An immigration detainer is one of the key tools that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) uses to apprehend individuals who come in contact with local and state law enforcement agencies. Sometimes, after a defendant has been arrested for a crime, an ICE officer will file an immigration detainer (Department of Homeland Security form I-247A
Criminal
Buddy System Gone Awry In Encinitas
As Eugene Volokh explains, it may violate the First Amendment. But why, one has to wonder, would the Encinitas Union School District believe treading along, and over, the line of constitutionally protected speech and expression was so important that it would not merely take the risk, but take the risk at the expense of…
Encounters with Lions: Evidence of Gang Affiliation in State v. Ervin
A defendant who claims self-defense is generally permitted to offer evidence of the victim’s prior violent conduct if known to the defendant at the time defensive force was used. Such evidence is relevant to the reasonableness of the defendant’s belief in the need to use force. In State v. Ervin, No. COA24-650 (N.C. Ct.…
Cool Q-A Coming Up
By John R. ByrneThis should be fun. A conversation on May 22 between Judge Ruiz and attorney Roman Martinez, a partner at Latham & Watkins who has argued 15 cases in the Supreme Court (Martinez is also the nephew of former US Attorney, Bob Martinez). Martinez was in the news recently when, during a…
Tuesday Talk*: Are There Trump Judges And Biden Judges?
In a curious lapse from her attacks on the conservative wing of the Supreme Court, Linda Greenhouse raises an interesting question. Should reporting about federal judges include the president who nominated them?
Back when I was a reporter covering the Supreme Court in the early 2000s, journalists in the nation’s capital had begun routinely to…
Diddy openings
Lots of news coverage of the opening statements in Diddy’s case. I love this stuff. The prosecution was as expected — very straightforward (via Vulture):“To the public, he was Puff Daddy or Diddy — a cultural icon, a businessman, larger than life — but there was another side to him, a side that…
Case Summaries: N.C. Court of Appeals (May 7, 2025)
By Alex Phipps
This post summarizes the published criminal opinions from the North Carolina Court of Appeals released on May 7, 2025. These summaries will be added to Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium, a free and searchable database of case summaries from 2008 to the present.
Prosecutor’s statements during closing argument were not improper and did not comment…
What’s Wrong With Free Planes, Anyway?
So what if it comes on the bone-spurred heels of Trump buying a luxury golf resort in Qatar? So what if its legality was approved by Qatar’s former $100,000 per month lobbyist, now Attorney General of the United States? After all, it’s free and isn’t that what really matters?
So the fact that the…
RIP David Souter
We need more of him.From his former law clerk, Noah Feldman:David Souter, the former US Supreme Court justice who died at 85 on Thursday, was sometimes mistakenly thought to have turned into a liberal after being nominated by President George H.W. Bush on the expectation that he would be an ideological conservative.History will…
Imperfect self defense fails when excessive force used
People v. Temple (Cal. Ct. App., May 6, 2025, No. G062781) 2025 WL 1304577, at *1
Summary: A jury found Temple not guilty of first degree murder (Pen. Code, §§ 187, subd. (a), 189, subd. (a)) but guilty of the lesser included offense of second degree murder (§ 189, subd. (b)). The jury found to…