In 2018, a Mexican immigrant who had been brought to the U.S. as a teenager was convicted in Iowa of intent to deliver marijuana. During a 2017 traffic stop, officers allegedly found 184 one-pound bags of marijuana and a handgun in his car. Although he claimed he had...
Month: October 2019
What is a prosecutor’s duty if an officer is shown to have lied?
Prosecutors have a legal and ethical duty not to knowingly allow perjury. If a prosecutor learns that a witness -- even a police officer -- in one of their cases lied on the stand, that prosecutor is required to notify the judge and attempt to correct the matter.But...
When can the police search through your cellphone?
As many people know, the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects you and your property against unreasonable searches and seizures by the police. However, not many people know how this nearly 200-year-old amendment protects their modern smartphones....
New FBI data shows violent crime continuing its downward trend
The violent crime rate in the U.S. hit a high in approximately 1990 and then began to taper off. That trend continued until 2015 and 2016, when the violent crime rate rose slightly. In 2017 and 2018, however, the violent crime rate resumed its downward trend. Now, the...
Marijuana arrests up again last year despite more legalization
Even though more and more states have legalized marijuana, the overall number of arrests for marijuana offenses continued to rise in 2018, according to new data from the FBI. There were 663,367 marijuana arrests nationwide last year, up from 659,700 in 2017. That...
