Articles

The United States Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Innocence Project, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers have issued a report that calls into question more than 90% of trial convictions before 2000 where flawed FBI microscopic hair analysis was used to support the conviction.   The  NACDL, FBI, and the Philadelphia Inquirer have reported […]

On the heels of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Rodriguez v. United States to limit the duration of traffic stops, the Pennsylvania Superior Court recently held that where a valid traffic stop has been completed, to pass constitutional muster, the officer must demonstrate cause for suspicion independent of any basis on which he conducted […]

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that official expungement of criminal records may not be the end of the story for individuals suffering the collateral consequences of crimes supposedly wiped off the books. Expungement is the process of eliminating records of past criminal charges. Sometimes it involves purging the searchable records of law enforcement […]

The Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure are being amended, effective July 1 of this year, to incorporate the principle that, for summary cases, a defendant should be released on recognizance (ROR) and that collateral be set only if the issuing authority has reasonable grounds to believe that the defendant would not appear.  The changes apply […]

In a 6-3 decision, authored by Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the United States Supreme Court on Tuesday held in Rodriguez v. United States, that, absent reasonable suspicion, police extension of a traffic stop in order to conduct a dog sniff violates the Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable seizures.  The decision may have significant consequences […]