Category Archives: Legal terms

Common Law: Terms of probation

Nov. 17, 20099:23 a.m.

We’ve received several questions about what happens to people getting probation. As we’ve explained before, it’s not a free walk. While people don’t stay locked up, their life is restricted. Most of the people we’ve seen receive probation get standard terms they must follow. Judge David Kaufman went through those limitations in the recent sentencing of a bar bouncer. It took Kaufman 18 minutes to fully explain the terms of probation. We’ve condensed it to 2 minutes. (Watch video after the jump)

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Common Law: Not only a sex offender registry

Nov. 10, 20098:30 a.m.

It used to be only sex offenders had to register their addresses. Since 2006, people in Kansas convicted of some drug and weapons offenses also have to keep their whereabouts current with the sheriff’s department. Judge David Kaufman explains how this causes people with otherwise minor sentences to face prison.

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The book of RICO: jury instructions of biblical proportations

March 30, 20096:26 p.m.

The 89 pages of jury instructions in the RICO Crips trial had lawyers comparing it to parts of the Bible in today’s closing arguments.

“We have jury instructions longer than the Psalms, except there is no poetry in them,” defense lawyer Paul McCausland said of the jury instructions given Friday by U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten.

That was just one of several biblical references by defense lawyers trying to explain complicated charges stemming from RICO, the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act.

Lengthy legal instructions frequently lose jurors with complex vocabulary, grammar and legal rhetoric, experts say.

“Bad jury instructions aren’t just ignored, they can also actively confuse jurors,” said Anne Reed, a trial lawyer and jury consultant from Milwaukee, in a discussion on Twitter.

While she hadn’t seen the packet for this trial, I asked Reed her definition of “bad” jury instructions.

“Frankly most instructions qualify,” she answered.

Dennis C. Elias, a social psychologist who runs a Phoenix jury consulting firm and blogs about juror issues, agreed that jurors don’t always understand complicated instructions.

“Jurors don’t share vocab, context, logic path, or meaning with authors of instructions,” Elias tweeted. “Confusion reigns as result.”

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Times report: Felony murder is purely an American crime

April 28, 20084:54 p.m.

Felony murder can be a difficult concept, and it comes in many variations, as we’ve written about in a prior post. It’s often been a charge juries in Wichita struggle with: If the person doesn’t actually kill someone, are they still guilty of murder?

The New York Times reports in its new series on U.S. justice, “American Exceptions”, that holding accomplices as responsible as the people who commit violent crimes is the legal progeny of an old European law that’s since been disowned by other countries. As Adam Liptak reports it’s now purely American:

“Most scholars trace the doctrine, which is an aspect of the felony murder rule, to English common law, but Parliament abolished it in 1957,” Liptak writes. “… India and other common law countries have followed England in abolishing the doctrine. In 1990, the Canadian Supreme Court did away with felony murder liability for accomplices, saying it violated ‘the principle that punishment must be proportionate to the moral blameworthiness of the offender.’ “

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Rebuttal: murder more than fashion sense

March 11, 20085:59 p.m.

Lawyer Val Wachtel gave the defense perspective on premeditation, a week after this post gave a prosecutor’s view.

In his closing statements for his client, Eric Martinez, Wachtel told the jury:

“Prosecutors like to say premeditation is like what deciding what to wear in the morning. But I think premeditated murder requires more work than what tie to put on in the morning.”

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A premeditated cup of coffee

March 6, 200811:15 a.m.

Murder is easy to understand. But premeditated murder? Prosecutors say premeditation can be difficult.

It can especially be confusing since Kansas law doesn’t specify exactly how long someone has to think an action over before it becomes premeditation. It can’t be an instant before, but courts say you don’t have to think it over long.

Ann Swegle, deputy district attorney for Sedgwick County gave the best description of premeditation I’ve heard in her closing arguments of the Reginald Johnson murder trial.

“We premeditate all the time in our lives – we just don’t call it that,” Swegle told the jury. “We plan what we’re going to wear to work. We plan what we’re going to eat, at some point, before we eat. This morning, I decided I wanted another cup of coffee. It didn’t take me long. I just walked over to the coffee pot.”

The jury convicted Johnson of first-degree murder – premeditated.

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