The efforts of the brave men and women who serve in law enforcement deserve to be commended. They are often called upon for service that exceeds the normal call of duty. At the same time, they are only human, and may make mistakes. As a law firm that helps clients with post-conviction relief and appeals, […]
Regardless of the criminal charge, an accused has a right to a fair trial. This principle of the American justice system is aptly illustrated in a recent example. In a highly controversial and pending child pornography case, the defendant was able to obtain a procedural victory. Specifically, investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation used […]
The road to an appeal can be long, as a recent story reminds us. Specifically, the story profiled a 63-year-old Tennessee man’s request for a new trial. The man alleges that a missing pretrial transcript was not considered by the Court of Appeals. The mistake may be traceable to the man’s first attorney, who did […]
According to recent data, wrongful convictions are not just the subject of dramatizations. In 2015, 149 convictions were overturned. In fact, the number of exonerations has risen nearly every year in the past decade. Readers may wonder how wrongful convictions can result in a criminal justice system that requires the prosecution to present evidence of […]
If you’ve applied to a job recently, you might have seen a checkbox on the application inquiring whether you had ever been convicted of a crime. Is that fair? After all, one rationale of incarceration is rehabilitation. After an individual has served a sentence, he or she should have the right to reenter society and […]
Pursuing post-conviction relief or the filing of an appeal requires extensive legal preparation, as some local law students recently discovered. The third-year law students at the University of Tennessee spent nearly a year getting an immigration case ready for appeal. Their work involved preparing the record, drafting the appeal documents, and preparing for oral arguments. […]
