The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals reversed an intellectual-disability ruling and directed reinstatement of Michael Woolf’s death sentence while affirming denial of his cross-appeal.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Logan Williams’s child-sex convictions and rejected challenges involving digital evidence, expert testimony, and disclosure.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed rejection of James McGowan’s Rule 32 petition, including his claim that intellectual disability bars his execution under Atkins.
The Indiana Court of Appeals held that a 2023 amendment stopping parole credit during incarceration could not be applied to a murder committed in 1995, making the later parole revocation unlawful.
Case JAMICHAEL WILLIAMS v. STATE OF FLORIDA Court District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District Judge PER CURIAM; KELLY,
Case People of the State of Michigan v. Jimmy Lee Fuller Court Michigan Court of Appeals Judge BORRELLO, P.J.; BAZZI,
Case State of North Dakota v. Daniel Philip Carpenter Court North Dakota Supreme Court Judge Jon J. Jensen, Justice Date
Case State of North Dakota v. Colton Kenneth Defoe Court North Dakota Supreme Court Judge Lisa Fair McEvers, C.J.; Douglas
Case State of Kansas v. Efrain Garcia-Castillo Court Kansas Court of Appeals Judge HILL, P.J.; ARNOLD-BURGER, J.; ANDREA PURVIS, District
The Ninth Circuit reversed Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem’s conviction for conspiring to provide material support to ISIS, holding that evidence of ideological sympathy and independent violence inspired by a terrorist group’s propaganda cannot sustain a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 2339B witho
The Ninth Circuit vacated a certificate of appealability because its certified question presented no constitutional issue and could provide no effectual relief, declined to expand it to the Double Jeopardy claim, and dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed Mark Ridley-Thomas’s convictions, holding that routing $100,000 through USC to benefit his son’s nonprofit was a thing of value supporting honest-services fraud and federal-program bribery.
The First District Court of Appeal reversed a parole revocation order because the prosecution presented no evidence that Kenneth Adrian Fuller was actually on parole when the alleged violation occurred, holding that parole status must be proven even if the defendant never raises the issue before the
The Court of Appeal affirmed an order suspending execution of sentence and granting probation after a jury convicted Earl Lamont Rogers of domestic violence offenses, holding that he forfeited his challenge to the admission of a prior threatening phone call by failing to object on the specific groun
The Court of Appeal affirmed Jessie Cornejo Ambriz’s convictions and seven-year, four-month prison sentence, concluding that his statement during a prolonged strangulation and suffocation attack supported a criminal-threat conviction and that the sole trial error was harmless.
The Court of Appeal affirmed Sandra Garcia’s convictions for conspiracy to commit kidnapping, sexual penetration by force, kidnapping a child under 14, torture, and dissuading a witness, rejecting her claims of Sixth Amendment violations, instructional error, insufficient evidence, and an exce
The Fifth District upheld three child-sex convictions because explicit bathtub photographs permitted a reasonable inference supporting the corpus delicti, rejected constitutional challenges to the indeterminate sentences, and vacated unauthorized concurrent terms on 14 other counts.
A magistrate judge recommended dismissing Luis Alberto Alarcon Nava’s habeas petition because it was an unauthorized successive challenge to his 2012 Kern County judgment and its Racial Justice Act and related counsel claims did not state cognizable grounds for federal habeas relief.
A federal magistrate judge ordered a California prisoner to show cause why his habeas petition should not be dismissed because he had not exhausted state remedies and because the Younger abstention doctrine bars federal interference in his ongoing state criminal cases.
After California’s Governor announced commutation of all death sentences to life without parole, the federal district court in this death penalty habeas case directed the parties to confer and file a joint status report addressing the impact on the pending petition and on counsel’s appoi
The First Department removed gang, substance-use, and psychiatric probation conditions that had no evidentiary relationship to the defendant’s offense or rehabilitation.
The Superior Court held that later expert reports did not create newly discovered facts under the PCRA when the petitioner had learned the factual basis for his claims from an expert report 15 years earlier.
The Utah Court of Appeals affirmed two aggravated-murder convictions, holding that abundant evidence allowed the jury to reject both perfect and imperfect self-defense.
Case City of Strongsville v. Michael Thomas Smith Court Court of Appeals of Ohio, Eighth Appellate District, County of Cuyahoga