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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…
Zealous Counsel or Unethical Social Media Maven – How Far Can a Lawyer Go?
May 9, 2014
Zealous Counsel or Unethical Social Media Maven – How Far Can a Lawyer Go?
By: Michelle Cohen
Social media has opened a Pandora’s box of information about just about everyone today, including jurors, witnesses, opposing counsel, defendants and plaintiffs. As lawyers we want to leave no stone unturned in pursuing a client’s interest, but just how far can we go without jeopardizing our case? For instance, can counsel (or someone acting at counsel’s direction, such as a paralegal) review a publicly available…
Ifrah Law Report: Johns Hopkins Symposium on Social Costs of Mass Incarceration
May 8, 2014
Ifrah Law Report: Johns Hopkins Symposium on Social Costs of Mass Incarceration
By: Jeffrey Hamlin
On April 28, 2014, Ifrah Law attorneys Jeff Hamlin and Casselle Smith attended a symposium on incarceration presented by The Johns Hopkins University and its Urban Health Institute. The day–long program focused on adverse impacts of mass incarceration and potential strategies for mitigating them and reversing trends toward continued prison growth. Throughout the day, panels comprised of medical professionals, sociologists, legal scholars, and ex–offenders took…
Another SDNY Judge Finds the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines Wanting
April 30, 2014
Another SDNY Judge Finds the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines Wanting
By: Ifrah Law
In a sentencing hearing yesterday in the Southern District of New York, yet another judge reached the conclusion that the quasi-mathematical formulaic approach of the United States Sentencing Guidelines fails to account adequately for differences between criminal defendants. But, in this case, the result was to the detriment of the individual being sentenced in that case. Judge Jed Rakoff made headlines in October 2012 when…
Are High Frequency Traders Playing Fast and Loose With the Rules?
April 18, 2014
Are High Frequency Traders Playing Fast and Loose With the Rules?
By: Ifrah Law
When high frequency trading (HFT) first crept into the public consciousness, it related to primarily to the question of whether rapid, computer driven trading posed risks to the safety and stability of the trading markets. Now it appears that HFT may have also been a means for some traders to gain a possible illegal advantage. High frequency trading involves the use of sophisticated technological tools…
Offshore Accounts? IRS is Watching
April 16, 2014
Offshore Accounts? IRS is Watching
By: Michelle Cohen
If you have unreported income from offshore accounts, now may be the best time to come forward and report those earnings; otherwise, you may be susceptible to criminal prosecution. The IRS initially began this open-ended Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) in 2009 and later renewed it in 2011. Due to strong interest from previous years, the IRS rolled the 2012 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program back…
