February 2009

  I was just reading an article about the dangers posed by big rig trucks and the statistics are alarming. Every year truckers kill innocent persons because they fail to drive safely.  It happens because truck drivers suffer from fatigue, get too little sleep, drive too many miles and often rely on drugs to keep them on the road.  The US…

Continue Reading Trucks Injure and Kill – Here’s Proof

Remember that Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song that advised "… teach your children well… and feed them on your dreams…."  Unfortunately, too often we teach our children that the police are only there to help, and that if they just tell the truth their problems will go away.  So it was again this week when I met with a…

Continue Reading Teach Your Children Well … The Right To Remain Silent

 Idaho’s distinction as one of two states (the other is Oklahoma) that still permits the use of the firing squad as a lawful means of execution, appears to be in jeopardy.  Deputy Attorney General Bill von Tagen is pushing a bill before the legislature to get rid of the bullet as a means of "lethal injection."  So what is the…

Continue Reading Idaho Supreme Court Blog Reports AG Wants to End Firing Squad

 There is this practice in small communities of hiring contract public defenders and paying them a "flat fee" to handle all of the counties’ indigent defense work.  Say you are in "Little" County, and you get charged with burglary. You don’t have that rainy day fund, so you use the services of the public defender.  He is paid by the…

Continue Reading Flat Fee Public Defender Malpractice – $3 million

 The testimony usually goes like this – 

"Now officer, as you observed the defendant’s driving that night, did you see anything that caused you to believe he might be operating under the influence of some intoxicant?"

"I did.  He was weaving all over the place, crossed the yellow line and the white lines, and almost hit another officer who happened…

Continue Reading Is The Exclusionary Rule At Risk – Maybe