by TChris

Andres Morales' family moved from Mexico to Hazlewood, Missouri when Andres was one year old. Andres never got around to acquiring citizenship, but Hazlewood is his home. When he returned from a recent visit to Mexico, he was detained at the border.

Immigration officials discovered he had pleaded guilty in 1998 of possessing marijuana with intent to distribute it, and served probation. He had the choice of remaining free to live in Mexico or accepting confinement in Texas while pressing his case to return here.

Andres chose to fight, and spent the next two months in detention. He had little choice; the alternative was to abandon his life. With the help of his attorney, Gene McNary, Morales was able to persuade a judge (over the prosecutor's inevitable objection) to let him withdraw his guilty plea.

The judge agreed that it was manifestly unjust for a guilty plea to lead to Morales' deportation when Morales hadn't been warned of that possibility. Andres isn't out of the woods (the prosecutor may insist on pursuing another conviction) but he is out of confinement, and back helping his mother at the family restaurant.

by TChris

Hector Viera (not his real name) was born in Venezuela, but his life there was tragic.

At age 9, Mr. Viera was raped by a family member. His relatives later shunned him when it became apparent he was homosexual. In 1994, he fled Caracas for Miami after police arrested him in a gay bar and turned him over to the Venezuelan army, where soldiers forced him to wear a pink dress and routinely abused him.

In the U.S., Viera discovered that he's HIV positive. Even though he was sick and homeless, he had no desire to return to an even more miserable existence in Venezuela. But Viera overstayed his tourist visa and didn't apply for asylum within a year as the law requires, so Homeland Security wanted to boot him out of the country.

Acting pro bono, two lawyers from Shearman & Sterling came to the rescue.

The foot-high stack of research papers they brought to U.S. Immigration Court in Manhattan certainly helped. They documented the story of a client who was certifiably "tired, poor and yearning to breathe free" — just as it is written in a verse by Emma Lazarus affixed to the base of the Statue of Liberty.

Their presentation convinced a judge to say the words Viera longed to hear: "Welcome to America." And the firm helped Viera find housing and counseling. Props to the Shearman lawyers and staff for the excellent work they did on behalf of their client.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, (NACDL) through its President, E.E. "Bo" Edwards, has issued this statement in response to the death of Sam Dash. (TalkLeft's tribute is here. )

Samuel Dash, 79, a founder of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the association’s second president (1959), died Saturday, May 29, in Washington, DC, after a long illness. Sam Dash and a handful of concerned colleagues founded our association in 1958 “to ensure justice and due process for persons accused of crime.” Despite health problems, he remained an active member of NACDL until his death Saturday. At a symposium on the 40th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright last year at Georgetown University Law Center, Sam observed that as a district attorney in Philadelphia in the 1950s, he learned what it was like to be a competent lawyer presenting a well-organized case against a poor defendant represented only by himself, who did not know courtroom procedure and often did not even understand the charges against him. He stated:

by TChris

Archibald Cox died yesterday at the age of 92. His tenacious pursuit of Richard Nixon's political crimes resulted in the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre," a mass firing widely credited as the turning point in the public's willingness to tolerate Nixon's presidency.

Mr. Cox, a highly respected authority on constitutional and labor law who had taught at Harvard and Boston universities, also served President Kennedy as US solicitor general. To a generation of Americans, however, Mr. Cox, with his crew-cut hair, bushy eyebrows, and a lanky swinging gait became a symbol of the rule of law versus the personality of the presidency.

Legendary lawyer, law professor and civil rights advocate Sam Dash has died. He was 79.

Samuel Dash, 79, the chief counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee whose televised interrogation into the secret audiotaping system at the White House ultimately led to President Richard M. Nixon's resignation, died of multiple organ failure May 29 at Washington Hospital Center.

....Mr. Dash's 53-year legal career touched some of the most important moments in American, and sometimes world, politics. He dramatically resigned in 1998 after four years as the ethics counselor to independent prosecutor Kenneth W. Starr, charging that Starr became an "aggressive advocate" of impeaching President Clinton. He said Starr exceeded the independent counsel's mandate, which was part of a statute that he helped draft.

by TChris

Law students at Berkeley aren't happy that a law professor helped the Bush administration find a loophole in treaties and conventions that prohibit the abuse of prisoners.

A legal memo written by law professor John Yoo "contributed directly to the reprehensible violation of human rights in Iraq and elsewhere," according to a petition being circulated among students and faculty at Berkeley's Boalt School of Law.

Yoo drafted the memo during his service as deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

The Jan. 9, 2002, memo co-written by Yoo ... argued that the normal laws of armed conflict didn't apply to al-Qaida and Taliban militia prisoners because they didn't belong to a state.

The student petition says that Yoo should resign if he doesn't repudiate the memo, declare his opposition to torture, and encourage the Bush administration to comply with the Geneva Conventions. Boalt's interim dean, Robert C. Berring Jr., says that Yoo's work as a lawyer outside of the school won't affect his academic position, contends that faculty members are entitled to take extreme positions, and notes that Yoo isn't the only conservative on a diverse faculty.

The Nashville Tenessean reports:

Defense lawyers to huddle

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is meeting this week in Nashville to discuss the difficulties of defending clients accused of rape, murder and other heinous crimes.

Attorneys from around the nation will gather at Loews Vanderbilt Hotel for the seminar, ''In Their Defense: Representing the Client Everyone Loves to Hate.''

Criminal defense attorney Mark Geragos, who represents Scott Peterson and has defended actress Winona Ryder and, until recently, pop star Michael Jackson, is scheduled to speak at a luncheon.

The seminar begins tomorrow and runs through Saturday.

The cost of the seminar for nonmembers of NACDL is $520. Attorneys affiliated with state criminal defense lawyer associations of Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Missouri get in for $295. The seminar is free for law students. For more information call 202-872-8600 or log onto www.nacdl.org/meetings.

We'll be there starting tomorrow. If you're a defense lawyer who's never been to an NACDL meeting, we highly recommend it.

Say hello to Mullah Bob, aka New York criminal defense lawyer (and our good pal) Bob Fogelnest, who is blogging from Kabul, where he is spending two months,

.. mentoring and supervising a staff of six Afghan criminal defense lawyers and participating in training programs designed to help improve the quality of justice and bring the Rule of Law to this war torn country.

He has two entries up so far. The first is about the murder trial of Fareed, here's the opening snippet:

by TChris

Poor police work by the New Orleans Police Department was frequently responsible for the dismissal of criminal charges in Orleans Parish in 2003, according to a report released by the District Attorney's office.

In 57 cases, the charges were tossed because a police officer failed to appear in court. An additional 120 cases ended because there wasn't enough testimony to prove a crime had occurred. Prosecutors tossed another 45 cases, finding them "unsuitable for trial" the report said, without listing reasons.

Another 63 cases were dismissed because judges suppressed evidence or confessions that the police improperly obtained.

Say hello to the new legal group blog, De Novo--comprised of several of the members of the recently defunct En Banc. The new blog consists of symposia on various legal issues. It's first post has contributions from some well-known legal bloggers:

Howard Bashman, "To Think Like A Lawyer"
Prof. Douglas Berman, "It Depends"
Prof. Lawrence Solum, "What Do Law Schools Teach?"
Prof. Eugene Volokh, "Writing to Think Like a Lawyer"

by TChris

A Texas grand jury investigating the activities of Texans for a Republican Majority, or TRMPAC, has subpoenaed the campaign records of Tom Craddick, the Texas House Speaker whose efforts at redistricting caused Democratic lawmakers to flee Texas twice last year.

The grand jury has been investigating whether TRMPAC, a political action committee begun by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, illegally used corporate donations to aid GOP candidates in 20 key Texas House races during the 2002 elections.

A victory in 15 of those races led to a Republican takeover of the lower chamber for the first time in more than 130 years. With the GOP majority, Mr. Craddick won his speakership and pressed a Republican-favored congressional redistricting plan that Mr. DeLay championed.

Although the grand jury investigation initially focused on whether money raised from corporations was spent to aid political candidates (a felony under Texas law), District Attorney Ronald Earle announced that the investigation broadened after "possible criminal conduct in connection with the race for Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives was uncovered." Craddick's lawyer, Roy Minton, said that prosecutors told him last week that Craddick was not a target of the investigation. It seems that things have changed.

You thought fingerprint technology was a science and error-free? Think again. Today's Boston Globe has an excellent op-ed by Jennifer L. Mnookin, a visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School, that debunks this commonly held notion.