Articles

In Bailey v. United States, decided February 19, 2013, the United States Supreme Court reversed and remanded a ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and narrowed the applicability of the ruling in Michigan v. Summers (1981), an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unlawful seizure. Summers held that […]

The United States Supreme Court ruled on February 20, 2013, that its decision in Padilla v. Kentucky (2010) will not apply retroactively. The Court ruled in Padilla that a lawyer must inform the client of potential deportation consequences stemming from a plea of guilty. If the defendant was not informed of the immigration consequences of […]

The field of DNA identification is rapidly changing and becoming increasingly accurate as time goes on. Early DNA matching was painfully slow and relatively primitive. Now, computers can quickly determine with a remarkably high degree of accuracy whether or not two DNA samples came from the same person. One of the newest technologies, True Allele, […]

In the past, we’ve written about sex offenders on Facebook and other social networking websites. Some states have enacted laws that curtail the ability of registered sex offenders to use the same social media websites that minors also have access to. On January 23rd the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit ruled that […]

Later this month, the United States Supreme Court will rule on whether or not it is constitutional to obtain a DNA sample from someone who has been arrested for a crime but has not yet been convicted. This practice occurs in 28 states and in federal cases. The current law in Pennsylvania allows for the […]