Where a defendant was charged under three subsections of South Dakota’s “simple assault domestic violence” law and only two of the three subsections qualified as a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence which would allow the defendant to be charged in ...
Read More »Criminal Law: Domestic Abuse- Prior Convictions- Tribal Court
Where a defendant in a domestic assault case challenged the admission of the victim’s testimony about the facts underlying his prior convictions as well as evidence of his tribal court convictions, the testimony was relevant to prove that the convictions ...
Read More »Criminal Law: Conspiracy- Evidence
Where the defendant conspired with two other men to steal commercial trucks, trailers and the cargo, the mere fact that the defendant rented a storage unit and had a key to the unit where stolen goods were kept was not ...
Read More »Criminal Law: Arrest Reasonable Suspicion- Totality of Circumstances
Where the defendant was discovered sleeping in a van that was parked in a neighborhood commonly used by thieves to sell stolen metal, and it was parked in a backyard where two weeks earlier the police had arrested a man ...
Tagged with: Arrest Reasonable Suspicion Criminal Law Totality of Circumstances
Read More »Contracts: Non-Compete Agreement- Personal Services Contract- Assignment
Where employees who signed non-compete agreements and were sued by the employer, which had purchased their former employer as an asset purchase, summary judgment in favor of the employees is reversed and remanded because the non-compete and confidentiality agreements were ...
Read More »Civil Rights: Unreasonable Force- Prior Bad Act
Where an officer who was convicted of willfully depriving of another of the right to be free from unreasonable force challenged the admission of a prior incident, the prior bad act evidence was relevant to show that the officer acted ...
Tagged with: civil rights Prior Bad Act Unreasonable Force
Read More »Civil Rights: Section 1983- Exculpatory Evidence
Where a sheriff admitted that the murder victim contacted him several times about her estranged husband but failed to state it was five to 15 times and the defense attorney knew before his client’s trial that the murder victim had ...
Tagged with: civil rights exculpatory evidence Section 1983
Read More »Civil Rights: Inmate Action- Deliberate Indifference- Dental Pain
Where a plaintiff who was arrested while recovering from dental surgery brought an action alleging deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs based on the officers’ refusal to provide him with any pain medications, the two days’ delay of pain ...
Tagged with: civil rights Deliberate Indifference Dental Pain Inmate Action
Read More »Civil Rights: Due Process- Parole Request- File Photos
Where a defendant who was convicted of second-degree murder argued that the inclusions of photographs of her child victim violated her right to have her request for parole heard by an unbiased and impartial board, the due process claim failed ...
Tagged with: civil rights due process File Photos Parole Request
Read More »Civil Practice: Settlement Agreement- Res Judicata- Legal Malpractice
Where plaintiffs who claimed that their attorney negligently advised them regarding their bankruptcy leading to a settlement agreement and the loss of their property ownership, the plaintiffs could have argued a negligence claim in their first malpractice action, so claim ...
Tagged with: civil practice Legal malpractice Res Judicata Settlement Agreement
Read More »Bankruptcy: Time-Barred Claim- FDCPA
Even though a creditor filed a proof of claim in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy on a time-barred debt, the proof of claim was not false, deceptive or misleading under the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act. Eleventh Circuit The debtor “urges ...
Tagged with: Bankruptcy FDCPA Time-Barred Claim
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