A Senior Judge sitting in Montgomery County Miscellaneous Court recently dismissed a DUI case because the defendant was facing a mandatory minimum sentence of 48 hours but had been incarcerated for 10 days awaiting trial. Judge Braxton’s rationale was that the man was not likely to get a sentence of more than 48 hours in […]
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Montgomery County Creates New DUI Court
Montgomery County has created a DUI court, which will streamline the adjudication process for DUI offenders. The most notable change is that The Honorable Cheryl Austin will preside over all Montgomery County DUI cases effective January 2014. In fact, all DUI cases scheduled this month are being assigned to her already, with court dates set […]
Pennsylvania Sexual Assault Victim Awarded $6 Million
A Pike County, Pennsylvania judge awarded a woman $6 million in damages for psychological trauma she suffered as a result of being sexually assaulted when she was in third grade. Thomas Harvey Matthews, a former teacher at the Shohola Elementary School in the Delaware Valley School District, sexually abused the now-23-year-old woman during the 1998-1999 […]
Was Your BAC Higher Than Expected? Here Are Two Possible Explanations
Determining a person’s BAC is a very complex process, and there are multiple ways for a blood or breath sample to be contaminated or otherwise unreliable. If the testing is done by way of a blood test, two surprising sources of contamination come from an unlikely source: the hospital itself. One possible source of contamination […]
Are Pennsylvania Mandatory Minimum Sentences Constitutional?
When Alleyne v. United States was decided in June, sentencing in criminal cases changed dramatically. Prior to Alleyne, aggravating factors that could invoke a mandatory minimum sentence in Pennsylvania did not have to be submitted to a jury and could be decided by a judge. After Alleyne, such factors must be submitted to a jury, […]
