Comm. v. Raglin, 2018 PA Super 12 (Jan. 23, 2018)
This was an appeal out of Allegheny County. The issue presented to the Superior Court concerned the use of “Shot Spotter” technology and its factoring into an analysis of whether there is reasonable…
Comm. v. Edwards, 2018 PA Super 9 (Jan. 19, 2018)
This was an appeal out of Philadelphia County addressing a Batson challenge. (The term Batson challenge comes from the U.S. Supreme Court case of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), which held…
Comm. v. Motley, 2018 PA Super 8 (Jan. 19, 2018)
This was an appeal out of Philadelphia County, and the lead up to the appeal was this. Antoine Motley had been given a sentence of 15 to 30 years imprisonment followed by 10 years of probation on…
Comm. v. Davison, 2018 PA Super 7 (Jan. 18, 2018)
This was an appeal out of Allegheny County. Shawn Davison had been convicted of robbery and harassment. On appeal he complained that he was convicted of robbery without sufficient evidence.…
Comm. v. Tyrrell, 2018 PA Super 5 (Jan. 17, 2018)
This was an appeal out of Dauphin County. Jonathan Tyrrel was convicted and sentenced to 50 to 100 years’ imprisonment on charges of raping his then eight-year-old daughter. On appeal, Tyrrell…
“There’s no evidence. There’s no proof.”
For people involved in the American justice system for the first time—be it civil or criminal—there’s a prevailing belief that if the opposing side doesn’t have pictures, video, DNA, or some other…
You have the “right to keep and bear arms” . . . until you don’t.
The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution speaks of “the right of the people to keep and bears Arms, shall not be infringed.” In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has had the…
Pennsylvania Supreme Court deals a blow to the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) using separate and independent state-law grounds.
Today, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued its opinion in Commonwealth v. Muniz, ___ A.3d ___ (Pa. July 19, 2016), which addressed the issue of whether the Sex Offender Registration and…
That’s hearsay!: The excited-utterance exception
This short post is the third installment on the topic of hearsay. Specifically, addressed here is the second of the 16 hearsay exceptions known as the excited-utterance exception. The exception is…
The many ways to lose your driver’s license and the repercussions that follow
A driver’s license is a privilege, not a right. But it is an indispensable privilege, one that enables us to commute to work (to make a living) and to remain socially connected with one another.…