"I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." Thomas Jefferson (1789)

BRIEF RELIEF MATTERS IN PROGRESS

1. Traffic issue in planning application requiring police to direct traffic on daily basis.
2. Use of prior criminal conviction to impeach witness/party.
3. Over payment of retirement benefits and suit to recover-ERISA application.
4. Interpretation of clauses as to duration of contract-reasonableness.
5. Prosecutor and complaining witness immunity in Michigan for false statements made in litigation.
6. Employment contract and damage.
7. Social host liability in New York.
8. Right to counsel when sentence suspended.

MATTERS OF INTEREST

Supreme Court
Overton v. Ohio, 00-9769 When police broke down Overton's door they had an arrest warrant that said she was harboring drug dealers. A divided Supreme Court refused to consider invalidating the warrant.
Overton said arrest warrants are signed by a city court clerk who does not consider whether there is legal standing for a warrant and simply grants what lawmen want.

Washington Supreme Court
State v. Reynolds, No. 70213-6 Search and seizure (property abandoned because of unlawful police conduct, May Not be Searched). Law enforcement officers may search voluntarily abandoned property under the Fourth Amendment and Article I, section 7 of the Washington Consititution; property is not voluntarily abandoned if abandoned because of unlawful police conduct.

NY Court of Appeals
People v. Rojas, 4 No. 132 (NY October 25, 2001) Where the defendant opens the door by arguing in the opening statement that his segregation from the rest of the jail population was unfair, the trial court may allow introduction of evidence of prior alleged crimes to show why the prisoner was segregated.

2nd Circuit
Davis v. Strack, No. 00-2286 (2nd cir. October 30, 2001) Under N.Y. Penal Law 35.15, the duty to retreat under the defense of justification attaches only after the defendant has a reasonable belief that the other person is using or about to use deadly physical force, not when it would be prudent to leave.

US v. Coppa, No. 01-3031 (2d cir October 5, 2001) Under Brady, Government has a constitutional duty to disclose only exculpatory "material" and impeachment evidence, and only when such evidence is needed for its effective use at trial or at a plea proceeding, rather than immediate disclosure of all such evidence upon a defendant's request.

TOP WEB PICKS

Federal Guidelines for Drunk Driving, Car Crashes, Train Accidents, Etc. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's "Desk Book" fro police officers contains federal guidelines on everything from field sobriety testing, breath machines and traffic stops to highway engineering and railroad grade crossing safety. It could potentially be used as evidence as to whether proper standards were met. http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/enforce/DESKBK.html

Get Crash Data on Hundreds of Vehicles. This site offers crash data on virtually every car and may be useful to car buyers. http://www.Crashtest.com

Search a Treasure Trove of Medical Data. The Grateful Med Web site lets you quickly search for medical information from many of the MEDLINE databases. http://igm.nlm.nih.gov

Get Hard-to-Find ADA Documents. The Americans with Disabilities Act Document Center provides a wealth of hard-to-find documents on disability law as well as links to other related sites. http://janweb.icdi.wvu.edu/kinder/

Look Up Anyone's Zip +4 Code. Use the U.S. Postal Service site to quickly determine the 9 digit Zip Code for any address. http://www.usps.com/ncsc/lookups/lookup_zip+4.html

Find News Stories From Dozens of Sites in One Search. TotalNEWS lets you search for news stories from dozens of news sites at once, with links for world news, local news, politics, science, technology and more. http://www.totalnews.com

PUBLICATIONS OF INTEREST

Michigan Law Review, vol. 99, No. 5, March 2001: "Symposium on Miranda After Dickerson: The Future of Confession Law".

The Journal of Small & Emerging Business Law, Vol. 5, No. 1, Spring 2001: "Defamation, Negligent Referral, and the World of Employment References".
Legal Lynching, By Jesse L. Jackson Sr., Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. and Bruce Shapiro: The Death Penalty and America's Future

The Private Life of the American Death Penalty, By Ivan Solotaroff.

Why Lawyers Should Eat Bananas, By Simon Tupman's: interesting and off-beat advice to lawyers seeking to strike balance between life and lawyering.

Mark v. Tushnet, ed., Thurgood Marshall: His Speeches, Writings, Arguments, Opinions, and Reminiscences (Lawerence Hill Books 2001), A review of Thurgood Marshall's collected writings.