In 2018’s Carpenter v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement is generally not entitled to use cell site location information unless it obtains a warrant for the information. This means that state and federal law enforcement agencies cannot...
Criminal Defense
Can police follow you into your home over an alleged misdemeanor?
Arthur L. was playing his music loudly and honking his horn. That got the attention of a California highway patrol officer, who began following Arthur from a distance. The officer intended to initiate a traffic stop but didn’t take any action like activating his...
Unrest in Kenosha highlights racial disparities in policing
Until recently, many people in Wisconsin may have assumed there was little or no problem in Wisconsin with racial disparities in policing. After a Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake in the back recently, however, protests erupted in the city of 99,000. The...
What kinds of police raids should we tolerate?
Another high-profile case of mistaken identity recently played out in Nashville. Police officers, acting on bad information, raided a family home at 6:05 a.m. They apparently knocked but gave the family no time to answer before knocking their door down with a ram. Can...
Many police interrogation techniques are causing false confessions
False confessions are a real danger in the criminal justice system. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 12% of all exonerations since 1989 involved a false confession. According to the Innocence Project, that number goes up to 62% when considering...
Should a criminal record be a life sentence to poverty?
Did you know that one in every three Americans has some type of criminal record? That’s 70 million people. Unfortunately, having a criminal record is extremely stigmatized, and it can keep you in poverty for a long time. According to the Clean Slate Initiative, nearly...
Kicked off the jury because she thinks Black lives matter
When prosecutors and defense attorneys pick a jury, they can ask any relevant question of the potential jurors. When a potential juror's answer indicates they cannot be impartial, the lawyer can legally keep them off the jury. In addition, each side gets a limited...
Should researchers stop working on technology for the police?
Facial recognition technology is flawed. Unfortunately, the technology tends to misidentify some people as others, which can mean the police arrest the wrong person. And, the technology has been shown to be racially biased.In fact, in 2018 the ACLU used Amazon's...
Misdemeanors pull people of color into the criminal justice system
As we discuss racial disparities in the criminal justice system, it's important to understand that the reason people of color are more deeply affected than their white peers is not because people of color are more prone to committing crimes. In fact, federal data...
Large tech companies refuse to sell facial recognition to police
In the wake of nationwide and global protests over police racism and brutality, several large tech companies have backed off of plans to sell facial recognition technology to law enforcement.Facial recognition technology has been broadly criticized as a privacy...