Lab Techs Required to Provide In-Court Testimony, For Now

Last year, I prepared and argued a series of appeals for a man convicted in Washtenaw County of sexual assualts near Eastern Michigan University.  He received life sentences in six separate cases.The primary issue in each case was identification.  Due to the way the victims were raped, they never saw their attacker's face.  Condoms and other precautions minimized physical evidence left at the respective crime scenes.In one of the cases, however, Washtenaw County Sheriff detectives were able to recover a small semen sample.  The Michigan State Police crime lab contracted with an out-of-state forensic laboratory that produced a report concluding the sample matched the defendant's DNA.At defendant's trial, the Washtenaw County...

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Posted in: criminal attorney Oakland County Michigan,DNA,Eastern Michigan University,habeas corpus,Michigan State Police,Sixth Amendment,Washtenaw County Circuit Court

Judges Cannot "Friend" Lawyers Via Social Media Says Florida Supreme Court

A few of my Facebook friends are judges.  They've taken a low profile on the news feed.  Will Michigan's Judicial Tenure Commission, formed in 1968 via constitutional amendment, seek to outlaw such social network connections like the State of Florida?In Florida, the Supreme Court's Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee issued a 11/17/2009 decision, holding that judges may not connect with attorneys on Facebook, or similar social networking media.  The Committee's decision is based on a Florida's judicial canon prohibiting the appearance that a lawyer, or anyone else, is in a special position to influence the judge.Floridian judges, however, remain free to post comments to their non-lawyer "friends", and can develop "fan pages" to...

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Posted in: Facebook,Florida Supreme Court,Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee of Florida,Linked In,Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission,Twitter

Washtenaw County Guardianship Spotlights Problematic Surrogate Arrangements

A recent Washtenaw County Probate matter received national attention over the weekend by appearing on the front page of the Sunday NYT, in an "above-the-fold" article by Stephanie Saul.  The guardianship case involved a surrogacy contract between a Kent County couple and the surrogate mother from Ypsilanti.Amy Kehoe and her husband contracted with both egg and sperm donors, then arranged for Laschell Baker to serve as the gestational surrogate.  The Grand Rapids couple located Baker from the surromomsonline web site.  The would-be parents also contracted for services with IVF Michigan, a fertility clinic.Neither the Kehoes nor Ms. Baker had any legally recognized biologic connection to the babies; twins born in July.  The...

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Posted in: adoption,American Bar Association,Amy Kehoe,Assisted Reproductive Technology,Laschell Baker,Nathan Koppel,Stephanie Saul,surrogacy,surrogate,Washtenaw County Probate Court

Congress vs NCAA

As the holidays approach, college football fans once again work up their annual lather over how to end the season, and crown a national champion; or not.Last year was controversial.  This year features two undefeated teams (Boise State and TCU) that have no chance of playing each other under the present Bowl Championship Series.  So now, our Congress is getting involved?This week, Joe Barton, (R-Texas) introduced a bill that would proscribe the promotion, marketing, or advertising of any post-season Division I college football game as a "championship" unless it is the final game of a single-elimination tournament.  Good luck with that.One criticism of the proposed legislation is that it may violate the First Amendment of the...

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Posted in: 1st Amendment,BCS,Congress,constitution,First Amendment,Joe Barton,NCAA

Supreme Court Makes Getting Your Day in Federal Court Much More Difficult

The case of Ashcroft -v- Iqal involved the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks in 2001.  The case is quickly becoming known, however, for placing significant procedural hurdles in the way of a litigant's access to federal court.Justice Anthony Kennedy, left, wrote the 5-4 opinion for the high court, published last May.The case was brought by federal detainees held, and allegedly abused, in make-shift detention centers in the Bronx shortly following the attacks on the World Trade Center.  Javaid Iqball and other detainees filed suit in the United States District Court in New York City against former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and former FBI Director Robert Mueller.  Unlike most cases, the plaintiffs...

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Posted in: 9-11,John Ashcroft,Justice Anthony Kennedy,Robert Mueller,summary judgment,United States Supreme Court

Second Amendment May Gain Some Ground

Nearly a decade post-9/11, the forgotten amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Second Amendment's right to bear arms, may gain some ground here at the beginning of the 21st Century.  Several state attempts to erode this right have been subjected to successful constitutional challenges.The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in Robert Ord -v- District of Columbia, reversed a trial court's dismissal of one such gun owner's challenge, remanding the case back to the lower court for further proceedings.Robert Ord, a licensed investigator, also licensed to carry a weapon in Virginia, will now be able to develop his case; a case that asserts that the mere threat of prosecution in nearby District of Columbia,...

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Posted in: District of Columbia,McDonald,Robert Ord,Second Amendment,U.S. Court of Appeals,U.S. Supreme Court