Articles

Last month, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held in Commonwealth v. Cooley that a defendant was subject to custodial interrogation during an encounter with his parole agent.  Because the defendant was never read his Miranda rights, the Court further held that the admission of the defendant’s statement was in error and remanded the case for a new […]

A three-member panel of the Pennsylvania Superior Court has upended the required evidence for proving a prima facie case at a preliminary hearing, holding in Commonwealth v. Ricker, 2015 WL 43810955, that a prima facie case at this stage in a criminal proceeding can be established solely based on hearsay. Hearsay is an out-of-court statement […]

Recently, the United States 7th Circuit of Appeals, a federal appeals court based out of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana, released a decision (United States v. Bentley) that seriously throws into question the reliability of drug dog sniffs as a justification for a police search. In that seminal case, the panel pointed out that the dog […]

A few days ago, United States District Judge John Gleeson of the Eastern District of New York ordered that a 13-year old federal conviction for fraud be expunged.  The ability to have a previous state criminal conviction expunged is available by statute and common law in Pennsylvania (learn more about expungement here).  However, it may […]

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 […]