Lawyer Michael Avenatti has enjoyed some time in the spotlight. As the one-time lawyer for Stormy Daniels, one of President Trump’s mistresses, Avenatti quickly became the darling of the cable news circuit. Quick on his feet with a sharp wit, he would bounce from show to show and dominated the news cycle for months and […]
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a rural Nebraska county’s appeal of a $28 million court judgment rendered in 2016 compensating six people wrongfully convicted of a 1985 rape and slaying. Gage County had filed a writ of certiorari asking the Supreme Court to look at the verdict after a Federal appeals court upheld the […]
Most people think of New York State as a bastion of liberalism and being “soft-on-crime.” In fact, New York has one of the worst sets of rules when it comes to providing discovery to people accused of crimes. An organization I am affiliated with called It Can Happen to You (ITCHY) which traditionally has supported […]
OK I’m ready for the negative comments and hate e-mails. After all who could be against a law that gives more rights to victims of child sexual abuse? I mean besides the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America for their obvious reasons of self-preservation. Well, how about someone who has seen how the […]
I am opposed to the death penalty. While my opposition principally comes from my work in wrongful conviction cases, my opposition is to the death penalty in all cases - even where the evidence of guilt is overwhelming or where the details of the crime are horrific and gruesome. I just feel it is a […]
President Donald Trump offered a defense Thursday to accusations he broke campaign finance law by directing his longtime attorney/fixer Michael Cohen to orchestrate hush-money payments to conceal at least two of Trump’s alleged affairs: He was just following his lawyer’s advice. His exact statement was put out on Twitter: “I never directed Michael Cohen to […]
It would be difficult to find a more disturbing case than that of Cyntoia Brown’s. It reveals much of what’s wrong with the criminal justice system in many parts of our country. The last unjust stroke came last week when the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that she must serve out her 51 year sentence. Here’s […]
As my law school semester winds down, I usually like to send a message to my outgoing students who are all 3Ls who will be graduating this May. This semester, there has been a lot of buzz about Netflix’s true crime documentary “Making a Murderer 2” and I can see that it has inspired many […]
TV viewers are addicted to forensic cop shows - CSI, NCIS, etc etc. The shows make it look like every crime can be solved by forensics and that forensic science is unassailable. In fact, bad forensics is one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions across the country. When I talk about “bad forensics” I […]