Tuesday, June 18, 2013

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

Several long time readers have emailed us that they are experiencing difficulties when viewing the blog. The problem -we think- is that Google is going out of their way not to play nice with browsers by companies they don't like. For instance Google has now made it nearly impossible for us to view pending comments with our IPhone. 

Please let us know if you are experiencing difficulties. In the meantime you can try clearing the history and cache on your internet browser on a regular basis and that should help. 

ANONYMOUS JURORS? 
David Ovalle is one of many media members reporting that the Judge in the George Zimmerman trial is considering keeping the names of jurors anonymous for six months after the conclusion of the trial. 
Scott Ponce of Holland and Knight was up in Sandford on behalf of the Herald arguing against the Judge's decision. Ponce does a lot of the media motions in Florida. 

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT....except when you don't. 
In Salinas v. Texas, the Supreme Court held yesterday that silence during a "pre-custodial" interrogation is admissible as evidence of guilt. Justice Scalia, DOM's great friend to the defense joined Justice Thomas in concurring in the result, giving the plurality opinion of Roberts, Alito and Kennedy the gravitas of law. 

In this "up is down, down is up" world of jurisprudence, in order to invoke the protections of the Fifth Amendment, including the right to remain silent, you must speak up:

Petitioner’s Fifth Amendment claim fails because he did not expressly invoke the privilege against self- incrimination in response to the officer’s question. It has long been settled that the privilege “generally is not self- executing” and that a witness who desires its protection “ ‘must claim it.’ ...Because petitioner was required to assert the privilege in order to benefit from it, the judgment of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejecting petitioner’s Fifth Amendment claim is affirmed.


 Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan and Sotomayor fought the good fight against the evil empire. 
So remember to advise your clients: in order to remain silent....SPEAK UP. 

See You In Court. 




9 comments:

  1. Real Fake Former JudgeTuesday, June 18, 2013 9:17:00 AM

    T/F- former legendary County Court Judge Jack Coe coined the phrase "save the drama for your momma".

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  2. I think (chomp smack) this new supreme court case bears some (chomp) study. A state (smack) continuance is in order unless they want (smack smack) to speak some Latin. I mean the (chomp) only thing they want (chomp chomp) to negotiate is (smack) Voltage.

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  3. Rumpole grabs another post from FACDL Listserv and makes it the topic of the day. Last night member James Woodard posted on the Salinas case.

    But we do give Rump credit for the cleverness of the post. You must speak in order to invoke your right to remain silent.

    Rump. Query - can they use the same silent-ness against a mute person in the same situation as Salinas.?

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  4. With all due respect to Mr Woodard I get my supreme court info from the SCOTUS blog. I assure you I would give Jim any credit for any post. But in this case I didn't see his email. Sorry.

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  5. No problem viewing the blog on a computer using Chrome browser. Receive a script error message when on a computer using Internet Explorer.

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  6. not that anyone really cares, but Scott Ponce is at H&K, not GT...unless something changed on the way up to Orlando.

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  7. I fixed it. Whats the diff really?

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  8. Not fixed. On internet explorer i get that error but, not on Ipad.

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  9. Which means it's a Google vs Microsoft issue and not an issue I can fix.

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