Johnson v. United States

The Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments on November 5, 2014. The decision is still pending.

Henderson v. United States: the Battle for Firearm Property Protection

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Henderson v. United States
Docket No.: 13-1487

Argument Heard: Feb 24, 2015

ISSUE: 

The Supreme Court will have to decide if a felony conviction takes away a defendant’s full property interest in his or her firearms.  Under Federal Law a felony conviction makes it unlawful for a defendant to possess a firearms.  However, can a defendant upon conviction transfer his firearms to a third- party or sell the firearms for personal benefits.

Prosecuting the Hate Crime

Hate-motivated crimes, or hate crimes have gained an extraordinary amount of publicity in recent years; however, these crimes are not reported as often as assumed, and they are rarely ever prosecuted.  Recent examples of such crimes are the cases of Treyvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tyler Clementi, Christopher Lane, and Eric Gardner.  Even more recently was the North Carolina Chapel Hill shootings that stole the lives of Deah Barakat, his wife Yusor Mohammad, and her sister, Razan Mohammad.  Self-proclaimed Atheist, Craig Stephen Hicks, shot the three Muslim students in their home execution-style in what mass media reported as “a dispute between neighbors” fueled by rage over a parking spot.  However, family members and supporters all over the world know what it really was: a hate crime. 

Revenge Porn: Spurned Lovers’ Retaliation in the Digital Age

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One of the biggest scandals of 2014 was the leak of several celebrities’ nude photographs to the internet this past September by hackers, who obtained the photographs from the celebrities’ iClouds.   The media was bursting with news about the photographs and statements from female celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton. 

However, celebrities are not the only victims of these kinds of violations; they happen to women everywhere, all the time.  Spurned ex-lovers can easily and anonymously post nude photographs and videos acquired while in an intimate relationship with another to the Internet on a variety of sites created just for that purpose.  The practice is known as “revenge porn,” and it has been a highly relevant topic among legislators, criminal law practitioners, and feminist advocates following the recent scandal.

Ohio v. Clark

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Ohio v. Clark on March 2, 2015.

Issues:

Whether an individual’s obligation to report suspected child abuse makes that individual an agent of law enforcement for purposes of the Confrontation Clause; and whether a child’s out-of-court statements to a teacher in response to a teacher’s concerns about potential child abuse qualify as “testimonial” statements subject to the Confrontation Clause

Public Enemy Number One: Heroin

Last year, the United States tackled a deadly epidemic that made its way into the nation’s borders; however, the nation looked past a preexisting threat that has killed more people in the past few years than ever before in history.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that the deadly drug, heroin, has killed more people recently than in previous years; 43,000 people per year, to be exact.  To give this number more meaning, the father of a young man who died of an overdose found that this number is fourteen times the number of people who died in the September 11th attacks, and it means that in a twenty-month period, heroin will claim more lives than the Vietnam War did in its entirety.  National figures show an increase in deaths by thirty-nine percent, and over 2,000 more lives claimed in 2013 than in 2012.  The drug has also claimed more lives than violent crimes and automobile accidents.  Moreover, this is the fifteenth year in a row that the number of heroin-related deaths has risen.

Heien v. North Carolina: Is a Reasonable Mistake Enough to Warrant a Traffic Stop?

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Hein v. United States

Docket No.  13-604

Argument Date:  Oct. 6, 2014

HOLDING:    

On December 15, 2014, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that a police officer’s reasonable mistake of law was enough to establish reasonable suspicion to justify a traffic stop and that it did not violate the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.