A lot of folks talk about hearsay. This blog covers what hearsay is, and a little of what it isn’t. In elementary school, we occasionally played the “Telephone Game.” We played something like this: One person started by whispering a phrase or sentence in another person’s ear. The second person–ideally–repeated that phrase or sentence to [..]
When animals start bringing lawsuits, one begins to wonder about the legal system. This one (pictured above) sued in Federal Court in California. Some of us question the legal strategy behind it. Isn’t there a better way? How it Began “A monkey, an animal rights organization, and a primatologist walk into federal court to sue[.] [..]
Last year, the Minnesota Supreme Court decided that air-powered BB Guns are not firearms under Minnesota’s prohibition on felons possessing weapons. You can read the decision here. You can review the current version of the statute here. What does this mean for this group of Minnesota prisoners? Well, a lot, really. Those convicted under the statute [..]
Recently, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions advocated for expanding federal civil forfeiture. (Read more about it here.) Civil forfeiture occurs when the government seizes your property. The government owns the property upon seizure. Most often, it sells the seized property and divides proceeds. In Minnesota, law enforcement receives 70% and the prosecution 30%. In Minnesota, [..]
We require proof beyond a reasonable doubt to convict a person of a crime. The logic is simple: “It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.” Voltaire’s line sums a wonderful difference between our legal system here in the United States and the vast majority of legal systems [..]
