Ohio

Case Update

Posted on March 09, 2009
The vacay in ‘Nix worked out just fine, but touch-down at Cleveland Hopkins Airport always brings to mind Jim Bouton’s observation in Ball Four that if you’re going to be in an airplane crash in Cleveland, better that it be an inbound flight...

Stuck inside of Cleveland with the Phoenix blues again

Posted on February 27, 2009

Plough update; SCOTUS in action

Posted on February 26, 2009
Five weeks ago I chronicled the travails of Portage County Municipal Judge John Plough, who’d been chastised twice within a fortnight by the 11th District court of appeals.  The first was for not responding to that court’s orders to provide the record for an appeal...

Post-arrest silence

Posted on February 25, 2009
I’ve been a frequent critic of appellate courts taking all the detritus from a criminal trial and sweeping it under the carpet called “harmless error.”  Sometimes, though, that’s the better approach, as evidenced by a couple of 8th District decisions last week...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

What’s Up in the 8th - Back to the future

Posted on February 24, 2009
Oh, happy day, at least for some of you Cuyahoga County denizens who’ve gotten mail notifying you that one of the city’s traffic cameras have caught you doing 40 in a 35 mph zone, a sin which can be expiated by mailing off a check for 120 bucks...

Case Update

Posted on February 23, 2009
No news on the Potomac, but the Court will hear oral argument today in Rivera v. Illinois, which presents an unusual fact pattern and an interesting issue.  The judge had overruled a defense peremptory challenge in voir dire, holding that it was discriminatory (yes, Virginia, Batson applies to defense challenges, too), and seated the juror...

Friday Roundup

Posted on February 20, 2009
Mind games.  I’ve mentioned judges sentencing on acquitted conduct before — enhancing a sentence based on conduct the defendant had never been charged with, or had even been acquitted of, but a Federal judge in Illinois went one better:  he increased the sentence based on a finding that if the defendant had been out on [...

Props to Bill

Posted on February 19, 2009
As most of my regular readers know, we’ve been having a pitched battle up here in Cuyahoga County over open discovery in criminal cases.  I have not been a dispassionate observer; I have regularly pilloried Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason for his opposition to it...

Too clever by half

Posted on February 18, 2009
Sometimes you can get away with gaming the system.  Sometimes not, as the defense found last week in State v. Gilbert, a case involving a subject not frequently encountered by criminal lawyers:  testimonial immunity.  Gilbert had been convicted of murder and aggravated robbery, and while awaiting sentencing, sent several letters to the prosecutor proposing that he testify [...

8th District Roundup

Posted on February 17, 2009
Sometimes reading cases teaches me stuff I didn’t know.  Sometimes it just reinforces things I already knew.  This is what I learned/relearned from the 8th District’s decisions last week. You know when you do a no-contest plea, and the court asks the prosecutor to put a factual basis for the plea on the record?  As the [...

Case Update

Posted on February 16, 2009
The only news from DC is good news — the latest update on Justice Ginsberg’s cancer surgery, which found no metastasis.  Not a whole lot going on downstate, either.  If you’re thinking of becoming a lawyer, go light on the gas pedal:  the Supreme Court disapproves a bar applicant because of, among other things, sixteen speeding [...

Rape shield and the right of confrontation

Posted on February 13, 2009
You’re representing a defendant in a child rape case.  The eight-year-old victim has testified in graphic detail as to exactly what your client did.  You know the jury’s sitting there thinking that the kid has to be telling the truth, otherwise how would she know this stuff?  You know that the child has an alternative source [...

Eyewitness identifications and court-appointed experts

Posted on February 12, 2009
Criminal appellate lawyers can tell you how difficult it is to get a conviction reversed, even under the best of circumstances.  Questionable police testimony is routinely accepted to overrule motions to suppress searches or statements, violations of evidentiary rules are disregarded under the rubric of “harmless error,” and courts regularly indulge in fictions, such as [...

8th District Roundup

Posted on February 11, 2009
Thirty-three decisions last week, over two-thirds criminal, and good lawyering abounds.  Take a look at State v. Weinstein, for example, where the 60-year-old defendant is stopped while driving around one of the local suburb’s premier drug marts...

Case Update - Appellate Edition

Posted on February 10, 2009
One other decision last week from the Ohio Supreme Court that I skipped over yesterday:  in State v. Malone, the court holds that a conviction for intimidating a witness under RC 2921.04(B) requires that criminal proceedings have already been insitituted...

Case Update - OSC Edition

Posted on February 09, 2009
Nothing doing in DC, except news of Justice Ginsberg’s surgery for pancreatic cancer.  (SCOTUSblog explains why this might not be as bad as it sounds.)  Meanwhile, after listening to me whine for the last month about the OSC’s paucity of decisions, the Moyer Gang decides to shut me up by issuing ten opinions...

SCOTUS arguments, judicial nominations, dope, and other stuff

Posted on February 06, 2009
This could be one of the more significant US Supreme Court terms for criminal law in recent memory.  We’ve already had two major decisions on 4th Amendment law, Herring v. US (discussed here) and Arizona v. Johnson (here), and in the pipeline is Arizona v...

Another look at the Deem test

Posted on February 05, 2009
Timothy Evans ran into some bad luck on November 18, 2005.  His simple purse-grab outside a store in Cleveland was foiled because the woman just held the purse tighter.  He told her he had a gun, but it didn’t have the desired effect; “Well, you know what? You’re going to have to use it,” the victim replied...

Medical privilege in civil actions

Posted on February 04, 2009
You’re representing Joe in a personal injury action, and the other side sends you a medical authorization for the records of Joe’s treatment with Dr. Smith, his family physician of the past ten years.  But when you present the authorization to Joe, he tells you that, in addition to treating him for his back injuries, Dr...

What’s Up in the 8th

Posted on February 03, 2009
Bad week for criminal defendants, a much better one for civil plaintiffs; in twelve criminal cases, the meager results are the vacation of a plea and a reversal because the judge failed to merge certain offenses. State v. Davis involves the former question, and a search issue as well...

Case Update

Posted on February 02, 2009
It’s not uncommon for judges to instruct counsel for the prevailing party in the case to prepare the journal entry, but the teaching of Disciplinary Counsel v. Stuard is that it’s a no-no to meet with counsel ex parte to help them prepare it...

Consent-once-removed, and other fictions

Posted on January 30, 2009
Yesterday we talked about the Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona v. Evans, involving a police officer’s right to frisk passengers in a stopped vehicle.  The week before, the Supreme Court handed down Pearson v. Callahan which, despite it being a civil case, also has important ramifications for 4th Amendment law...

It could have been worse

Posted on January 29, 2009
My legions of faithful readers are by now familiar with my dystopian view of where the Supreme Court is headed on 4th Amendment issues.  Despite the Court’s unanimous decision in favor of the government on a 4th Amendment issue the other day in Arizona v...

Take me out to the ballgame

Posted on January 28, 2009
On June 11, 2002, Don Krieger, Clifton Oliver, and Andrew Mendez went to an Indians game in Cleveland.  The Tribe beat the Philadelphia Phillies handily 5-1, with Bartolo Colon pitching eight strong innings, and Milton Bradley providing the the big blow with a 3-run homer in the 3rd...

What’s Up in the 8th

Posted on January 27, 2009
After a couple of sluggish post-holiday sessions, the 8th issued twenty decisions last week.  One we’ll talk about one in more detail tomorrow.  The highs and lows for the other nineteen: Although conspiracy is a staple of Federal prosecutions, it’s fairly rare on the state level...

Case Update

Posted on January 26, 2009
Not much out of DC, and nothing out of Columbus last week.  Roberts et al. came down with one decision, Pearson v. Callahan, concerning qualified immunity for police officers in suits for 4th Amendment violations.  Pearson is interesting for both on its effects on search and seizure law, especially the “consent-once-removed” doctrine, and its treatment [...

Raising the white flag?

Posted on January 23, 2009
Not two weeks after I get done with my “Year in Review — Allied Offenses” post, and here we have another oral argument in the Ohio Supreme Court on allied offenses, another lawyer standing in front of the justices and telling them that “the citizens of Ohio are not well served” by Ohio’s jurisprudence on the [...

Shutting up, and pro bono work

Posted on January 22, 2009
This will probably not come as a surprise to many of my regular readers, but I sometimes have a problem keeping my mouth shut. Exhibit 347 was my Christmas story post, relating the trial of Elizabeth, a home health care aide.  I was defending her against a charge of theft, based upon her having written checks for [...

What’s Up in the 8th

Posted on January 21, 2009
Getting a criminal case reversed on weight or insufficiency of the evidence is a truly Quixotic task, but last week featured not one, but two decisions from the 8th District doing precisely that.  In State v. Gatson, the defendant had been convicted of domestic violence and intimidation on his girlfriend, the latter charge being based on the [...

Case Update

Posted on January 20, 2009
In addition to the handing down two big decisions in Herring v. US and Oregon v. Ice, which we talked about the last couple days, the US Supreme Court’s granted cert in five cases, including one on student privacy, where a thirteen-year-old girl was strip-searched on the basis of an unproven tip from another statement, and [...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.