If you are following this blog for more information on Southern Arizona criminal defense law, you're in luck. Sherick & Bleier will continue posting timely legal analysis of news and legislative initiatives. We'll cover developments in medical marijuana and dispensary regulation, student criminal convictions, and other important issues. Feel free to check out the Articles section of our firm website for more discussions about DUI law and fraud cases. In the meantime, Arizona residents in need of advice about a city, state, or federal legal issue should dial (520) 318-3939 to speak to the legal team at Sherick & Bleier. Continue reading

Eliot J. Vogt, a disbarred Georgia attorney, recently pleaded guilty to theft by conversion, forgery and identity fraud in Muscogee County Superior Court. According to the Columbus Ledger Enquirer, Vogt was disbarred for inventing hearing dates and provided a forged order to a client in a legitimation case involving custody. Following the disbarment, Vogt impersonated another attorney to continue doing legal work. He allegedly receives fees for doing domestic relations work, but didn't actually do any work. As a result of this misconduct, several clients lost money and had to incur additional attorneys' fees. Overall, Vogt was ordered to pay... Continue reading

There have been many media reports of pit bulls attacking children, but there have been few accounts of violent pit bulls facing euthanasia being appointed counsel. Recently in Savanath, Georgia, however, a judge assigned a local lawyer to represent such a pitbull as well as the pitbull's owner. The ABA Journal reports that Superior Court Judge William E. Woodrum Jr. appointed attorney Claude M. Kicklighter to represent a pit bull named Kho, “in the interest of justice.” Kicklighter indicated to local media that he didn't intended to take the case pro bono. In that case, a 5-year old boy was... Continue reading

The Arizona Republic recently reported that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) has reopened more than 400 sex crime investigations resulting from failures to timely investigate. Most of the underlying alleged sex crimes occurred between 2005 and 2008. According to the newspaper: An Arizona Republic investigation into the 400-plus reopened cases reveals the Sheriff's Office failed to adequately investigate reports of abuse and assault -- in some cases never interviewing a suspect or running a background check. Some cases were ignored -- the files were later found sitting in a drawer or in a deputy's garage. Those shortcomings, combined with... Continue reading

In an interesting recent case, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a trial court committed reversible error when it allowed the government to show a jury seven clips involving hardcore child pornography without the court actually viewing the clips to determine undue prejudice. By ruling so, the Third Circuit established that a trial court must actually view child pornography material to determine undue prejudice under FRE 403 and that the trial court cannot solely rely on descriptions of the content provided by one of the parties. In that case, law enforcement officials traced peer-to-peer file sharing of child... Continue reading

Is waiting at a toll booth while the toll booth operator fills out a vehicle report an illegal search and seizure in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments? No, according to a recent Eleventh Circuit decision. In 2010, the Florida Department of Transportation implemented a policy to discourage motorists from paying toll booth fairs with large currency. Under the policy, toll booth operations were required to stop motorists paying with large bills in order to record the vehicle's make, model, color, tag number and state of issuance in a Bill Detection Report. Upon completing the report, the motorist would... Continue reading

Dylan Otto Naecker, 29, was wanted in Maryland on sex offender charges. His girlfriend, Samantha Nicole Dillow of Bluefield, Va., thought that she could help her boyfriend stay one step ahead of authorities by monitoring whether the Tazewell County Sheriff's Office was searching him. To monitor the sheriff's office activity, Dillow “liked” the sheriff office Facebook page. For years, the sheriff's office had posted pictures of missing person and fugitives that they were looking for on their Facebook page. Dillow probably “liked” the page so that the lasted posts and updates would feed directly into her personal Facebook page. Even... Continue reading

Last Week, a federal judge in Massachusetts ordered state prison officials to provide a sex-change operation for a transgender ed prisoner. The Wall Street Journal reports that Robert Kosilek was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for the 1990 murder of his wife. After being incarcerated, Kosilek – who know identifies as “Michelle” was diagnosed with severe gender identity disorder and has been receiving female hormones since 2003. Despite the hormones treat and psychotherapy Kosilek struggled intensely with gender identity. According to court documents, Kosilek has attempted to castrate himself and commit suicide. Kosilek petitioned prison officials... Continue reading

In August 2010, Gilbert Turrietta was on trial in federal court in New Mexico for assaulting a deputy U.S. Marshal after biting a marshal who was executing a search warrant for his arrest. The Wall Street Journal reports that at the beginning of the trial something unusual happened: the judge forgot to swear in the jury. Turrietta's attorney Charles E. Knoblauch, kept this oversight to himself “for strategic reasons.” The trial lasted for seven hours and the jury quickly returned a guilty verdict. Knoblauch then asked the court to set aside the verdict on the grounds that the absence of... Continue reading

Bedbugs – the tenacious pests that feed on human blood – have long been a menace to hotels, residences, and anywhere humans sleep. Indeed, parents have long told their children: “Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bight.” Detroit was named in 2010 by Terminix, a pest control company, as having the worst bedbug problem in the United States. Recently, the Detroit News reports that bedbugs were spotted in a courtroom prompting a judge to clear out a packed courtroom. Earlier this month, a bailiff noticed that something was strange in the courtroom of 36th district court judge Cylenthia... Continue reading

Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 6-5 en banc decision, ruled that the California Court of Appeals unreasonably applied then-established Supreme Court precedent when the lower court concluded that the defendant had to unambiguously invoke his right to counsel even before being read his Miranda rights. The Ninth Circuit made its ruling pursuant to a federal habeas petition under the AEDPA. Under the AEDPA, a prisoner is entitled to federal habeas relief if he can show that the state court’s adjudication of the merits of his claim was “contrary to” then- established Supreme Court precedent; was... Continue reading

Recently, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Chappell ruled that impersonating a police officer is not speech protected by the First Amendment. The court held that a Virginia statute criminalizing a police officer was not overbroad and that it met strict scrutiny. In that case, Douglass Chappell was stopped for speeding in October 2009 by a U.S. Park Police Officer on the George Washington Memorial Parkway. To avoid getting a traffic ticket, Chappell falsely told the officer that he was a Fairfax County Deputy Sheriff. That statement was inaccurate because although Chappell had once been a... Continue reading

The famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt once described gossip as: The mother of advertisement . . . a sort of octopus with innumerable tentacles. It throws out to right and left, in front and behind, its clammy arms, gathers in, through its thousand little suckers, all the gossip and slander and praise afloat. For a jury, gossip can indeed be as dangerous as a massive octopus. The Tampa Bay Times reports that a judge recently had to dismiss an entire pool of 70 jurors for gossiping about defendant Dontae Morris' arrests in five murder cases. Morris was being tried for... Continue reading

According to the AP, the number of marijuana plants seized nationwide by law enforcement decreased from 2010 to 2011, but the number of pounds seized increased. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) data shows that the number of marijuana plants seized decreased by 35 percent during that period – from 10.32 million plants in 2010 to 6.7 million plants in 2011. Meanwhile, from 2009 to 2011, the number of pounds of bulked, confiscated marijuana nearly doubled – going from 53,843 pounds in 2009 to 113,167 pounds in 2011. The DEA does not entirely understand the decrease in seized marijuana plants, but attributes... Continue reading

When people think of dangerous professions, professions such as firefighters, police officers, loggers, and miners often come to mind. Sometimes, however, being a criminal defense attorney can be quite hazardous as a recent courtroom “ruckus” near Newport Beach, Virginia illustrates. Defendant Rashad Riddick was indicted on capital murder charges for a February 2011 farmhouse shooting death of his uncle, aunt, and cousin. Riddick was visiting the farm the night of the murder after having just completed a six-year prison term for carjacking and battery on a police officer. A possible motive for the alleged murder may have been that Riddick... Continue reading

A woman who snatched a baby over 20 years ago from a New York hospital and raised the child as her own recently plead guilty on federal kidnapping charges and now faces sentencing. The Wall Street Journal reports that Ann Pettway admitted to taking a train from Connecticut to Harlem and scooping up 3-week-old Carlina White, who was in the emergency room. Pettway that took the baby and raised the child as her own through adulthood. Pettway accomplished the kidnapping by dressing as a nurse when she took the baby. She even encountered the baby's mother in the hospital and... Continue reading

Last week, a former employee of Exeter Hospital in New Hampshire was arrested for allegedly spreading Hepatitis-C to at least 30 patients, according to the U.S. Attorney's office. The Boston Herald reports that David Matthew Kwiatkowski was charged with tampering with a consumer product and obtaining controlled substances by fraud. If convicted of all charges, Kwiatkowski could face up to 24 years in prison. Kwiatkowski worked in the hospital's heart cauterization lab, and allegedly has Hepatitis-C. Prosecutors claim that Kwiatkowsi spread the disease by injecting himself with painkillers intended for patients and subsequently refilling the syringes with other liquids. Those... Continue reading

The Sentence Law and Policy blog notes an interesting recent Kansas appellate case involving sex offender probation and cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. In State v. Proctor, the defendant pled guilty to aggravated solicitation of a child, and he was sentenced to probation as he was a first time offender. The probation, however, subjected Proctor to lifetime postrelease supervision with extremely harsh consequences. Under the terms of the probation, Proctor could face life without parole if he later committed any felony, including a property crime that would otherwise call for probation. The court remarked: For Proctor, a... Continue reading

In an interesting recent case, United States v. Kebodeaux, the Fifth Circuit recently ruled that the federal government cannot reassert jurisdiction over a sex offender that it unconditionally released long ago on the sole basis that the individual once committed a crime. In that case, Anthony Kebodeaux, a federal sex offender, was convicted under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) for failing to update his change of address when he moved intrastate – from San Antonio to El Paso, Texas. Kebodeaux's underlying sex offense predated SORNA. While in the military, Kebodeaux had consensual sex with a 15-year old... Continue reading

Earlier this week, the Arizona Supreme Court in Mario W. v. Kaipio, Commissioner, ruled that law enforcement may not extract DNA from juveniles defendants prior to adjudication. A.R.S. § 8-238(A) requires juveniles charged with certain offenses summoned to appear at an advisory hearing to submit “a sufficient sample of buccal cells or other bodily substances of testing deoxyribonucleic acid [DNA] testing and extraction.” The penalty for non-compliance is revocation of release pending adjudication. Upon receiving the buccal swabs and extracting the DNA, the law enforcement agency places the identifying genetic information in both state and federal crime databases. At issue... Continue reading

Earlier this week, in Miller v. Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory sentences of life without parole (LWOP) for juvenile offenders violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Twenty-six states – including Arizona – and the federal government currently have statutes that require mandatory minimum LWOP sentences for juvenile offenders that are tried as adults. In addition, the Supreme Court estimated that over 2,000 prisoners are serving out LWOP sentences for murders committed as juveniles that were imposed as mandatory minimum sentences. In Miller, the court considered the sentences of two 14 year-olds who were... Continue reading

Many social media sites – particularly dating sites and sites used by minors – currently include language in their terms of service that prohibit convicted sex offenders from using their sites. For instance, Facebook in its terms of service (4.6) provides that “[y]ou will not use Facebook if you are a convicted sex offender.” Accordingly, registered sex offenders are not allowed to use Facebook, and if there were to publicly reveal on Facebook in their profiles that there were sex offenders, they would have their accounts terminated. Despite these safeguards, Louisiana legislators are concerned that registered sex offenders are using... Continue reading

A Georgia personal injury attorney found himself in deep water – or better stated, deep sewage – after engaging in inappropriate conduct with an 18-year-old babysitter. Joseph Neal Jr. recently pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana, furnishing alcohol to a minor and disorderly conduct. The attorney was initially charged with sexual assault, but prosecutors later agreed to a misdemeanor plea deal after determining that the case had developed into a “he said, she said” case at trial. The trial judge sentenced Neal to three years probation and 100 hours of community service at a sewage treatment plant. According to the... Continue reading

In February 2011, Tucson City Court Judge Ted Abrams resigned his position after the Pima County Superior Court found that Abrams made unwanted advances towards a deputy city public defender and retaliated against her after she rejected his advances. Abram's conduct lead to a bar complaint, which culminated in Abram's being suspended from practicing law for 2 years. In his defense, Abram's offered as mitigating circumstances serious drug addiction and mental health issues. However, the Arizona Supreme Court noted that these factors did not “overcome the presumptive sanction of suspension.” The Arizona Daily Star reports that there is a new... Continue reading

For Brian Banks, a Facebook friend request changed his life. Banks had recently completed a five-year stint in prison for rape and five-years on parole. He was a registered sex offenders and unemployed. The friend request came from Wanetta Gibson, the woman who accused him of rape at a Los Angeles high school were they were both students. Banks was shocked that Gibson wanted to contact him in the first place. Consequently, Banks responded to the friend request with a question: would she meet with him and a private investigator? Gibson agreed. The L.A. Times reports that at the meeting,... Continue reading