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In Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928), the Court found the Fourth Amendment did not apply to wiretaps because “[t]he taps from house lines were made in the streets near the houses,” rather than in the houses themselves, employing a strict property bases Fourth Amendment analysis. Likewise, in Goldman v. United States, 316…
Yesterday I discussed whether the massive data mining efforts of the U.S. government presaged a Big Brother like invasion of privacy. Today I’ll consider the implications of government efforts to develop massive DNA databanks in order to solve crimes. In 2003 a man broke into a woman’s home in Maryland and raped her at gunpoint….
Based on the recent revelations published in the Guardian concerning the U.S. Government’s massive data collection efforts as part of its “war on terror,” many Americans are beginning to wonder if the government is not in fact engaging in a “war on privacy.” On the one hand some people are decrying the current state of…
DNA and the question of when and under what circumstances it can be taken from suspects has occupied many hours in the U.S. Supreme Court of late. This month the Supreme Court upheld the controversial police practice of taking DNA samples from people who have been arrested but not convicted of a crime. The justices…
This month Texas Governor Rick Perry signed Senate Bill 1611, more commonly known as the Michael Morton Act, which aims to reduce the number of wrongful convictions in the state. Few cases highlight more graphically the deficit in Texas’ criminal justice system than that of Michael Morton. Morton wrongly spent 25 years in jail for…
Mistrials are rare but we see them from time to time. In a high profile case in Texas a mistrial has been declared after a jury was deadlocked in the trial of a woman charged in the 2011 stabbing death of a Huston-Tillotson University athlete in Austin. In the case, the jury deadlocked 11-to-1 on…
A bill to study the causes of the numerous wrongful convictions we see in Texas passed through the House floor this month – but not without opposition. House Bill 166, has been put forward by Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio. It would create the Timothy Cole Exoneration Review Commission, named after a defendant who…
The important role played by a Texas forensic lab has been highlighted in relation to a high profile murder investigation in Massachusetts. Fox News reported the authorities in Massachusetts are sending evidence from the Molly Bish homicide investigation to the Orchid Cellmark lab in Dallas. Bish was just 16 in 2000 when she disappeared at…
Texas executed convicted killer Rickey Lynn Lewis on April 9, 2013, notwithstanding concerns about his mental state. Lewis was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman from Tyler and killing her fiancé in the course of a home burglary in 1990. A previous execution date was stayed due to arguments that Lewis had extremely poor intellectual…
The case of a female Texas trooper who faces a sexual assault trial reveals the thin line law enforcement officers can tread between performing their job and breaking the law. CBS 11 News reported Dallas County Grand Jury recently indicted trooper Kelley Helleson on two counts of sexual assault and two counts of official oppression….