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Virtual Reality Creating Jury Reality
FEATURED
January 7, 2025
Virtual Reality Creating Jury Reality
By: James Trusty
A Florida Judge may have unwittingly ushered in a new age of criminal justice, where slickly made virtual reality (“VR”) presentations turn judges and jurors into witnesses, and VR headsets provide subjective “testimony” in a powerful and difficult to challenge manner. Broward County Judge Andrew Siegel agreed to don a virtual reality headset in a preliminary proceeding[1] where the defendant was accused of aggravated assault. Miguel Albisu, the defendant, was accused of waving a gun at wedding guests and he claims self-defense. The defense hired an artist to create a “defendant’s perspective,” and the result is a historical first—the judge took in a defense expert’s testimony about self-defense that included a guided tour of the reality contained on a VR…
How Thick is the Blanket? – Preemptive Pardons as a Presidential Power
December 6, 2024
How Thick is the Blanket? – Preemptive Pardons as a Presidential Power
By: James Trusty
As the presiding judge scolded Hunter Biden’s attorneys this week, “The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 1, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history.”[1] But what exactly is that history he claims is being re-written? Judge Scarsi was challenging…
Supremely Improbable
July 30, 2024
Supremely Improbable
By: James Trusty
President Biden’s pronounced objectives for Supreme Court “reform” are improbable, politically lifeless under a particularly lame duck presidency, and motivated by transparently November-driven calculations. But even if the proposed changes are doomed from the start, they push public discourse on a couple of issues that are red meat for the democrats. The stated reforms are superficially simple ones: 1) to “clarify” that “there is no…
Supreme Court Denies Cert. in New Jersey Sports Betting Case
June 23, 2014
Supreme Court Denies Cert. in New Jersey Sports Betting Case
By: Ifrah Law
Today, the United States Supreme Court denied New Jersey’s petition for a writ of certiorari to hear an appeal from lower court decisions that invalidated its sports wagering law. This ends a three year fight to bring sports betting to New Jersey’s casinos and racetracks, but NJ State Senator Raymond Lesniak, who has spearheaded efforts to bring sports betting to the state has vowed to…
Mock Twitter Account Raid Results in Marijuana Arrest
May 27, 2014
Mock Twitter Account Raid Results in Marijuana Arrest
By: Ifrah Law
Last month police raided the home of an Illinois man who created a parody Twitter account of his city’s mayor. No charges were brought against the man because the prosecutor determined that no crime had been committed, however the man’s roommate has been indicted for possession of marijuana that was found during the overzealous raid of their residence. Jon Daniel created the Twitter account @peoriamayor…
The Taxman Cometh for US Holders of Foreign Bank Accounts
May 22, 2014
The Taxman Cometh for US Holders of Foreign Bank Accounts
By: Nicole Kardell
U.S. citizens and residents with unreported assets abroad may be feeling a steady increase of pressure these days. The July 1, 2014 effective date of the Foreign Assets Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is looming. The number of countries that have agreed to enforce FATCA is growing (almost daily). That means the banks in those countries will be required to report U.S. citizens’ assets to the…
Atlantic City Needed to Go Online Years Ago
May 20, 2014
Atlantic City Needed to Go Online Years Ago
By: Jeff Ifrah
Three more casinos are set to close in Atlantic City. Unions, politicians and lobbyists are pointing fingers. One thing is for certain, newly introduced online gaming legislation is not to blame. If experts had been paying attention to the trends, they would have introduced regulated online gaming into New Jersey years ago… Want to know more? Read the full post on Ifrah Law’s new iGaming…
SEC Takes Proactive Approach to Cybersecurity
May 13, 2014
SEC Takes Proactive Approach to Cybersecurity
By: Steven Eichorn
Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (“OCIE”) formally announced its cybersecurity initiative in a Risk Alert. The initiative followed up on OCIE’s announced prioritization of cybersecurity preparedness as part of its 2014 Examination Priorities. The initiative is also timely because the general public is becoming more conscious of cybersecurity risks and its dangers as they learn of…
