Two issues regarding the right to privacy, and its potential impact on criminal cases, appeared in the news recently. These issues have no relationship to each other, but can both be highly relevant to criminal cases. The first involves a your man who was living alone in a South American…
Last year, in State v. RG, our Appellate Division addressed the issue of whether a criminal defendant who is not mentally competent can be involuntarily medicated to restore their competency so that they can proceed with their case. This was the first time a New Jersey appellate court addressed this…
This blog has previously addressed the fact that the statistics describing the state of the juvenile justice system in this country are alarming. About 53,000 juveniles are incarcerated on any given day in the United States. Many jurisdictions report recidivism rates exceeding 50% during a one to three year period. …
Criminal attorneys frequently assert novel defenses at trial and during plea negotiations. One of the more interesting defenses, sometimes referred to as the “Twinkie” defense, has existed for a number of years. It sounds patently silly on the surface given its name, but may actually have some basis in reality…
It has been long known that the United States incarcerates more individuals than any other nation on the planet. Our combined federal, state and local jail population is staggering. Over the last several decades, however, there has been an ongoing push to develop “alternatives-to-incarceration” or “ATI” programs. These programs, which…
The first mental health court was established about 20 years ago in Broward County, Florida, in 1997. Since that time, a relatively small number of counties across the country have established these innovative and forward-thinking programs, with the result that there were approximately 300 mental health courts nationwide as of…
On October 18, 2016, NYPD Sergeant Hugh Barry responded to the home of Deborah Danner in the Bronx. Barry found Danner, a diagnosed schizophrenic, holding a pair of scissors and experiencing a mental health crisis. He persuaded her to drop them, but she then picked up a bat and somehow…
In Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), and Hall v. Florida, 572 U.S. _____, the United States Supreme Court held, among other things, that states cannot execute someone who is mentally disabled. The Court also left to the states the task of determining whether a death row inmate has…
Dylann Roof, who infamously shot and killed nine African-Americans engaged in bible study at a Charleston, South Carolina church, chose to represent himself during the sentencing phase of his federal capital trial. During his “presentation”, he informed the jury that there was nothing wrong with him psychologically and also stated,…
June Gorthy met a mental health therapist at a conference in 1998, and then tried to commence a relationship with him. The therapist rejected her many overtures, which were expressed repeatedly in numerous gifts, letters and telephone messages. Gorthy then left her home in Colorado, drove to New Jersey, repeatedly…