An undercover officer observed the accused hand a third party several glassines of heroin in exchange for money. When the officer solicited two glassines, the accused insisted that the alleged buyer first snort some heroin and, upon the officer refusing, the accused walked away without consummating that sale. When the…
Articles Posted in Criminal Procedure
Defendant Contends Court Erred in Imposing Consecutive Sentences
An appeal was filed by the defendant who was convicted with the crimes of murder and criminal possession of a weapon. He alleged that the court erred in its decision to impose consecutive sentences for the indictments he committed claiming that the accused acted with a singular intent. The Supreme…
Court Discusses Dual Sovereignties Doctrine
In April, 1973, as a result of a joint major Federal-State narcotics investigation, an indictment was filed against defendants #1, 2 &3, along with 10 other large-scale heroin merchants, for conspiracy to violate Federal drug laws. To support the conspiracy count, covering a period from May, 1971 until the filing…
Mental Health Facility Refuses to Admit Mentally Ill Defendant After Acquitted from Crime
The director of mental health division refused to admit the petitioner who was acquitted from her criminal charges for petit larceny by reason of insanity. The district court rendered a commitment order of the insane person at a mental health facility of the Florida state. However, the director refused to…
Court Says Probable Cause May Be Supplied in Part by Hearsay Information
This is an appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the County Court, Nassau County, rendered October 21, 1993, convicting him of murder in the second degree (two counts), robbery in the first degree (two counts), criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, and criminal possession of…
Court Discusses Legal Elements of Rape Crime
On December 10, 1980, two men armed with a shot gun entered a fast food restaurant in Nassau County. They threatened the employees with bodily harm if they did not hand over the cash in the cash box. When the two female employees handed to the two armed men all…
Court Discusses Dual Sovereignties Doctrine
On the morning of December 15, 1971 two men and a woman were observed entering the New York residence of the husband and his wife carrying empty shopping bags or, in Grant’s case, with a collapse valise. When they departed, the three left with their once empty receptacles, filled. They…
Defendants Charged with Fraud By False Promise
In this criminal case, in 1986 although the installation of individual water meters was required in commercial and industrial buildings, 630,000 one and two family homes were unmetered and billed for water on an arcane basis unrelated to usage and predicated on property frontage. The City decided to meter these…
Court Unravels Complicated Larceny Case
The charges in this case arise from five separate incidents, beginning in July 1986. On July 3, 1986, a man representing himself as an executive of a foreign branch of General Electric Corporation, asked that $5,000 in travelers’ checks be prepared and delivered to an associate, K.D. Thereafter, defendant appeared…
Consent to Search Questioned
Seldom has this Court considered a more spectacular or bizarre case than this habeas corpus petition of an experienced Texas criminal lawyer, former mayor of the City of Pasadena, Texas, who was found guilty in Texas State Court of being the mastermind and accomplice in an especially brutal and horrible…