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Case Summaries

Criminal Law & Procedure

[02/08] US v. Schneider
In a prosecution for impermissibly dispensing controlled drugs, an order excluding evidence of all but one of the eighteen deaths charged in one count of the indictment and the court's placement of a ten-day limitation on the government's time to present its case is vacated where the district court's ruling effectively dismissed separately charged conduct brought by the government against defendants, and thus impermissibly intruded upon the authority of the executive branch to design a criminal prosecution in the way it deemed most prudent.

[01/14] State of Florida v. Nelson
In a conviction of a juvenile defendant for burglary and related crime, the decision of the Fourth District is quashed and remanded as, when the State is entitled to the recapture period, a continuance that is chargeable to the defense and made after the expiration of the speedy trial period but before a defendant files a notice expiration waives a defendant's speedy trial rights under the default period of the rule.

[01/14] Johnson v. State of Florida
Defendant's request for postconviction relief is granted and the death sentences vacated and remanded where the newly disclosed evidence shows the following: 1) after defendant was arrested and counsel was appointed, the State intentionally created a situation likely to induce defendant to make incriminating statements to a jailhouse informant in violation of defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel; 2) although the prosecutor at defendant's first trial knew that his statements were impermissibly elicited and that his testimony was inadmissible, the prosecutor knowingly used false testimony and misleading argument to convince the court to admit the testimony; and 3) because defendant's testimony was admitted and later used by a different prosecutor at defendant's 1988 trial, and because the State has failed to show that this error did not contribute to the jury's advisory sentences of death, the death sentences are vacated and remanded under Giglio v. US.

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Evidence

[02/08] US v. Schneider
In a prosecution for impermissibly dispensing controlled drugs, an order excluding evidence of all but one of the eighteen deaths charged in one count of the indictment and the court's placement of a ten-day limitation on the government's time to present its case is vacated where the district court's ruling effectively dismissed separately charged conduct brought by the government against defendants, and thus impermissibly intruded upon the authority of the executive branch to design a criminal prosecution in the way it deemed most prudent.

[01/14] Johnson v. State of Florida
Defendant's request for postconviction relief is granted and the death sentences vacated and remanded where the newly disclosed evidence shows the following: 1) after defendant was arrested and counsel was appointed, the State intentionally created a situation likely to induce defendant to make incriminating statements to a jailhouse informant in violation of defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel; 2) although the prosecutor at defendant's first trial knew that his statements were impermissibly elicited and that his testimony was inadmissible, the prosecutor knowingly used false testimony and misleading argument to convince the court to admit the testimony; and 3) because defendant's testimony was admitted and later used by a different prosecutor at defendant's 1988 trial, and because the State has failed to show that this error did not contribute to the jury's advisory sentences of death, the death sentences are vacated and remanded under Giglio v. US.

[01/14] Ferrell v. State of Florida
In postconviction proceedings of a defendant convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, trial court's grant of a new penalty phase but denial of guilt-phase claims is affirmed where: 1) trial court did not err in denying defendant's claims of ineffective assistance of counsel in the guilt phase; 2) defendant has failed to establish a Giglio violation; 3) defendant's Brady claims are without merit; 4) defendant's claims of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel in his habeas petition are denied; and 4) defendant's claim that his appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise on direct appeal a Cronic violation of per se ineffectiveness is rejected as the ineffectiveness was not apparent on the face of the trial record.

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Judges & Judiciary

[06/30] ORANGE COUNTY EMPLOYEES ASS'N, INC. v. THE SUPERIOR COURT OF ORANGE COUNTY
The Court denied plaintiff's petition for writ of mandate to disclose records relating to reimbursement of travel expenses for judges and management employees of the Court pursuant to the California Public Records Act, because the Act did not apply to the requested disclosure.

[06/28] US v. PARKER
Evidence seized under a warrant issued by a trial commissioner who was also an administrative assistant at the county jail was properly excluded, because the commissioner was not a neutral and detached party.

[06/08] PEOPLE v. PESCADOR
A judge, substituted into a trial following three days of testimony, can fairly and competently preside without first reading all prior testimony, as long as he familiarized himself with pertinent portions of the record before making specific rulings.

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