March 2010

 A recent Idaho Court of Appeals decision follows recent United States Supreme Court precedent, allowing a search of a car incident to arrest, even if the defendant is in custody at the time of the search, and unable to reach into the vehicle at the time of the search. The Idaho case is State v. Cantrell, decided by Judge

Continue Reading Idaho Court of Appeals Upholds Warrantless Search of Car – Just Like The United States Supreme Court Did

 Laura Silsby is still sitting in a Haitian jail while a judge decides whether to order a trial on charges that she tried to take children from Haiti to the Dominican Republic who she believed were either orphaned or abandoned. The new charge is "arranging irregular travel." You will recall that she and other Idaho missionaries were in Haiti, ostensibly

Continue Reading While Laura Silsby Sits In Jail – Children Are Sold As Slaves In Haiti

 The Idaho Supreme Court decided an interesting case in which the Boy Scouts of America sought to dismiss a case brought by sex abuse victims who had not proceeded with their cases until they were adults. Generally, Idaho civil law contains a statute of limitations that ends liability for civil cases after some number of years. For example – if

Continue Reading Idaho’s Civil Action For Victims Of Sexual Abuse Not Applied Retroactively

Six inmates sentenced to death for various murders will not receive new trials or new sentencing hearings, according to a decision of the Idaho Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court ruled in Ring v. Arizona,  that the Sixth Amendment‟s jury trial guarantee requires that a jury find an aggravating circumstance necessary to impose the death penalty instead of a

Continue Reading No Retroactivity For Six Sentenced To Death In Idaho

The problem with over generalizations is – they are in fact over generalizations! Guilty. I may have suggested recently that your likelihood of getting relief on appeal is about the same as coming up with a perpetual motion machine; or a little less than winning that $200 million Power Ball; or swimming from Los Angeles to San Diego – even

Continue Reading Did I say the Idaho Supreme Court never grants relief? Say it ain’t so!

 I am a huge fan of 37 Signals and their product line of mind-freeing, software-killing, reality-driven SOLUTIONS. There, I said it – SOLUTIONS. As lawyers, we tend to only see problems. Problems are meant to be solved, not lawyered, and sometimes we simply forget the value in achieving something. Recently I had a case in which my client was charged

Continue Reading There’s A Message For Lawyers in REWORK

 I had a really nice woman in my office today who wanted to hire me to be her lawyer in a felony case. Her biggest block was, well – money. She said she had been "hoping to avoid all those hearings" and thereby make it possible to hire me. Fewer hearings means less time spent on the case and less

Continue Reading “I Was Hoping To Avoid All Those Hearings….”