(1)Where officers found an electronic digital scale, jeweler-sized bags and a razor blade with cocaine residue when executing a search warrant, a reasonable officer would believe that the defendant was engaged in drug trafficking so the incriminating nature of a ...

Tagged with: Criminal Law Seizure sentencing

(1)Where the prosecutor asked a defendant on trial for drug charges direct questions about her post-Miranda silence and elicited responses about her requests for counsel, her post-arrest silence was not a proper subject for examination and the defendant was prejudiced ...

Tagged with: Criminal Law Lesser-Included Offense

Where several police officers and 12 cooperating witnesses testified about defendant’s selling of crack cocaine and cash, cocaine and other drug evidence was seized from the residence from which the defendant ran, the evidence was sufficient to support the defendant’s ...

Tagged with: Criminal Law Drug Conspiracy instructions Sufficiency Of Evidence

Where a defendant in a bank fraud case knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to appeal his sentence and the conditions of the waiver were met, the defendant’s appeal of his sentence is dismissed, and the defendant also waived his ...

Tagged with: Continuance Criminal Law Waiver

When family and criminal law attorney Lisa Sims recently heard on the news that some credit card interest rates were being raised, she checked to make sure her rates were the same. They were still at an average of about ...

Tagged with: Criminal Law Family Law

Sentencing; child abuse   06-1103 United States of America, Appellant, v. Ruth Kane, Appellee On remand for reconsideration from the U.S. Supreme Court Submitted: Sept. 22, 2008 Filed: Jan. 14, 2009 Before: Judges Murphy, Hansen and Riley Opinion By: Judge ...

Tagged with: 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals child abuse Criminal Law sentencing

Where a juror indicated a potential bias against a defendant’s innocence but later stated unequivocally that he could follow the law, defendant’s trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to seek the juror’s removal, so the trial court erred in ...

Tagged with: Criminal Law effectiveness of counsel Post-Conviction Relief

(1)Where the state introduced evidence of defendant’s drinking in a voluntary manslaughter trial and the trial court gave the voluntary intoxication instruction to the jury, there was adequate evidence of intoxication to support the instruction, which was necessary to help ...

Tagged with: Criminal Law Manslaughter Voluntary Intoxication

Second-Degree Murder Exculpatory Evidence Effectiveness Of Counsel Where the record supported a ruling by the trial court in a second-degree murder case that the state did not suppress a police report, the defendant was not entitled to a new trial ...

Tagged with: Criminal Law effectiveness of counsel exculpatory evidence second-degree murder

(1) Where a defendant was convicted of four counts of third-degree domestic assault, resisting lawful detention and obstructing government operations, the defendant could be charged separately for causing the apprehension of physical harm and the resulting physical contact without violating ...

Tagged with: Criminal Law domestic assault