlighted numerous cases of alleged confessions improperly obtained from juveniles. Several of those cases involved Cassidy, who testified that juveniles spontaneously confessed to him outside the presence of a youth officer or parent.

Congratulations to Northwestern law professor Steve Drizin, who represented A.M. in the Seventh Circuit. Drizin hopes the decision will send a message to the police that children should not be interviewed as if they were adults.

by TChris

Heather Specyalski, charged with manslaughter in the highway death of prominent Hartford businessman Neil Esposito, contends that she wasn't driving the car. She couldn't have been driving, she says, because she was performing oral sex on Esposito at the time of the crash. The fact that Esposito's pants were thrown from the car lends some support to her story.

But that isn't good enough for the prosecutor, who argued that Specyalski should not be allowed to present her defense. The prosecution argued that the pants could have come off in a variety of ways.

"No one saw it," Assistant State's Attorney Maureen Platt said. "His pants could have been down because he was mooning a car he was drag racing. His pants could have been down because he was urinating out of a window. His pants could have been down because he wasn't feeling well."

It wasn't true that "no one" saw it. Specyalski, after all, was there. The court agreed with the defense that she had a right to tell her story to the jury.

"A defendant has a right to offer a defense no matter how outlandish, silly or unbelievable one might think it will be," Judge Robert L. Holzberg said.

Not exactly a charitable view of Specyalski's case -- the prosecution's speculation about the missing pants seems more outlandish than Specyalski's testimony would be -- but the judge got it right in any event. The Constitution gives Specyalski the right to present relevant evidence in her defense, and her explanation of her actions negates the prosecution's theory that she was driving the car. Her trial resumes today.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear two deportation cases today, both of which involve the issue of deportation after conviction for a crime.

In the first case, the court will decide whether a person can be deported to a country (Somalia, in this case) without an agreement by the other country to accept the person back. In the second case, the court will decide if driving under the influence is a crime of violence when someone is injured as a result.

Here are the details:

Several months ago, we wrote of a terrible practice in Minnesota in which indigent clients were forced to pay between $50 and $200 for a public defender. More details are here. We're glad to report that the Minnesota Supreme Court this week struck down the mandatory fees which had been passed by the Legislature.

In a unanimous ruling, the seven-justice court said the fees violate the U.S. Constitution's Sixth Amendment protections. Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz wrote that the law imposing the fees was clearly written to require their imposition. The court refused to build in discretion, as the state's lawyers requested during oral arguments.

"The co-payment statute clearly and unambiguously provides that a defendant shall pay a co-payment fee, which may be collected under the provisions of the Revenue Recapture Act. This construction does not give rise to ambiguity, much less discretion," Blatz wrote.