Friday, October 09, 2009

Tools

When I was a kid I knew a guy who was arrested for having a screwdriver in his back pocket. He was actually arrested for Failure to Display Proper Respect to an ego deprived cop but the reason given was Possession of Burglary Tools -- a screwdriver.

These days it would probably be a weapons charge, but back then it wasn't illegal to carry a knife.

Now we have courts referring to cell phones as "tools of the drug trade".
The agents reasonably concluded that Correa's cellular telephone, a "known tool of the drug trade," contained digital evidence about the conspiracy. United States v. Nixon, 918 F.2d 895, 900 (11th Cir. 1990).
It won't be long before your kids are being arrested for possession of drug dealing tools.

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Lifestyle and Political Blogs


Friday, October 02, 2009

Eyewitness identification

I have serious doubts about the competence of a criminal attorney (whether he's a defense attorney or a prosecutor) who doesn't know how unreliable eyewitness identification is.

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Lifestyle and Political Blogs