Steven J. Richardson | July 8, 2010
Police officers frisking a suspect as part of an arrest is something with which we are all familiar. There is even a famous picture of former New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman frisking someone. This is for the purpose of determining whether the suspect is armed, before taking him or her into custody, and it is [...]
Steven J. Richardson | June 2, 2010
Yesterday’s decision by the US Supreme Court in Berghuis v. Thompkins has been in the news quite a bit, as it will have quite an impact on 5th amendment cases in the future and will certainly, as dissenting Justice Sotomayor observed, “turn Miranda upside down.” I have talked about Miranda in other posts, but this [...]
Steven J. Richardson | May 24, 2010
On May 21, 2010, the New Jersey Appellate Division ruled that police cannot enter and search a private residence with only a “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity (the standard under Terry v. Ohio, a 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case). In the case of State v. Jefferson, police officers were investigating drug dealing and possible gun-play, [...]
Steven J. Richardson | April 14, 2010
In a previous post I had talked about a court’s refusal to suppress evidence obtained from a search incident to arrest, where the arrest warrant was stale. In that case, the police were executing a warrant issued by another county but, due to a glitch, the database was not properly updated, and the police arrested [...]
Steven J. Richardson | March 8, 2010
The Miranda warning has become a familiar concept by anyone who has watched television over the past 40 years. “You have the right to remain silent . . . “ Once you become a suspect, the police must give you this warning before continuing with questioning. If you ask for a lawyer, they must stop [...]