Statewide Court Closure Canceled

On Monday May 21st Chief Justice Lawton Nuss of the Kansas Supreme Court announced that the remaining four statewide court closures are canceled.  These closures were originally scheduled in order to mitigate the lack of funding in the judiciary.  However, on Sunday, just in the nick of time for the “was to occur” May 24-25 closures, the legislature adopted a supplemental funding bill that allocated $1.1 million to the judicial system.  According to the Kansas Bar Association, Chief Justice Nuss said he was confident that Governor Brownback would sign the bill.

Tickets Aren't Final If You Use Your Head

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/physicist_uses_expertise_to_beat_traffic_ticket/

 

The paper can be found here:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.0162.pdf

Improving Ways to Interview Child Victims of Sexual Abuse

Summary article:

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/233282.pdf

Full report:

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/224524.pdf

Program profile with additional information:

http://www.crimesolutions.gov/ProgramDetails.aspx?ID=213

The Forth Amendment Still Exists.............For Now

Last month the Supreme Court of the United States handed down an important opinion concerning the Fourth Amendment and the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking devices to track and monitor suspected criminals, United States v. Jones, 132 S. Ct. 945 (U.S. 2012).  The defendant in this monumental case was Antoine Jones, suspected of drug trafficking by the FBI.  Id. at *2.  For 28 days, the government tracked Jones using a GPS installed under his Jeep.  Id.  The District court convicted Jones and sentenced him to life imprisonment.  Id. at *3. The Supreme Court held that such attachment of a GPS device and the subsequent tracking was a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment: “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, house, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”  Id.  Thus, the Court affirmed the D.C. Circuit’s reversal of Jones’s conviction “because admission of the evidence obtained by warrantless use of the GPS device, which, it said, violated the Fourth Amendment.”  Id. at *3, 8.  

If you have any questions or concerns regarding what you consider a violation of your Fourth Amendment rights, contact Lindsey Erickson or Dionne Scherff with Erickson Scherff, LLC  at www.ericksonscherff.com for counsel and assessment of your claim or charges. 

Kansas Court of Appeals Remands Prison Contraband Sentence

State v. Warren, 104,489, 2012 WL 516159 (Kan. Ct. App. Feb. 17, 2012)

 Last month, the Kansas Court of Appeals held the district court must consider inmate Warren’s request for a lesser sentence because the district court “wrongly refused to consider the possibility [of a downward departure sentence when] it misinterpreted a sentencing statute.”  Id. at *4.  Inmate Waddell Warren was sentenced to an additional 122 months in prison by the district court after a small amount of marijuana was found in his socks but argued for 40 months based on the small amount of drugs found.  Id. at *1.  The issue addressed by the appellate court was “whether a lesser, or departure, sentence can ever be granted based on the small quantity of drugs involved when sentencing a defendant for bringing contraband into prison.”  Id. at *5. 

The appellate court found that the district court had misinterpreted the Kansas statute, K.S.A. 21-3826, when finding it had no authority to deviate from the sentencing guidelines because “the statute prohibits any contraband in a prison and no specific amount threshold is found in the statute.”  Id.  The court remanded the sentencing concluding, “that the possession of only a small quantity of drugs constitutes a valid factor upon which a departure sentence may be entered on a prison-contraband conviction.”  Id. at *6 (emphasis in original).

Please contact Lindsey Erickson or Dionne Scherff with Erickson Scherff, LLC at www.ericksonscherff.com if you have any questions.