Articles

In Commonwealth v. Jones, 859 WDA 2013, 2014 WL 2209090 (May 29, 2014), the defendant, Lawrence Jones, had pleaded guilty to second-degree misdemeanor indecent assault and corruption of minors.  However, at the time, only guilt of first-degree misdemeanor indecent assault required registration and reporting under Megan’s Law.  The defendant filed a petition under the Post-Conviction […]

In Commonwealth v. Hudson, 2014 WL 2441931, 586 EDA 2013 (Pa.Super. 2014), the Pennsylvania Superior Court clarified when the police have probable cause to search pill bottles in one’s car. In Hudson, the police conducted a traffic stop due to a broken taillight. Before the officers reached the car to talk to the defendant, they […]

Since the founding of the FBI in 1908, the Department of Justice has refused to audiotape or videotape interviews with criminal suspects.  Federal agencies gave a variety of reasons for refusing to do so.  For example, an internal FBI memo argued that jurors would be offended if they saw the psychological tricks agents used to […]

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently reversed longstanding precedent that held that experts could not render opinions about the validity of eyewitness identifications.  Now, after the courts recent 4-2 decision in Commonwealth v. Walker, that type of evidence is now admissible if the trial Judge, in her discretion, chooses to permit it.  This decision brings Pennsylvania back […]

According to Yahoo News and Reuters, the United States Department of Justice will begin collecting and analyzing data from police stops, searches, and arrests to identify and correct racial biases in the justice system. Click the link below for the full story:

http://news.yahoo.com/u-justice-department-collect-study-arrest-data-racial-160543037.html