Recent budgetary constraints have compelled state legislatures to rethink prison as a rehabilitative resource rather than warehouse project to simply store persons convicted of non-violent offenses. To that end, the General Assembly in our Commonwealth passed...
Year: 2012
Probation Officer Special Rule–extra judicial conditions
In the recent case of Commonwealth v. Elliott, 2012 Pa. LEXIS 2088, 12-13 (Pa. 2012), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was confronted with the issues of whether a county board of probation offices, or the agents and officers thereof, can impose conditions upon...
Police Identity Questioning…Just a Mere Encounter..No 4th Amend. Search
Our Superior Court, in Commonwealth v. McAdoo, 2012 PA Super 118 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2012) at the instruction of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Au, ___ A.3d ___ , 2012 Pa. LEXIS 982, 2012 WL 1434844 (Pa. filed April 26, 2012), has begun to severely...
POLYGRAPHS AND SEX OFFENDER PROBATION ISSUES
Is meeting with your sex offender probation officer to a polygraph test, thereby requiring you to answer many unrelated sexual history questions, a violation of your Pennsylvaniand United States 5th Amendment Right against self-incrimination? YES. You must...
Drug Compartments in Cars–Proposed Law and Forfeiture
There is a new Pennsylvania House Bill, no 1521 of 2011 pending that will make it illegal to possess any vehicle will illegal compartments. Section 907(d) of title 18 of the Crimes Code is to be amended by adding a definition and the section to read: § 907....
Federal Post-Indictment Criminal Conduct
FEDERAL SEX OFFENDER PATTERNS OF ACTIVITY The federal defendant who pleads guilty is under an obligation to conduct themselves in a manner, amongst other things, that is not in violation of United States Sentencing Guideline § 4B1.5(b). This provision applies to...
Philadelphia New Bail Process
Starting Monday, April 16th, Philadelphia will be opening its new Bench Warrant Court program. There are a large number of bench warrants issued every day in Philadelphia. Defendants and their families have come to expect that you just go a week later and get a new...
Types of Criminal Cases
According to the FBI, crime rates in our region have held relatively steady over the past fifteen years. However, the lingering recession has resulted in an increase in corporate and government agency scrutiny of their financial performance, operating expenses, and...
Assault’s Against Police with a Gun and Mandatory Sentences
On October 17, 2008 the legislature enacted two related sentencing modifications. Under provision 42 Pa.C.S. § 9719.1 (2012), the Legislature enacted a mandatory minimum sentence of twenty years in jail for those persons convicted of the first degree felony...
Juvenile MEgan’s Law update 2012
On December 20, 2011, Governor Corbett signed into law SB 1183 (1857) as Act 111 of 2011 (Megan’s Law IV). The law makes extensive revisions to Pennsylvania’s classification and registration requirements of adult and juvenile sexual offenders. Juvenile...