Reparations Center for Victims of War Crimes
The lat few weeks have brought some news about torture, and the law surrounding it. The United Nations Convention Against Torture defines torture, bans the use of torture, prohibits member states from transferring persons to states where they would be subjected to torture, requires member states to punish torture in criminal courts and requires them…
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has published a new database that helps determine what rights have been lost by a felony conviction, and if, and how they maybe restored. The database helps answer the most persistent questions asked by those who have been convicted of crimes. For example, the entry related to Minnesota…
The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals this week found in United States v. Skinner that people are not entitled to an expectation of privacy in the GPS data from pay as you go cell phones. The Defendant, Skinner, objected claiming that he had an expectation of privacy in the phone and the government’s tracking…
Attorney John L. Fossum, of the Fossum Law Office, LLC was named as Certified Criminal Law Specialist by the Minnesota State Bar Association. According the announcement from the MSBA: The certified specialist designation is earned by leading attorneys who have completed a rigorous approval process, including an examination in the specialty area, peer review, and…
This week the Minnesota Court of Appeals took the Borg case, allowing the use of pre-arrest, pre-Miranda, and pre-counsel silence as evidence against an accused one step further, and decided that it was ok for the government to use a defendant’s post arrest silence as evidence of guilt. The case, State v. Johnson, rests on…
The Minnesota Supreme Court today issued a decision creating an odd new hole in the right to remain silent. Most Americans know through movies, TV dramas and Congressional hearings, that a suspect has a right to remain silent. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal…
In a 29 page opinion issued yesterday, the Minnesota Supreme Court interpreted Minnesota’s DWI Forfeiture law to mean that if spouses jointly own a motor vehicle and one loses the vehicle through a DWI forfeiture, the other can no longer recover the vehicle as an “innocent owner.” In the opinion, available here, the court found…
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