Justice Overdue: Reinvestigating the Murder of Malcolm X
John Adams and the Art of Persuasion
Dewey Bozella on His Wrongful Conviction
Law School Toolbox Podcast Episode 248: Listen and Learn -- Introduction to Homicide
Homicide means the act of one person killing another. Murder, on the other hand, is when someone unlawfully kills another person with the intention to harm beforehand. So, homicide is like the big category that covers...more
Most readers of this blog rarely, if ever, become involved in homicide cases. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court’s essentially unanimous decision in McElrath v. Georgia should be of interest because it deals with the issue of...more
Capital murder designates a specific type of homicide that may be punishable by the death penalty. But, it no longer exists in the state of Colorado. This change in the legal landscape is a significant development, and...more
Summary - The Nevada Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s order allowing police and district attorneys to search through assertedly privileged newsgathering material on seized electronic devices of murdered Las Vegas...more
In the last few years, I have been fortunate to have attorneys and their clients trust me as their mediator in a significant number of high-exposure negligent security cases. Negligent security cases can offer a variety of...more
Summary - In People v. Reid and People v. Muhammad, the New York Court of Appeals overturned murder convictions due to violations of defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to open courtrooms. In both cases, the trial courts had...more
This episode profiles Dewey Bozella, a former professional boxer and WilmerHale client who spent 26 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Bozella is interviewed by WilmerHale Partner Ross Firsenbaum and former...more
Precedential Opinions of Note - Evidence from Outside Limitations Period Permissible to Prove Ongoing Scheme to Defraud - United States v. James (April 3, 2020), No. 19-1250...more
Welcome back to the Law School Toolbox podcast! This is another episode in our "Listen and Learn" series, where we review legal concepts and apply them to fact patterns. Today, we're talking about homicide. In this episode...more
Before the trial of Dallas police officer Amber Guyger on charges of murdering Botham Jean in his own apartment, the defense team argued that “media hysteria” threatened to deny her right to a fair trial. But when court...more
Once again, eDiscovery and emerging data sources are at the center of a criminal murder investigation. A recent article in Wired highlights how investigators used data from the victim’s Fitbit and a neighbor’s Ring digital...more
The Colorado Supreme Court published an opinion this summer involving what is commonly referred to as the “slayer statute.” In re Estate of Feldman, 443 P.3d 66 (Colo. 2019). The slayer statute, Colo. Rev. Stat. §...more
Two recent murder cases have again highlighted the use of electronic forensics to solve cases that only a few decades ago, would have been difficult to crack in the relatively short time frame between the crime and the...more
Recently, Amazon refused (registration required) to provide data from an Amazon Echo device in a case involving the a double homicide in response to an order issued by a New Hampshire state judge. Prosecutors believe that the...more
The Supreme Court of the United States issued five decisions today: Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn., No. 16-476: In the 1990s, Congress enacted the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (“PASPA”), 28...more
United States v. Gill, No. 15-4444-cr(L) (Livingston, Chin, Carney), a decision in a drug trafficking and murder conspiracy appeal, offers several interesting rulings on evidentiary and trial practice issues that arose out of...more
The warrant that led to the arrest of a husband for the alleged murder of his wife weaves a web of electronic evidence. Based in large part on Fitbit fitness tracker data, Connecticut authorities have charged Richard Debate...more
The murder-for-hire statute makes it a crime to agree to commit murder in exchange for “anything of pecuniary value.” 18 U.S.C. § 1958. The Second Circuit has understood this language to require that, at the time of the...more
The facts alleged are horrific. A supervisor had a history of screaming obscenities and throwing things at women who worked for him. The employer sent him to anger management classes. His preferred victim was seven months...more
Police in Bentonville, Arkansas are seeking records from an Amazon Echo device (for the second time) which may contain records in connection with a murder investigation in the home of James Andrew Bates where Victor Collins...more
Forty three long and painful years have passed since Víctor Jara, the famous Chilean folk singer whom Rolling Stone Magazine called one of the top 15 protest artists of all time, was found dead covered with dozens of bullet...more
An Unprecedented Approach to Regulatory Violations - In December 2014, the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts obtained a sweeping indictment that charges business executives of the New England...more
Just when we thought Jodi Arias had receded into the shadows of notorious sociopathic killers, she has returned for yet another drama-filled narcissistic replay of her depraved indifference to life and humanity....more
Overview: A California appellate court recently ruled that an involuntary confession motivated by an officer’s false promises of leniency was not admissible at trial. During the interrogation, the officer repeatedly asserted...more