Keyword: sixthamendment
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Judge Aileen Cannon denied without prejudice Special Counsel Jack Smith’s motion to compel Trump to disclose his defense strategy in the classified documents case in Florida. In November, Jack Smith tried to force Trump to disclose his decision on whether he would use an “advice-of-counsel” defense in the classified documents case. This could have forced Trump to waive attorney-client privilege. Thankfully Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, denied Jack Smith’s request. “Denying without prejudice Special Counsel’s Motion to Compel Disclosure Regarding Advice-of-Counsel Defense. The Court has reviewed the Motion, Defendants’ Opposition, the Special Counsel’s Reply, and is fully advised in...
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Ryan Samsel was one of the persons arrested for rioting in the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. He has been accused of serious crimes--including insurrection and assault--but has yet to be tried, much less convicted, for any of them. Two-and-a-half years later he is still behind bars. Judging from pictures of him in his cell, the conditions are appalling. The dimensions of his cell are nine feet long, three feet wide, and eight feet tall. All the surfaces are concrete. There are no windows. There is no bed--only a two-by-six foot mat on the floor. There are no blankets....
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A recent $5 million defamation verdict hasn’t kept Donald Trump quiet. Will a stern warning from the judge in his Manhattan criminal case? That’s the question looming over a hybrid hearing Tuesday where the former president is set be instructed on new rules barring him from using evidence in the hush-money case to attack witnesses who could testify against him. Trump won’t have to show up to court for the afternoon hearing at a Manhattan courthouse, avoiding the mammoth security and logistical challenges that accompanied his arraignment last month. Instead, the Republican will be connected by video conference, with his...
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This is what passes for an MSNBC legal "analyst." On Jonathan Capehart's Saturday morning show, MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner said that cross-examining people who claim to be sexual assault victims, such as Trump accuser E. Jean Caroll, is a "disservice."Kirschner grudgingly acknowledged that the Sixth Amendment—that inconvenient thing!—gives defendants the right to confront and cross-examine their accusers. But Kirschner said that as a former prosecutor, it was "heartbreaking" for him to see sexual assault victims "falsely accused of making stories up." Get the rest of the story and view the video here.
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The federal judge presiding over E. Jean Carroll's civil rape and defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump ruled Thursday he'll use an anonymous jury in the case, noting Trump's inflammatory rhetoric about the justice system. "It bears mention that Mr. Trump repeatedly has attacked courts, judges, various law enforcement officials and other public officials, and even individual jurors in other matters,” U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of New York said in his decision. He also said he'll refuse to allow jurors' names to become public, adding, "If jurors’ identities were disclosed, there would be a strong likelihood of unwanted...
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In a nearly unanimous decision, the Supreme Court has ruled that judges cannot create "exceptions" to the United States Constitution. "As the Supreme Court has recognized, the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses is one of the bedrock constitutional protections afforded to criminal defendants," said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of "Battlefield America: The War on the American People." "At its core, the Sixth Amendment acts as a restraint on the government’s power to unfairly punish citizens in criminal cases, putting safeguards in place to prevent the accused from being indiscriminately stripped of...
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The ACLU on Tuesday filed an amicus brief in support of Britney Spears as the pop star attempts to free herself from a 13-year conservatorship she called “abusive” in testimony last month. The ACLU filed the brief, along with 25 civil and disability organizations, in support of Spears’ wish to choose her own attorney, which is prohibited by the conservatorship. Spears’ court-appointed lawyer, Samuel Ingham III, resigned from the case last week. The brief, filed with the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, also calls for her to be given access to assistance and tools to make her selection for...
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With three conservatives and three liberals signing on to the originalist ruling in Ramos v. Louisiana, we see more evidence that the 'living Constitution' school of thought is in decline. The Supreme Court ruled Monday that for defendants to be convicted of crimes, juries must decide their guilt unanimously, not by a simple majority or any other fraction. If that seems obvious, it may be because in the federal judiciary and the courts of 48 states, this is already the law and has been for a long time. Oregon and Louisiana were, until this week, the only outliers. In applying...
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Watergate is the ur-text for how Americans imagine the defeat of a sitting president, but it shouldn’t be how to think about the impeachment of Donald Trump. Watergate was a formative political experience for many of the older Democrats who run the House of Representatives these days. And the semi-fictionalized version of the scandal portrayed on film in All the President’s Men is an emotional and intellectual touchstone for many journalists. To this day, it’s conventional to denote the existence of a political scandal by appending “-gate” to a noun, as if “Watergate” had to with water rather than originating...
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Cease and Desist Order Issued. DENVER – The company that designed and installed red light cameras at four Denver intersections beginning in 2008 was not properly licensed according to state authorities and has been ordered to “cease and desist” such operations in Colorado. Colorado’s state board of licensure for architects, professional engineers, and professional land surveyors issued the order Aug. 16, ordering Redflex Traffic Systems to “cease and desist the unlicensed practice of engineering.” ... Redflex was never licensed to practice engineering in Colorado, yet “engaged in the unlicensed practice of engineering when (Redflex) provided professional services to the City...
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The 6th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution sets out many rights for defendants during a criminal prosecution, including the right of the accused to confront their accusers. The relevant text of the Confrontation Clause of the 6th Amendment reads as follows: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him. The 14th Amendment has made the 6th Amendment's right to confrontation applicable to state court as well as federal court. The confrontation clause guarantees criminal defendants the opportunity to face the prosecution's witnesses in the case against them and dispute the...
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Fight on to stop government grab of money needed for legal defense It’s no secret that President Obama and his Democratic Party want to restrict the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. In addition, First Amendment religious-freedoms protections have been challenged by Obamacare. And freedom of speech? That’s just fine as long as it lines up with the “same-sex marriage” social agenda. Now, a case is posing a challenge to the Fifth Amendment’s property rights and due process protections along with the Sixth Amendment’s assurance of counsel for those accused of crimes. The U.S. Supreme Court now is...
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Judiciary Federal court: no liability for PA judge who made up criminal charge By Rachel MartinPublished April 13, 2015watchdog.org A federal court recently told a Lawrence County woman she’s simply out of luck and can’t sue local officials, including a Common Pleas judge who apparently made up a criminal charge that was used to place her on electronic monitoring. A judge has absolute civil immunity, even if the action “was in error, was done maliciously, or was in excess of his authority,” the three-judge panel ruled in its six-page opinion. Judge Thomas Piccione had ordered Lynn Van Tassel to report...
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What began as an investigation ignited by an anonymous report turned into a nightmare for an Arkansas homeschooling couple and seven of their children last week – and it's not over yet. Arkansas sheriff's deputies in Garland County have "stolen" seven homeschoolers from their parents in a home raid spurred by an anonymous caller who told authorities the family's house contained a "poisonous substance" — which turned out to be a mineral supplement/water purifier that isn't FDA-approved. It's been more than a week since the officers and the Department of Human Services (DHS) seized the seven homeschoolers. They remain in...
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If you’ve ever had a public defender in a criminal case, you probably plead guilty for fear of getting beaten in a trial. Yesterday in Brevard County, Florida however, a public defender got beaten at arraignment, literally. Judge John Murphy is accused of punching veteran public defender Andrew Weinstock in the face repeatedly, after the two exchanged words in the court room. Murphy reportedly wanted Weinstock’s client to waive his right to a speedy trial, and when he refused, the judge said “If I had a rock I’d throw it at you” and then invited him outside of the courtroom...
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Imagine yourself a parent whose 22-year-old son was brutally murdered by three thugs, two of whom have lengthy criminal rap sheets. And imagine the trial of your son’s killers delayed not once, not twice, but three times over the past three and a half years, owing to the legal maneuvers of lawyers representing the accused. That’s the ordeal Pastor Ron Armstrong has endured. And today he makes his way to a Southern California courtroom – yet again – praying that his son’s killers will finally answer for their crime. Pastor Ron freely admits that his soul has been tormented since...
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<p>I was taking photographs of the police arresting Occupy Wall Street demonstrators at the December 12 Winter Garden flash mob, which had been organized in solidarity with the port shutdowns on the west coast, when I found myself targeted. "That one," I heard a voice say in a brutal "New Yawk" accent, realizing that a senior police official was pointing me out over a row of people, "he goes. He goes."</p>
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Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) has introduced a bill that would allow the President to imprison an unlimited number of American citizens (as well as foreigners) indefinitely without trial. Known as The Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010, or S. 3081, the bill authorizes the President to deny a detainee a trial by jury simply by designating that person an “enemy belligerent.” The bill, which has eight cosponsors, explicitly names U.S. citizens as among those who can be detained indefinitely without trial: An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent...
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NEW YORK (AP) - Hundreds of angry people marched through Harlem on Saturday after the Rev. Al Sharpton promised to "close this city down" to protest the acquittals of three police detectives in the 50-shot barrage that killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends. "We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians," Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. "This city is going...
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A 7-year-old girl said she had been raped and repeatedly molested over the course of a year. Police in Montgomery County, Md., acting on information from a relative, soon arrested a Liberian immigrant. They marshaled witnesses and DNA evidence to prepare for trial. What was missing - for much of the nearly three years that followed - was an interpreter fluent in the suspect's native language. A judge recently dropped the charges, not because she found that Mahamu Kanneh had been wrongly accused but because repeated delays in the case had, in her view, violated his right to a speedy...
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