Posted on November 23, 2016 in Drug Charges

Drug possession charges are difficult to deal with and might lead to severe punishment if you are found guilty. It is important to have the right defense strategy to help you overcome the charges. Attorneys use different defense mechanisms when defending their clients against possession charges.

The basic strategy used by most attorneys is to put the onus on the prosecution to bring forward proof. The prosecution must establish beyond all reasonable doubt that the defendant was in possession of an illegal substance. The defense may argue that the law enforcement agencies did not follow the due process of law. In case the search and seizure warrant was not carried out in a lawful manner, the defense might ask for the case to be dismissed. To recover drugs from concealed locations, law enforcement officers must ask for the owner's permission, or have a search warrant. Drugs placed in plain sight can be seized without permission of the owner. The defense may also argue that the defendant had no prior knowledge of the presence of the drugs that were discovered.

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 Posted on November 12, 2016 in OWI

Want to stump your friends with a bit of drunk driving trivia? Toss this out the next time you're quaffing a few cold ones at the corner bar: What holiday nets the most arrests for impaired driving? Most will guess New Year's Eve, St. Paddy's Day or the 4^th of July. But they will be wrong, as it is the combined Thanksgiving holiday weekend that fills up America's drunk tanks the fastest.

To understand more about the problem of drunk driving, it's a good idea to consult someone well-versed in the subject. In this case, it is Barron Lerner, Columbia University professor and the author of One for the Road: Drunk Driving Since 1900.

While Lerner concedes that the problem has decreased dramatically since 1982, the year that 26,173 people lost their lives in collisions involving alcohol, his view is that the laws need to be far stricter. The fact that the number of people who were killed in alcohol-related crashes in 2009 dropped to 12,744 does not seem to faze him.

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 Posted on October 29, 2016 in Drug Charges

In 2007, drummer Don Bolles was driving in his van in Newport Beach, California when he was pulled over by police officers. The police officers arrested Bolles for his alleged possession of GHB, which is a date rape drug. The police officers had pulled over Bolles for a broken taillight, searched his van, and allegedly found the banned drug. However, a lab test ultimately revealed that the "GHB" found in the drummer's van was simply an all-natural cleanser. As a result, all charges against Bolles were dropped.

Without warning, police officers can approach you and accuse you of possessing drugs. As the incident described above reveals, you can be arrested if police officers claim you were in possession of an illegal drug. Even worse, if you find yourself in a similar scenario, the lab test results will often be the determining factor in whether you are convicted. Unfortunately, in a significant number of cases, flawed drug tests often lead to the conviction of innocent individuals.

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 Posted on October 29, 2016 in Fraud

Last month, a Wisconsin woman who former worked at a Lutheran Church in Oak Creek was charged with embezzling almost $100,000 in her employment there. The woman had reportedly worked at the church in a variety of capacities over a four-year period of time, including as an administrative assistant and acting director through March of this year. In this capacity, she was given access to a debt card and bank account privileges for financial management of the church.

The woman reportedly resigned in March after the pastor inquired about her use of church accounts to pay for concert tickets. By the end of the month she had resigned from her position. Among the types of theft with which she was accused were: theft of payments for childcare fees; withdrawing funds from automatic teller machines and spending them on personal expenses; as well as inflated gas and grocery expenses. In total, authorities accuse the woman of embezzling $95,778.21, obviously a lot of money.

Earlier this month, the woman pleaded not guilty to the embezzlement charges. Sources say she was due back in court this week, but didn’t mention whether a trial date has been set. A guilty plea in such a case, it is important to understand, is not necessarily a denial of all criminal liability. In the criminal process, a defendant is presented with the charges against him or her in first appearances and may plead guilty or not guilty. In any case, of course, pleading guilty should not be done haphazardly, but with solid legal guidance to ensure the defendant has the opportunity to consider the charges, negotiate with prosecutors about resolving the case, and to weigh the risks and benefits of going to trial.

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 Posted on October 28, 2016 in Criminal Defense

An important issue to explore in any criminal defense case is whether law enforcement did their job properly, whether they followed the rules, procedures and protocols to which they are bound. These rules are in place not just to ensure uniformity of procedure, but also to ensure criminal suspects’ legal rights are protected and to uphold the integrity of the criminal process.

The technology used in law enforcement is, of course, continuously developing and it typically takes awhile for the law to catch up to emerging policing technologies. An example of this is the 2001 U.S. Supreme Court case, Kyllo v. United States, which ruled that police must obtain a search warrant before using a thermal imaging device on a private home. Prior to the ruling in that case, the technology had been used in law enforcement for a number of years, but it took time for the legal system to clarify the legality of the technology in the context of constitutional law.

One technology which has recently increased in law enforcement across the country is facial recognition technology. Facial recognition, as it is currently practiced, involves the use of computer software to match the faces of criminal suspects with images in a database. The software, according to a recent report coming out of Georgetown University, is currently used in some form in 16 states, including Florida.

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 Posted on October 25, 2016 in Criminal Defense

Previously, we began looking at the topic of facial recognition technology and its increasing use in law enforcement. As we noted, the technology is used here in Florida. As the Georgetown report we mentioned last time makes clear, there are concerns with the use of the technology. For one thing, police have easy access to photo databases and often aren’t monitored to ensure there is no abuse.

Here in Florida, police and FBI officers are not required to have reasonable suspicion to run a facial recognition search, and searches are not audited for potential abuse by law enforcement agents. From a defense perspective, this is concerning, and not only because of the potential inaccuracies of the technology. Law enforcement could potentially use the technology to track criminal suspects on questionable bases, such as race, religion or political affiliation. They could also use the technology for purely personal purposes, violating individuals’ privacy.

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 Posted on October 25, 2016 in Fraud

In our last post, we began looking at a case in which a Wisconsin woman has been charged with embezzling nearly $100,000 during her employment at an Oak Creek Lutheran Church. Earlier this month, she pleaded not guilty to the embezzlement charges. As we said last time, there are a variety of reasons why a defendant might choose to plead not guilty in a criminal case.

One obvious reason is that the defendant denies that he or she is guilty of a criminal offense. In such cases, the defendant works to build a case that prosecutors do not have sufficient evidence to justify conviction on the charges. In the case of embezzlement, a lack of documentation that there was any theft, lack of opportunity to access company funds, the possibility of other individuals having stolen the funds in question, and other factors become important in such cases.

In many embezzlement cases, a not guilty plea is not so much about denying all liability, but about denying the accuracy of charges. A defendant, in other words, is not necessarily denying all guilt for missing funds, but the sufficiency of the state’s evidence, particularly with respect to the amount of stolen funds. Inaccuracy of criminal charges is no small matter in embezzlement cases, since the outcome of such cases depends on the amount of theft involved. In cases where the state has significant evidence of superstition, disputing the accuracy of the amount stolen can, therefore, become an important issue in an embezzlement case.

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 Posted on October 21, 2016 in Drug Charges

Something readers may not be aware of is that federal regulators have the authority to limit the amount of controlled substances which may be manufactured in the United States on an annual basis. Under the Controlled Substances Act, the United States Attorney General is required to set annual manufacturing quotas for basic classes of Schedule I and II controlled substances to ensure an adequate supply.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which is the agency delegated the authority to handle such matters, recently issued a final order establishing initial aggregate production quotas for 2017. The new numbers reportedly represent a 25 percent reduction in production for almost all Schedule II opiates and opioid medications, though the manufacture of certain medications was reduced by an even greater amount.

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 Posted on October 16, 2016 in Criminal Defense

Previously, we began looking at the problem of increased opioid abuse across the country and here in Wisconsin. Along with the surge in prescription drug abuse, one of the positive developments has been that lawmakers have taken an approach to the problem which is not merely punitive, but aimed at addressing the addiction itself.

For instance, Rep. John Nygren of Marinette was successful in passing measures back in 2014 which address the problem with education, increased access to a drug which counteracts the effects of heroin overdose, immunity for those who report suspected heroin overdose or transport an overdose patient to the hospital, and allowing municipalities to hold prescription drug collection drives and require identification to obtain prescription narcotics.

Other creative solutions to the problem are coming from the federal government. One example is the Madison Police Department’s participation in a federal grant program which involves “smart policing” in dealing with drug users. Under the pilot program, known as the Madison Addiction Recovery Initiative, nonviolent drug offenders are given the option to receive treatment instead of going through the criminal process.

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 Posted on September 27, 2016 in OWI

Drunk-driving, as readers know, is differently regulated by the states such that the consequences of DUI charges vary depending on where the case occurs. While every state, it seems, holds reduction of drunk-driving as an important goal in principle, some states focus more on criminal penalties in battling the problem than others.

States can focus their efforts in a number of areas in the fight against drunken driving, though, not just with respect to criminal penalties. A recent analysis by Wallet Hub actually ranked the states according to their overall strictness when it comes to addressing the problem of drunken driving. The survey looked at a number of parameters in making the evaluations, including those relating criminal penalties and prevention efforts.

Among the criminal penalties evaluated were: minimum jail times and fines for a first and second conviction; when a DUI charge becomes a felony; the length of time a DUI may factor into penalties for a new DUI; whether additional penalties are imposed for a higher blood alcohol concentration; and whether states impose penalties for child endangerment. Also considered were: ignition interlock requirements; administrative license suspension; whether vehicles are impounded after a DUI arrest; whether sobriety checkpoints and “no-refusal” initiatives are used, and whether alcohol abuse assessments or treatment are mandatory.

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