BLOG BULLETS: Rule 806 of the Federal Rules of Evidence allows a party to impeach a hearsay statement just as if the hearsay declarant had testified in person. One example of a way to use this rule is to offer a coconspirator’s inconsistent statement during a police interrogation after arrest to impeach an earlier statement […]

San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies called gay, bisexual and transgender inmates “sissies” and “freak shows” and denied them access to services given to other inmates, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday by civil rights attorneys. Fifteen current and former inmates of the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga filed the class-action lawsuit against […]

BLOG BULLETS: Additional Ninth Circuit case law supports the argument that the pretrial test for prosecutors’ duty to disclose exculpatory evidence doesn’t require the evidence to rise to some particular level of importance, or “materiality.” The Department of Justice’s own policy – as set forth in the U.S. Attorney’s Manual – also sets a lower […]

BLOG BULLETS: The Rule 16 requirement that prosecutors disclose all information “material to preparing the defense” applies to inculpatory evidence as well as exculpatory evidence. This disclosure requirement also applies to evidence relevant to affirmative defenses in addition to evidence relevant directly to guilt. There’s another recent Ninth Circuit case that confirms these points, as […]

BLOG BULLETS: The Ninth Circuit has confirmed that Descamps requires that a list of alternative ways of committing a crime in a statute must be a list of alternative elements for the statute to be divisible, not just a list of alternative means. Alternatives are alternative elements rather than alternative means when the jury has […]