CrimLaw

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In the Courts:

(1) In California jury instructions are being changed from "Failure of recollection is common. Innocent misrecollection is not uncommon" to "People often forget things or make mistakes in what they remember." All together, jury instructions which a layman are a good thing. However, the article notes that in serious cases the old instructions will be used because they have been tested in the appellate courts. In other words, understandable instructions will be given in a shoplifting trial while a 75 page morass of legal babble which the lawyers barely understand will be given to juries in a death penalty case.

Found via The Legal Reader.

(2) A disaster of an ethical/political mess has led to all the members of the Ohio Supreme Court recusing themselves.

(3) The feds accuse. In Mississippi bribery charges have reached as high as the Supreme Court.

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