Posted on October 8th, 2007 by Administrator
I think I would be remiss not to mention Columbus Day on a criminal defense blog.
Here is a neat little exhibit at the Library of Congress. A little snippit from their website:
All of these encounters, some brutal and traumatic, others more gradual, irreversibly changed the way in which peoples in the Americas led their lives.
Posted on October 7th, 2007 by Administrator
For those of your who love nothing more than reading 4th amendment (search and seizure) cases then John Wesley Hall’s blog is for you. He literally wrote the book on it.
Check it out below:
http://www.fourthamendment.com/blog/
Posted on October 6th, 2007 by Administrator
From now on every week I will post a legal term that is connected to the criminal law field.
Today’s Legal Term is Mens Rea.
Mens Rea is the mental component of a criminal offense. An accused’s mental state can affect his/her charge as much as the act itself. See Nolo.
Example: If someone is intoxicated at a party, playing with his loaded gun, and it goes off and shoots someone then that person’s mental state is less culpable than if that same person had stalked an individual for 5 years, learned the persons habits, and broke into their home for the purpose of killing that person.
In Arkansas there are generally four different culpable mental states: Purposefully, Knowingly, Recklessly, and Negligently.
Next week’s legal term: Actus Reus.
Posted on October 4th, 2007 by Administrator
Many people, of all occupations, are driven to do their job well. Public defenders specifically, have the sacred duty of defending the indigent in criminal matters.
An Ohio judge sanctioned a public defender for being unwilling to go to trial when the public defender only had two and a half hours to prepare. The president of the Ohio Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, Carmen Hernandez, stated that:
“For the scales of justice to be balanced, both the prosecution and the defense must be prepared,” Hernandez said. “Asking a lawyer to go to trial without preparation is like asking a doctor to perform surgery before diagnosing the patient. Harm is inevitable.”
The Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution provides that: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right……to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”
The moral of the story:
We cannot allow inconvenience and our drive-thru Bic Mac mentality to interfere with our constitutional rights.
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