Articles

In Commonwealth v. Sodomsky, 2015 Pa. Super. 133, a three-judge panel of the Pennsylvania Superior Court held that digital information stored on a desktop computer is subject to Fourth Amendment protections, regardless of the defendant’s reasonable expectation of privacy. The defendant had dropped off his desktop computer to Circuit City’s technology department in order for a new […]

In Ohio v. Clark, a 6-member majority of the United States Supreme Court agreed that introduction of incriminating statements made to a school teacher by a three-year-old boy indicating that a specific person was responsible for abusing him was admissible and not a violation of the Confrontation Clause.  Three other members concurred in the judgment, […]

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the weaknesses of Pennsylvania’s expungement law. As you’ll recall, expungement is the process by which someone convicted of certain crimes may be able to have governmental records of that event wiped clean from the system (For more on expungement generally, see this site’s primer here). Senate Bill 166, […]

In a groundbreaking 3-2 decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided this week in Commonwealth v. Hopkins,  that 18 Pa.C.S. § 6317, the drug-free school zone statute, is unconstitutional and non-severable pursuant to United States v. Alleyne, 133 S.Ct. 2151 (2013). Section 6317 of the Crimes Code requires additional, mandatory minimum two-year sentences for adults convicted of […]

Motorcyclists need to be even more careful than the average motorist on the road. That’s why this video is so shocking. Don’t speed and always drive defensively.  This video courtesy of Limerick Police.  Click the link in the preceding sentence to watch the video – you can’t click the picture below. Charges for the unnamed idiot […]