The AG Blues.  With Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann rebuffing demands for resignation, Ohio’s pols are contemplating impeachment as a course of action.  As the Columbus Dispatch notes, legislators are going to have to read up on the process; Dann would be the first statewide Ohio elected official ever to be impeached and removed.  Actually, there are two ways to removed Dann:  impeachment, which under the Ohio constitution is for any “misdemeanor in office,” or “through a complaint signed by at least 603,413 qualified electors that is filed and tried in court.”  Jonathan Adler over at the Volokh Conspiracy analyzes the constitutional provision and concludes that the term “misdemeanor” really refers to the traditional meaning of “misdeed” or “instance of misbehavior.” 

At any rate, Dann’s going to need all the help he can get.  According to another article in the Dispatch, Dann’s office is the subject of no fewer than seven separate investigations.

The benefits of a college education.  The story about the bust of the 75 San Diego State University students caught in a drug bust convinced me that getting into college isn’t as hard as it used to be.  After all, how bright do you have to be to figure that maybe it’s not a good idea to rely on ” mass text-messaging” as a “crucial marketing tool in the dealing operation”?  You think maybe as you’re sending out that message, “Attn. faithful customers, both myself and my associates will be in Vegas this coming weekend. So stock up, we will be back Sunday night,” and then proceeding to “list reduced prices on cocaine sold in bulk quantities,” the thought might enter your head, “Gee, I hope this message doesn’t fall into the wrong hands”?  What, all the billboards were taken?

We’re winning.  It’s just a new definition of “winning.”  Grits for Breakfast has an interesting take on a story in the Economist about the effect of the decline in meth lab busts, which authorities credit to restrictions on the the manufacture and sale of pseudoephridine.   Especially notable was the line from the article, which focused on the experience of a particular county in Washington state, “So grim was the methamphetamine experience in Pierce county that some view the rise of crack cocaine with relief.”  As Grits notes, “when shifting drug users TO crack cocaine has been re-defined as a public policy success, that’s an interesting moment.”

Ideas for your next marketing campaign.  You’ll thank me.

I offered the county a deal one time with my appointed criminal cases:  I’d forego billing for the stuff I actually did, if they’d take the caps off and I got to charge them for all the time I spent sitting around waiting for something to happen.  Sadly, they turned it down, or I’d be writing this from Hawaii or some other paradise to which I’d long ago retired.

I was reminded of that as I was sitting in court yesterday afternoon.  I was waiting for my turn before the judge, but there were several sentencings ahead of me.  I wouldn’t have minded so much if the events ahead of me were pleas, like mine.  Those generally have a finite duration:  the prosecutor recites the deal, I say, yeah, that’s it, the judge goes through the guy’s rights, the client says he’s guilty, and it’s time to move on to the next case. 

Not so much with sentencing; like snowflakes, they came in myriad shapes and forms.  In this one, an attractive young lady lawyer felt compelled to share with the judge every detail of her client’s descent into the hell of drug addiction, and halting climb therefrom, a climb, the attorney assured the court, which would be aided by the strict monitoring that community control sanctions would assure.  As I listened to the lawyer regale the judge with her client’s litany of woe, I sensed a feeling very much like the one I get when the woman ahead of me in the grocery line has a bunch of coupons.  I found the lawyer’s presentation polished and articulate, and it was all I could do to keep from going up and strangling her with my bare hands, just to get things moving.

The second sentencing was shorter, and more amusing.  Another drug case — quelle surprise — and the defendant had been promised at the time of his plea that he’d get probation if he did some simple things, like start going to Narcotics Anonymous meetings and stay off of drugs.  Alas, that was asking too much.  What’s more, the defendant apparently subscribed to the theory that if one must fail, one should fail spectacularly:  with each answer to the judge’s questions, it became clear that the defendant not only had failed to abide by the judge’s instructions, but was supremely disinterested in doing so.  The judge tried his best to talk him back down off the ledge, to no avail.

A little while later, I ran into the attorney who’d handled the case, and we commiserated on the extent to which our clients will do their utmost to talk themselves into prison.  “The best part,” the lawyer told me, “is that as he’s being led away, the guy asked me to get his belongings from the back of the courtroom.  So I did.  Coat, keys, cigarettes… and a box of condoms.”

“Looks like you’re gonna have a fun afternoon,” I said. 

Speaking of criminal law, I’ve noticed that almost all of my posts lately have dealt with the subject.  There’s always been a pronounced tilt in that direction on this blog, but I usually have sprinkled in an occasional discussion of some aspect of civil law.  Haven’t done that in a while.

Which is surprising, considering I’m an expert on the subject.  At least, Lexis thinks so.  A couple months back, I got an email from them, saying that they were going to be offering a new feature — “Expert Commentary” — and they’d seen my blog and figured that I’d be perfect for the part.  Five commentaries, two to four pages each, each on a case involving some aspect of civil procedure or evidence.  They’d pay me three hundred dollars a pop, which, they acknowledged, was not market rate for the time it would take (then again, there’s not exactly a line forming outside my door of people wanting to pay me to write these blog posts), but, they assured me, the big thing wasn’t the money, it was the prestige of having people click on a particular case and seeing “Expert Commentary by Russ Bensing.”

Figuring that, along with the proverbial three-fifty, would get me a cup of the Caramel Frappucino at the nearest Starbucks, I went along with it.  For my first commentary, I picked Hayes v. Oakridge Home, a case on arbitration out of the 8th District.  (If you’ve got Lexis, click on the get document feature and use the cite 2008 Ohio 787.)  I put together a nice little piece explaining the law in this rapidly-developing area, little of which makes any sense, but it sure did after I got done with it.  I sent it off, and the guy at Lexis — I guess he’d be called my handler, if he worked for the DEA and I was his snitch — sent back an email telling me it was very well written and exactly what they were looking for.

So I sat back and waited for the phone to ring off the hook with people demanding my expertise.  A few weeks later, when it hadn’t, I decided to check out the Hayes decision on-line and see how my work had been handled.  Sure enough, there it was, just a few lines under the caption:  “Russ Bensing on Hayes v. Oakridge Homes and Enforcement of Contractual Arbitration Provisions,” in big bold print.

And in equally big bold print, a “($)” sign next to the “Expert Commentary” right above that.  Turns out that unless you’re one of those big law firms who have signed up for every database and feature that Lexis offers, to the point where they even come out and do your laundry once a week, you’re not going to be able to read my words of wisdom unless you pony up $50.

In fact, I can’t read my words of wisdom unless I want to shell out the money.  What’s worse, they edited the “teaser” — the couple of sentences you get to read for free — so that it doesn’t make any sense.

Fifty bucks was what I made for sitting around for an hour in court yesterday afternoon for my plea.  I think I’ll wait ’til my expert commentaries hit video.

No, I’m not talking about the Marc “Drag Me Out Kicking and Screaming” Dann Deathwatch, where Vegas has pegged the over/under on his resignation at four days.  I’m talking about what’s going on at the Ohio Supreme Court, where eight cases are being argued this week.  A thumbnail sketch of the big ones (links are to the court of appeals’ opinion):

State v. Ferguson.  The application of sexual offender registration and notification (SORN) requirements to defendants whose crimes were committed before the law went into effect has been the subject of much comment and litigation.  Back in 1998 in State v. Cook, the Ohio Supreme Court held that such laws weren’t ex post facto if applied retroactively, because they weren’t intended to be punitive.  Ferguson asks the Court to take another look at that issue, with the defendant arguing that the SORN laws are now so harsh that they have to be considered as punitive.  This could have some substantial ramifications, especially in light of the passage of the Adam Walsh Act here in Ohio, which resulted in the reclassification of some 18,000 sexually oriented offenders, who were previously required to register once a year for ten years; over 80% of them saw their registration periods increase under the new law.  And for many of those, their registration period had already expired.

State v. Bartholomew.  Appeal by the state on the burning question of whether a trial court can order restitution to be paid to the Ohio Victims of Crime Fund for money they paid to the victim. 

State v. Mays.  You know all those bullshit traffic stops resulting from the cop seeing the defendant’s car go ever so slightly over the line on the right-hand side of the road?  Well, as the Chambers Brothers once sang, Time Has Come Today.  A certified conflict case, where the question that’s been certified says it all:  “May a police officer who witnesses a motorist cross a right white edge line and without any further evidence of erratic driving or that the crossing was done in an unsafe manner make a constitutional stop of the motorist?”

State v. Veney.  Another certified case.  Criminal Rule 11(C) requires a trial court taking a plea in a felony case advise the defendant that by pleading guilty he’s waiving certain rights:

the rights to jury trial, to confront witnesses against him or her, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in the defendant’s favor, and to require the state to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at a trial at which the defendant cannot be compelled to testify against himself or herself.

The courts have consistently held that “strict compliance” is required for advising a defendant of his constitutional rights, while only “substantial compliance” is required for the non-constitutional requirements.  In Veney, the court of appeals determined that the “beyond a reasonable doubt” part was a constitutional requirement, and vacated the plea because the judge didn’t advise the defendant of that.

State v. Swann.  The defendant on trial for felonious assault tried to present evidence that another person had confessed to the shooting, but the trial court excluded it because it didn’t meet the corroboration requirements of hearsay rule pertaining to declarations against interest.  The 10th District reversed, finding that the court’s ruling effectively deprived the defendant of his 6th Amendment right to present a defense.  The State argues that a judge’s general discretion in determininig what evidence is admissible doesn’t impact the defendant’s constitutional rights, but that argument is complicated by the US Supreme Court’s decision a couple years back in Holmes v. South Carolina.  In Holmes, as in Swann, the defendant had attempted to present evidence that another party had committed the crimes.  In Holmes, as in Swann, the court had excluded the evidence.  The South Carolina rule barred evidence of third-party guilty if it “merely casts a bare suspicion” on another person.  That’s not too much different from a rule which allows a judge to exclude evidence because he feels it wasn’t sufficiently corroborated.

With the exception of Bartholomew, all of those cases are significant ones.  I’m going to catch the oral arguments over the next couple days, and give you my further impressions after that.

There were a couple of decisions on consecutive sentencing last week.  One, State v. Caraballo, was pretty straightforward.  The defendant had pled guilty to two counts of rape and two counts of gross sexual imposition.  He may or may not have had cases pending in Missouri and in Summit County as well — the record wasn’t clear — but just to be on the safe side the judge gave him three and a half years, and ordered that that sentence be served consecutively to anything he got in Missouri or Summit County.

The 8th District nixed that, citing a number of cases, including one from the Ohio Supreme Court, holding that such “anticipatory sentencing” is impermissible because “it interferes with the discretion of the second trial judge to fashion an appropriate sentence.”

The other case on consecutive sentencing last week was the Ohio Supreme Court decision in State v. Bates.  Bates represented the flip side of Caraballo:  in Bates, the Miami County trial court imposed a sentence consecutive to one that a Montgomery County court had already imposed.  The question was “whether a trial court has the authority, generally, to order a prison sentence imposed by it to be served consecutively to a prison sentence previously imposed by another Ohio court.”

That might have been problematic two and a half years ago.  At that time, Ohio’s sentencing laws, specifically  RC 2929.41(A), contained a presumption for concurrent sentences, and consecutive sentences couldn’t be imposed unless the judge made certain findings.

Of course, those findings resulted in State v. Foster, which held that judicial fact-finding was prohibited by the US Supreme Court’s decision in Blakely v. Washington.  The statute which required factfinding for imposition of consective sentences was held unconstitutional and excised from the statutory scheme as was RC 2929.41(A).  The Price court thus had no problem concluding that

the trial court now has the discretion and inherent authority to determine whether a prison sentence within the statutory range shall run consecutively or concurrently, and we hold that the trial court may impose a prison sentence to be served consecutively to a prison sentence imposed on the same offender by another Ohio court.

If that were the only result, it would be unexceptional.  The problem is not the destination, but the journey the court took to reach it.  Basically, as the court viewed it, 2929.41, by creating a presumption of concurrent sentences, was in derogation of the common law rule.  And what was the common law rule?  The Court quoted the language from a 1963 case, Stewart v. Maxwell:

Inasmuch as making sentences for different crimes run concurrently is in the nature of a reward to the convict, * * * it follows that a positive act is required on the part of the sentencing court to cause sentences to run concurrently; and * * * if the entry is silent as to how sentences shall run, it is presumed such sentences will run consecutively.

Does that mean by throwing out 2929.41, we go back to the common law rule, and if the judge doesn’t specify whether sentences are concurrent or consecutive, they’re deemed to be consecutive?  Let’s put it this way:  if I’m representing a defendant that’s being sentenced for multiple crimes, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure the judge includes language that the sentences are to be served concurrently.

The only case out of DC this past week was the Court’s 6-3 affirmance of Indiana’s voter identification law, in Crawford v. Marion County.  Scotusblog has  an analysis of the case, if you’re interested.

I don’t usually do anything with 6th Circuit cases, although I probably should.  There was a very good one last week, in US v. Blair, involving a traffic stop.  The court tossed the search, and its discussion of the various aspects — traffic violation stop v. Terry stop, length of detention, etc. – make excellent reading, and give an absolutely essential understanding of the law in this critical area. 

Down in Columbus, the Supreme Court handed down about a dozen decisions.  Excluding the disciplinary cases (don’t steal from your employer, and don’t accept clients from a company that direct-markets estate planning services) and a few others which I wouldn’t read at gunpoint, there were State v. Price and State v. Bates.  Price involved whether a domestic violations order can modify an civil protection order as to questions of visitation (it can), but Bates is the biggie, not so much for what it decides — that a judge can order a sentence served consecutively to the sentence a judge in another case handed down — but for what it says:  the presumption that sentences are concurrent is no more.  I’ll have more on that tomorrow.

Elsewhere in Ohio’s capital, beleaguered Attorney General Marc Dann denied that he’d appointed Bluto as chief of staff of his frat hou — er, department.

On to the courts of appeals… (more…)

And I thought being a Methodist was complicated.  The wonders of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, Congress’ attempt back in 1997 to protect religious freedom from government interference, was on full display last week in a case out of the 7th Circuit.  As Decision of the Day explains,

Plaintiff Gregory Koger was a Baptist when he entered Illinois state prison, but he went through several religious transformations while incarcerated, filing numerous requests for a special religious diet along the way. Eventually, Koger settled on Thelema, a religion founded by famed devil worshipper Aleister Crowley, whose golden rule is not “Do Unto Others . . .,” but rather “Do What Thou Wilt.” And Koger decided that for him, “Do What Thou Wilt” meant eating a special vegetarian diet.

The prison wasn’t accomodating of his request, so Greg, being a red-blooded American, sued.  Last week, the 7th Circuit reversed a grant of summary judgment to the prison.

Why yes, the war on drugs is going well.  Why do you ask?  Hard to tell what was more embarassing for the Pineville Police Department:  the fact that an undercover buy of drugs was inadvertently broadcast to the public over a police scanner, the fact that two of the people caught by the sting were Pineville police officers, or the fact that one of them worked in the schools for the DARE program. 

Maybe he’d eat better if he become a Theleman.  According to Overlawyered,

413-pound Broderick Lloyd Laswell was arrested for robbing and murdering Randy Walker and setting Walker’s trailer home on fire, and has been kept in an Arkansas jail cell awaiting a capital trial. Eight months later, he’s down to 308 pounds, but he’s not grateful for the diet, and has sued for “hot meals” and more consistent portions.

Calling all judges.  I blogged yesterday about State v. Colon, the Supreme Court’s decision a few weeks back, and the substantial impact it might have on the way that indictments are handled in Ohio.  That hasn’t escaped the attention of the prosecutors in this state.  I got hold of an email from Ashtabula County Prosecutor Thomas L. Sartini, written to Judge Diane Grendell of the 11th District in response to an email she’d sent out to all Ashtabula County lawyers about Colon.  Sartini waxes apocalyptic about Colon’s ramifications, which are so severe that the Ohio County Prosecutor’s Association held an emergency meeting in Columbus on Wednesday “to muster support for the Court’s reconsideration of the case.”  The letter closes by noting that “any support that the 11th District could provide would be greatly appreciated.”

Two things.  First, there’s a good chance that the prosecutors will get their wish.  Colon’s not a particularly compelling result, especially with regard to the determination that failure to include the mens rea requirement in an indictment is a “structural error.”  In fact, that runs directly contrary to the Supreme Court’s decision just a few weeks earlier in State v. Wamsley, where they specifically rejected the claim that failure to include a mens rea requirement in a jury instruction was structural error.

Second thing.  Why would a county prosecutor believe that an appellate court judge could, would, or should lend “support” to his efforts to get a Supreme Court case reconsidered?

I spent a fair amount of time yesterday talking about the Supreme Court’s decision last week in State v. Blackburn.  Then again, when do I not spend a fair amount of time talking?  Today’s note will be shorter, though; the subject, State v. Colon, handed down a couple of weeks back, is a good bit more straightforward.  Its impact is also much more significant.

It doesn’t take much more than a couple of paragraphs to describe what happened in Colon.  The defendant was charged with a single count of robbery, in words virtually identical to those found in the statute: 

[I]n attempting or committing a theft offense, as defined in Section 2913.01 of the Revised Code, or in fleeing immediately after the attempt or offense upon [the victim, the defendant did] inflict, attempt to inflict, or threaten to inflict physical harm on [the victim].

Major problem:  nowhere does it allege a mens rea requirement.  Prior case law says that when a statute doesn’t provide an intent requirement, and doesn’t plainly indicate a legistative desire to create a strict liability offense, a reckless intent is the minimum required.  But that intent has to be alleged in the indictment:  in Colon, everybody agreed that the failure of the indictment to do this made it defective.

What to do about that was the question.  After all, the defendant hadn’t raised the defect, either before or at trial.  That normally would have required analysis under the plain error standard, but the Court decided that the omission of an intent element in the indictment (and, or course, in the instructions to the jury) was so damaging to the overall integrity of the trial that it constituted structural error.  Which means that it requires reversal; there’s no such thing as a “harmless” structural error.

As the three dissenters — Lundberg Stratton, Lanzinger, and O’Donnell — point out, that’s a pretty broad reading of the term “structural error”; the dissent cites several cases that have gone the other way.  There’s merit to that argument.  Traditionally, structural error has been limited to those situations in which the error so infects the proceedings that one can have no confidence in the integrity of the outcome; denial of the right to counsel is perhaps the clearest example.

Be that as it may, for now at least, Colon has some major ramifications.  First, it casts into question a goodly number of indictments:  any count that doesn’t include a mens rea requirement is no good.  What’s more, that’s not something that can be cured by amendment, at least over objection by the defendant:  adding an element would certainly “change the identity of the crime,” and thus would not be a permissible amendment under Rule 7(D).  Finally, since structural errors can’t be waived, they can theoretically be raised at any time, and since the error is one of constitutional dimensions, it can be raised by way of a petition for post-conviction relief.  Normally, such petitions have to be filed within about six months of the conviction, but I’m not even going to try to predict how the Supreme Court’s going to resolve the time requirement.  Given all the people serving void prison sentences because they weren’t properly advised of post-release controls, and all the people now serving sentences under defective indictments, it’s possible that only about 20% of the Ohio prison population should actually be there.

One more comment:  this was another win by the Cuyahoga County Public Defenders’ Office, which has one of the best and most successful appellate divisions in the state.  Public defenders as a group are paid crap, and on top of that they’re treated as second-class lawyers by the public they serve and by a not inconsiderable portion of the bench and bar.  Colon was a big win for the defense bar, and my hat’s off to the gang over the Cuyahoga County PD’s office.

The Ohio Supreme Court handed down a couple of criminal law decisions in the past few weeks.  One has relatively narrow impact; the other could have substantial significance.  I’ll talk about the latest speedy trial case today, and a decision on the mens rea requirements in indictments tomorrow. 

The first is State v. Blackburn, which deals with how the speedy trial statutes affect serial prosecutions, i.e., either where the prosecution dismisses an indictment, and then reindicts the defendant, or where it subsequently adds new charges arising out of the same facts.  The law’s pretty clear that if a defendant’s indicted, the charges get dismissed, and then the prosecution refiles the indictment, speedy trial carries over:  all the time run up during the first case is carried over and applied to the second.  (Needless to say, if additional charges are simply added, the speedy trial clock continues running from the time of the original arrest.)  This applies regardless of whether the new indictment is the same as the old one, as long as the new indictment arises out of the same incident, and the state had sufficient knowledge to bring the charges at that time. 

The question, though, is what happens if the defendant has waived time, or filed motions which toll the time, in the first case:  does that carry over to the second? 

The first time the court addressed that question was in State v. Adams, back in 1989.  In that case, Adams had been charged with DUI under one section of the statute, then subsequently with the same offense but under a different section.  In the first case, he’d waived time to a specific point on several occasions, but the court held that these didn’t carry over.  Why?  Because for a waiver to be valid, it “must be done knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently.”  Since the charges against Adams in the second case weren’t the same as in the first case, his waiver in the first couldn’t meet that test.

The issue next came up in 2000, in State v. Homan.  In that case, the defendant was originally charged with DUI, and filed a motion to suppress.  The state subsequently added a charge of child endangering, based on the same facts, but the Supreme Court held that the tolling caused by the filing of the motion to suppress didn’t apply to the subsequent charges.  Again, the defendant’s unawareness of the new charges was critical:

When a defendant is unaware of the precise nature of the crimes charged, he or she cannot make informed and intelligent tactical decisions about motion filings and other matters.

So now we get to Blackburn.  The defendant had been arrested for “illegal conveyance of weapons or prohibited items onto the grounds of a detention facility or institution” in December of 2004.  The charges were dismissed five days later.  He was indicted on the same offense in February of 2005, and after several continuances requested by the defense, mainly to get new counsel, the prosecution dismissed that case in December of 2005.  It then reindicted him, this time for trafficking in drugs, in February of 2006. 

The trial court tossed it, and the appellate court affirmed, finding that the delays in the previous case didn’t carry over into the present one, based on Adams and Homan.  The Supreme Court reached a different result, making a galliant, if eventually unconvincing, attempt to distinguish both of the earlier cases.

The Blackburn court first drew a distinction between waiver and tolling.  In Adams, the defendant had waived time to a specific point; in Blackburn, the defendant had filed motions which tolled the time.  The effect was the same — the running of the speedy trial was suspended — but the outcome is different:  The time tolled by Blackburn’s motions are counted against him, while Adams’ waivers are not counted against him.

The distinction between waiver and tolling makes some sense, I suppose, although that distinction is undercut by the analytical error in Adams:  in that case, the court applied the test for waiver of a constitutional right to the waiver of a statutory right.  More troubling, though, is the Blackburn court’s treatment of Homan.  It’s difficult to reconcile Blackburn and Homan, and the court makes a half-hearted stab it:

Unlike Homan’s tactical decision to file a motion to suppress, Blackburn filed the motion to continue the trial to allow his newly hired counsel time to prepare.

Why one is a “tactical” decision and the other isn’t is not explored further.  More problematically, Blackburn winds up overruling Homan without ever saying so.  Here’s the syllabus from Homan:

When a criminal defendant files a pretrial motion and the state later files against the defendant additional, related criminal charges, R.C. 2945.72(E) does not extend the time within which the defendant must be brought to trial on those additional charges.

And from Blackburn: 

In calculating the time within which a criminal defendant must be brought to trial under R.C. 2945.71, periods of delay resulting from motions filed by the defendant in a previous case also apply in a subsequent case in which there are different charges based on the same underlying facts and circumstances of the previous case.

The reference to 2945.71 in the latter case is somewhat misleading; although that is the general statute on speedy trial, ”periods of delay resulting from motions filed by the defendant” are governed by — you guessed it — 2945.72(E).

So what’s a poor lawyer (or judge) to do?  The net effect of Blackburn is to continue the court’s trend of turning the admonition that the speedy trial statutes are to be construed strictly against the state on its head.  In fact, the court expressly states that the ”the public’s interests. . . in the prompt adjudication of criminal cases” has to be balanced against the interest “in obtaining convictions of persons who have committed criminal offenses against the state.”  While that may be true, there have been very few cases in the past decades which indicates that this court places much if any importance on the public’s — and the defendant’s — interest in prompt adjudication.  

A couple months back, I had a case where the police got a call from a gas station saying that my client was annoying customers.  The police responded, and saw my client standing by a building across the street.  They searched him and found some crack.  The basis of the search?  It was incident to his arrest for disorderly conduct.

Now, I could have argued that there was no probable cause to arrest for disorderly conduct.  Let’s face it, if “annoying” people was a crime, half the people you know would be in prison.  I took the easier tack: I pointed out to the judge that disorderly conduct was a minor misdemeanor, and under Ohio law, you can’t arrest someone for a minor misdemeanor.  She agreed, and tossed the case.

After last week’s decision in Virginia v. Gray, the validity of that argument’s a little more open to question. (more…)

Today’s menu features Virginia v. Gray, a notable US Supreme Court decision on search and seizure, which I’ll discuss in more detail tomorrow.  Closer to home, their Ohio counterparts handed down Columbus v. Kim, upholding that city’s noise ordinance against a claim of unconstitutionality, concluding that whatever one’s standards of “unreasonably loud” was, it was met by a dog barking for an hour and a half so loudly that it could be heard over a running lawnmower.  The court also handed down another decision in a speedy trial case, with a result that’s sure to astonish you.  Yep.  Shocking, I tell you.  Shocking.  We’ll talk about that on Wednesday, along with another case that came down a few weeks back.

On to the courts of appeals… (more…)