Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Why Facebook Data Tends to Condemn You in Court | Wired Business | Wired.com

Why Facebook Data Tends to Condemn You in Court | Wired Business | Wired.com


U.S. courts have a structural bias against “guilty” verdicts, but when it comes to Facebook data the situation is reversed: Social media activity is more readily used to convict you in a court of law than to defend you.
That’s because prosecutors generally have an easier time than defense attorneys getting private information out of Facebook and other social networks, as highlighted in an ongoing Portland murder case. In that case, the defense attorney has evidence of a Facebook conversation in which a key witness reportedly tells a friend he was pressured by police into falsely incriminating the defendant.
Facebook rebuffed the defense attorney’s subpoena seeking access to the conversation, citing the federal Stored Communications Act, which protects the privacy of electronic communications like e-mail – but which carves out an exemption for law enforcement, thus assisting prosecutors. “It’s so one-sided … they cooperate 110 percent anytime someone in the government asks for information,” one Oregon attorney told the Portland Oregonian, citing a separate case in which Facebook withheld conversations that could have disproved a rape charge, but turned over the same conversations when the prosecution demanded them.
Other defense attorneys voice similar complaints, and the judge in the murder case went so far as to call Facebook “flippant” and “frustrating” in its handling of the defense’s subpoenas. Facebook, for its part, has said it is inundated with judicial requests and tries to handle them uniformly within the confines of the law.
The trouble, it would seem, is that the law itself is not so uniform. As more and more communication shifts onto social networks like Facebook, the pro-prosecution bias of the Stored Communications Act is going to look less like a peculiar legislative oversight and more like a frightening erosion of the right to a fair trial. And if Facebook and its competitors want people to share more freely online, they should use their lobbying resources to fix that particular law.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Racine sex assault case tests health record access | Wisconsin Law Journal - WI Legal News & Resources

Racine sex assault case tests health record access | Wisconsin Law Journal - WI Legal News & Resources


The Wisconsin Supreme Court must decide whether defendants should get managed access to mental health records of an alleged molestation victim in a case tied to the criminal prosecution of a billionaire executive from Racine.
The Journal Times in Racine reported Sunday that Samuel Curtis Johnson’s attorneys have been seeking therapy records of the 17-year-old girl that the SC Johnson heir is charged with molesting. Johnson, the one-time chairman of Diversey Inc., a cleaning products company spun off from SC Johnson, has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors say that Johnson, 57, had inappropriate sexual contact with the girl 15 to 20 times from 2007 to 2010, starting the summer after she finished the sixth grade. The girl and her mother, who no longer live in Wisconsin, have refused to release medical records.
Last fall, Racine County Circuit Judge Eugene Gasiorkiewicz ruled that defense attorneys should get access to the records, but that he would review them privately first and then provide only pertinent information to Johnson’s attorneys and to prosecutors. The state Supreme Court will review that decision at a Feb. 25 hearing.
The criminal case against Johnson is on hold while the constitutional issues are resolved.
Johnson, who goes by Curt, is facing a count of repeated sexual assault of a child. It carries a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.
Johnson has since retired from Diversey. His brother is chairman and chief executive of SC Johnson, based in Racine, but company officials said when Curt Johnson was charged that he’d had no formal relationship with the company in almost 15 years.

Plea Hearing Set for Parole Agent Accused of Burglarizing Homes, Stealing Meds

Plea Hearing Set for Parole Agent Accused of Burglarizing Homes, Stealing Meds

Here is the original Complaint against her with the details of the case.  Most criminal cases can take months, but she has a Plea Hearing already?  The book needs to be tossed her way, as her political connections and her position of power should be weighed heavily in the sentencing decision.  She and her husband are in positions of power, if this were any other person that person would have sat in jail over the holiday, they would be looking at months to their next court date and they would be looking at prison time.

Complaint

State told to pay $292K to firm that challenged sex offender laws : News-crime

State told to pay $292K to firm that challenged sex offender laws : News-crime


A federal judge has ordered Nebraska to pay more than $292,000 in attorneys' fees in a lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of changes to the state's sex offender registry laws.
But it was a fraction of the amount sought by the attorneys who represented the sex offenders who sued.
The laws, the most recent changes to the state's Sex Offender Registration Act, were passed in 2009 but put on hold as a result of the lawsuit before they were to go into effect in 2010.
Later that year, Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf issued a ruling leaving much of the laws intact -- including publication of the names of all adult, convicted sex offenders -- but said a trial was needed to determine whether the three statutes violated the U.S. Constitution.
At a trial before Kopf in July, experts and convicted sex offenders testified one after another about how the changes would affect them and, in many cases, their work.
In October, the judge struck down the parts of the laws that would have made it a crime for some sex offenders to use social networking sites and require them all to notify the state whenever they posted on the Internet.
Federal law authorizes district courts to award reasonable attorneys' fees to prevailing parties in civil rights litigation.
Following the ruling in October, Stuart Mills, whose law firm Dornan, Lustgarten & Troia of Omaha represented the John and Jane Does, requested an award of $751,947.67 in attorneys' fees, $13,111.88 for preparing the application for attorneys' fees and $26,182.56 in costs.
Deputy Nebraska Attorney General Katherine Spohn, who represented the state, argued the amount was unreasonable and should be reduced substantially.
She proposed a total award of $248,207.81.
In an order Friday, the judge approved $292,564.88, the sum of $279,453 in attorneys' fees, plus $13,111.88 in fees to prepare the application.
In the order, Kopf pointed out the case started in 2009 and resulted in 534 filings and the preparation of at least 15 briefs by plaintiffs' counsel.
It also involved about 50 John and Jane Doe clients and more than 200 defendants, including the state of Nebraska, Nebraska attorney general, the Nebraska State Patrol, local prosecutors and various law enforcement officers.
The state still could appeal Kopf's October ruling.