It has been long known that the United States incarcerates more individuals than any other nation on the planet. Our combined federal, state and local jail population is staggering. Over the last several decades, however, there has been an ongoing push to develop “alternatives-to-incarceration” or “ATI” programs. These programs, which…
The first mental health court was established about 20 years ago in Broward County, Florida, in 1997. Since that time, a relatively small number of counties across the country have established these innovative and forward-thinking programs, with the result that there were approximately 300 mental health courts nationwide as of…
Our personal information is constantly being collected by third parties without our realization. Every time we use one of our devices, we expose personal details and information to collection by any number of entities that use the data for various purposes. Privacy is clearly on the decline as the use…
Under current New Jersey law, the maximum term of probation is five years. Experience indicates that most defendants are typically placed on probationary terms that can run from one to three years. Many defendants facing jail time view probation as a gift and, oftentimes, it is. However, probation comes with…
It has been said that the defense attorney is frequently the most ignorant person in the room. The reason for this unflattering description is that s/he knows the least about what actually happened at the crime scene. The prosecutor has an army of investigators tasked with developing as much information…
The last United States Supreme Court term ended with some noteworthy criminal decisions. One of these was Jae Lee v. United States, decided on June 23, 2017. This is the latest case from the High Court to address the issue of effective assistance of counsel in the context of a…
The New Jersey Supreme Court decided State v. Rosario on June 6, 2017. The case is important because, among other things, it discusses and distinguishes between the two most common types of police-citizen encounters, which are field inquiries and investigative detentions. The facts are uncomplicated. Police received an anonymous tip…
Law enforcement agencies that investigate child pornography cases face special technological challenges when tracking the distribution of contraband on the Internet, and then in building a case against a specific defendant. A case in point is “Dreamboard”, an online bulletin board that advertised and distributed child pornography. Dreamboard users employed…
On October 18, 2016, NYPD Sergeant Hugh Barry responded to the home of Deborah Danner in the Bronx. Barry found Danner, a diagnosed schizophrenic, holding a pair of scissors and experiencing a mental health crisis. He persuaded her to drop them, but she then picked up a bat and somehow…
Most people will agree that there is a need for a certain level of efficiency in our criminal justice system, and the new procedures that went into effect in New Jersey on January 1, 2017, are a reflection of that. The fact is that certain cases were languishing in our…