Archive for June 2012
Congratulations Justice Blackwell
Governor Deal has announced that Judge Keith Blackwell will be the Supreme Court’s newest Justice. He will fill the vacancy created by Chief Justice Carley’s retirement. I have gotten to know Judge Blackwell through my work on the Appellate Practice Section. He will be a great addition to the Georgia Supreme Court.
Read MoreScalia’s and Garner’s New Book Suggests Principled Approach
Readers of this blog may be surprised to know that I am a Scalia fan. Criminal defense lawyers who don’t like Jusice Scalia just don’t understand him yet. There is much to commend Jutice Scalia to a criminal defense attorney. He penned some of the most significant opinions in the last decade on the Confrontation…
Read MoreEx-Magistrate’s Lawsuit Blackens Eye of Ga. Judiciary
This won’t end well. Anthony Peters, the former Catoosa County assistant Magistrate Judge has filed a civil rights suit against the his former boss as well as the Sheriff of Catoosa County. When I read Joy Lukachick’s article (hat tip to her) in the Chattanooga Times Free Press about the lawsuit, I had to pull the…
Read MoreWilliams v. Illinois Asks More Questions than it Answers
Williams v. Illinois, the newest Confrontation Clause case from the Supreme Court, leaves unresolved some key issues on the Confrontation Clause and its applicability to lab reports. Some things to note: Williams has no majority opinion It is very fact specific A similar case with a better set of facts might go the other way…
Read MoreSavannah Morning News Recognizes Terry Jackson’s Life
Today, the Savannah morning news has a fantastic article about the late Terry Jackson, a hero of mine and of many Georgia criminal defense lawyers. I did not know Terry until late in his life. He referred me some cases in the past couple of years, and I am working now on one of his…
Read MoreIn Memoriam: Strickland v. Washington
While working on a brief, we discovered a Georgia Supreme Court case that I was sorry to have missed when it came out (hat tip to Margaret Flynt). A paradigm shifted in 2010, and I completely missed it. From an optimistic viewpoint, this case shows that almost nothing adds up to ineffective assistance of counsel. To…
Read MoreShould You Post Bond? Not Always
Last week, I closed out an armed robbery case quite successfully. The case was reduced down to robbery, the client was sentenced under Georgia’s First Offender Act (meaning that he has the opportunity to come out of this with no conviction on his record), and after completing a one-year residential program, he is on probation.…
Read More