Last week the United States Supreme Court considered a case which will decide whether a federal judge has the authority to indefinitely stay a criminal defendant’s appeal pending a determination that the inmate is mentally competent to assist their attorney in the appeal.  A defendant appealing a death sentence in federal court has a legal right to an attorney but there has never been a determination that the defendant has to be mentally fit to pursue that appeal.  This case involves Sean Carter, who was convicted in Ohio of the murder of his grandmother after he had been released from prison in 1997 and was sentenced to death.  The other case involves Ernest Gonzalez, who was convicted of first degree murder during a burglary in Arizona in 1999 and sentenced to death. The federal judge handling Carter’s appeal stayed the appeal until he was mentally competent but the Court of Appeals changed the ruling to allow the part of the appeal that did not requi...

Evidence is mounting that the federal government is working hard to find new ways to track us.  This effort is not receiving the attention that it deserves. The federal government is constantly developing new technologies that will become more and more intrusive and will continue to eat away at our privacy. This article will discuss some of the new technologies that are on the way. The FBI has just started rolling out its Next Generation system. The program costs $1 billion and will involve a gigantic national database of mug shots, DNA samples, iris (eye) scans, voice records and fingerprints collected from more than 100 million people that is designed to identify and arrest criminals.  The federal government has already secured the cooperation of many state agencies, and by the time its fully deployed in 2014 will have the photographs of over 12 million faces.  The problem is that they intend not only to obtain the photographs of known criminals but to obtain photog...

An Aurora man entering the Kane County Courthouse in St. Charles set off the metal detector. Deputies asked him to empty his pockets and when he did so he placed a small plastic bag or what appeared to be cocaine in the tray. He was arrested by Kane County Deputies and charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance. The incident happened last week at around 8:30 a.m. This is a busy time at the courthouse when several hundred people are lining up to enter the courthouse. The screening is similar to the type of screening you would expect at an airport. You must pass through a metal detector and are required to empty your pockets before going through security. This individual, who will remain unnamed in this article, will receive the Moron of the Week Award. James Dimeas is an award winning criminal defense attorney and author with more than 24 years of experience aggressively representing his clients in criminal cases.  If you have a criminal case in Illinois, contact me in Ch...

Today, the United States Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments on two cases involving drug sniffing dogs.  The facts of each case are different but the legal issues are roughly the same.  What are the 4th Amendment limitations on the use of drug sniffing dogs? On December 5, 2006 a “crime stopper” had tipped off the police that marijuana was being grown inside the home of Joelis Jardines’ home near Miami Florida.  Armed with this tip, a police officer went to the door of the residence with a trained drug sniffing Labrador Retriever named Franky.  Franky sniffed the door and sat down, continuing to sniff the bottom of the door.  The dog had been trained to give that sign if it smelled marijuana.  The police then obtained a search warrant of Jardines’s home and entered to find Jardines was growing marijuana plants inside the home and charged him with possession of 25 pounds of marijuana and stealing the electricity used to power the equipment ...

The United States Supreme Court has thrown out the life sentence of a Wyoming teen convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.  The case involves Bear Cloud, who was 16 years old when he was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to straight life in prison, while two other teens who were also convicted of the murder were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.  Wyoming law mandates a sentence of life or life without parole for juvenile offenders convicted of murder.  Earlier this year, the United States Supreme Court ruled that state laws which mandate life sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional. But while such laws are unconstitutional the Supreme Court did not invalidate these laws. The Court only required that the laws provide that courts need to consider alternatives to life in prison before imposing sentences to juveniles.  The Supreme Court sent Bear Cloud’s case back to the Wyoming Supreme Court so...