Category: Criminal Defense

Violent crime across the city of Minneapolis has dropped significantly over the last year. The trend over the past year is a continuation of declining violent crime rates that began two decades ago. In addition, the most popular crime on the University of Minnesota’s campus, theft, is also on the decline. Despite the reduction in crime levels, experts are not entirely sure what is causing the reduction in crime.
Unlike many people who have been charged with allegations of a crime, the man from North Carolina who purposefully robbed a bank for one dollar probably does not want any criminal defense help. The reasoning behind the man’s plan was to get caught robbing a bank so that he could receive health care while in jail.
Retailers in the United States have been hit by more theft and fraud than at any point over the last seven years. Retailers from Target to Macy’s to locally owned businesses have all been targets. According to an industry survey three factors have contributed to increased theft and fraud at retailers across the U.S. Those factors are less store personnel, sophisticated technology and more gang activity.
Rural and suburban counties in Minnesota are trying to deal with a criminal law conundrum; the question of how to deal with the cost of an abundance of unused jail spaces. Multiple counties have built new facilities or upgraded old facilities to increase jail capacity while the overall crime rate has declined. Criminal experts and criminal defense experts are not sure what has caused the decline in the crime rate. Regardless, the resulting circumstance is an oversupply of spaces at a time when there is less demand.
An Indiana appeals court has ruled that, when faced with an illegal arrest, citizens have no right to resist arrest in their homes by the police. The court over-ruled English-American common-law precedent dating back to 1215, the date of the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta was the first basis charter of human rights and civil liberties in English constitutional history. It formed the basis for the Bill of Rights of our U.S. Constitution, including the principle that police may not violate your rights and affect an Illegal Arrest if they do not have a Search Warrant or certainly narrow exceptions to the Warrant Requirement.
Police are probably used to bystanders who watch them as they perform their duty, but the widespread use of cell phones with video-recorders is changing the observation game. More and more people are using the video-recording technology of their phone to capture police on duty, but some folks who thought they were passively making a video end up being put in police custody for the creation of the video.
The owners of a Minnesota home health care business based in Brooklyn Park were charged with multiple counts of theft last Wednesday. The criminal complaint alleges the two owners of the business, who are sisters, fraudulently billed the state of Minnesota almost $400,000 for personal care services that were never provided. The industry of personal health care services has rapidly expanded over the last few years and the Office of Minnesota Attorney General has been tasked with fighting fraud cases that come from the industry.
A Nevada judge has ruled that a woman held in prison for 17 years after being falsely convicted of murder should be freed now that she has been exonerated. Utah recently passed a law in 2008 allowing for people to prove they are factually innocent of a crime for which they have been wrongfully convicted. The law allows an unspecified amount of restitution to people who have been wrongfully convicted, imprisoned for years, and then exonerated or proven to be innocent.
A recent study by the U.S. Justice Department’s Inspector General has concluded that many FBI agents lack expertise to investigate Cyber Crime cases they are assigned to. In addition, the FBI failed to share national security information or intelligence with other agencies as it was supposed to, even with agencies that shared information with the FBI, including on Cyber Crimes such as hacking into government computers or foreign companies stealing trade secrets from U.s. companies by hacking.