i am charged with violating SORNA&#39;s registration. A county judge recently ruled SORNA unconstitutional. what to do? what should my ESQ do for me? charged with &quot;failure to register&quot;, been on bail for over a year. have &quot;call to the list&quot; the 30th of this month for trial! my public defender shows no interest in defending me. two days i stumbled upon a local county judges' decision that SORNA and the registration process is punitive ruled it unconstitutional. I called my lawyer 3 times with no response. what should he be doing for me in response to this decision? i have NO faith in my lawyer and want to ensure i am getting a fair shake. this has been a very long road, and i appreciate any help and advice you could give me.
Generally, a local county judge’s decision is not binding on the judgement of another judge unless it is that of an appellate division. The law of the case principle could be referred to as an argument if it would have been decided by another judge in the same case (some courtships work on a rotary basis with different judges sitting over a single case). This would mean that the court would give greater deference to that decision; however, applying the principle is a matter of administrative preference to save resources of the court. Whether or not the other judge would reconsider the matter would be within their discretion absent binding authority to the contrary as a “law of the case” is not binding. In fact, even if it would have been the same judge with the exact same facts deciding the matter in a final judgement, there wouldn’t be much to do. One could argue that deciding differently is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment which, if the judge fails to explain the different decision on the exact same facts may have a reasonable probability to get overturned provided the unconstitutionality finding was correct in the first place. If the matter was, in fact, unconstitutional, appeals may overturn a contrary judgement if the issue is brought up in the lower court and enters the court record. It may have some weight still to cite the decision of the other judge as the argument may be given more weight than if merely delivered as the argument of counsel.
There isn't a general answer to this question. It needs to be evaluated incident and sub-incident act by sub-incident act. The use of force is legally permitted to prevent harm to others and to the property of others under some circumstances. Citizens arrests are permitted under some circumstances, but generally, the person making the arrest must have personal knowledge of the crime while it is in the process of being committed. Some laws prohibit wearing masks under some circumstances, but usually not in all circumstances. Your client's "business model" is not consistent with being able to testify in court, so the criminal justice system will only be able to convict someone whom your client delivers to police if they can do so without your testimony. As a general rule, the 4th Amendment exclusionary rule does not apply to evidence collected by private parties or to statements obtained by private parties that are not made under duress that are not Mirandized. But, if your client is effectively "deputized" or becomes a "de facto" agent of the state who is called up to be a member of a posse for the police, for example, by using an agreed symbol such as shining a light with a symbol on it on some clouds, at that point, with respect to that matter, the 4th Amendment exclusionary rule and Miranda probably do apply to evidence that your client obtains, and exclusion of that kind of evidence could make prosecution much more difficult, unless the prosecution can successfully make an argument that the other evidence that the illegally obtained evidence leads them to is not "fruit of the poisonous tree" because it would have inevitably been discovered in due course using only the legally obtained evidence. Even if your client does violate the law, law enforcement is not obligated to investigate his alleged crimes even if the victims complain, and prosecutors are not obligated to prosecute those crimes, even if they have overwhelming evidence of guilt which they could use to secure a conviction. Prosecutorial discretion is basically absolute. Your client might be sued civilly for operating a corrupt enterprise under RICO, for various intentional torts, and for negligence, by people who think that they have been harmed by his conduct, but someone can only sue your client if they can figure out who he is and serve him with civil process. If you are helping your client conduct on ongoing criminal enterprise, whether or not the crimes are prosecuted by the criminal justice system, the attorney-client privilege you have with your client is probably forfeit should you be placed under a subpoena and your may be violating other ethical rules. But, of course, somebody has to figure out that you are part of this criminal enterprise before you suffer any consequences for being involved.
Whatever crime or infraction you are charged with, it applies to you personally however they spell your name and however you spell your name. Whether or not you should go depends on the alternative that you face (large fine or jail time for failure to appear?). An argument that you didn't commit the offence because they misspelled your name would hold zero water.
If you want to have some fun and increase the likelihood that you will go to trial soon, you can file a motion to dismiss for failure to comply with the Speedy Trial Act. If you have co-defendants they may be the reason for delay. You could then move for a severance. On a slightly different note, since 95% of federal criminal cases result in the imposition of a penalty on the accused, you should start calculating your guidelines.
when is it a good idea to get a lawyer? Only when you are not confident that you can put enough dedication to the matter &amp; learning curve, or when you are not confident of your ability to cope with the emotional/frustrating toll of judicial proceedings. I do not mean this in an ironic way or to challenge you. It is just important to avoid a false sense of confidence. However, if you decide to represent yourself in court, you will have much more control of your case than if you delegate it to some lawyer whose attention is split with many other unrelated cases. Also, never get intimidated by pedantic or wasted phrases such as "he who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client". In the XXI century, most urban people can read and write, Canadian laws are written in your own language, and the Internet provides many informative resources for free. Furthermore, even knowledgeable attorneys happen to be clearly wrong about the law, as I pointed out here. I feel like the bulk of the work is carefully detailing what happened which feels more like the job of a news paper editor. It involves more than that. A newspaper editor does not get entangled with subtleties of a story or of the law, and subtleties are often decisive in judicial proceedings. Litigation also involves intensive legal research so as to find case law (that is, binding court decisions) and statutes that support your position. The application of these laws to a particular case are often premised on subtleties. Hence my remark in the previous paragraph. A newspaper editor hardly ever knows what questions or evidence are required or would suffice for proving a case. This knowledge only comes through (self-)education and experience. What options exist if I don't want to pay a lawyer a bunch of money and am willing to do most of the work myself, for example would pro bono be a good option? Start by searching for "pro se" and "Canada" on the Internet. Some of the results might actually provide guidance on what procedural law(s) apply in your jurisdiction, the legislation, and so forth. As for searching case law, there should be a Canadian equivalent of http://www.leagle.com/leaglesearch (sorry I am not knowledgeable of the specifics of Canadian litigation/resources). Based on your other post, I presume you are or will be getting acquainted with the Tenancy Act. I recently addressed here a question about the Act, showcasing the combination of that legislation and contract law (interestingly, many tenants presume their issue with the landlord is strictly about landlord-tenant legislation when in fact it has to do with contract law). I am sure in a library will find plenty of useful books covering the basics of the legal system as well as the rules of civil procedure. Find out whether the public has access to case files in Canadian courts. If so, go to a courthouse and study those files. Get acquainted with the drafting and format of pleadings, motions, responses, briefs, and so forth (although in Small Claims court much of this would be unnecessary, for small claims proceedings are much more simple). This will show you the practice aspect of what you learn from books. When using a term that you consider essential to your case, be sure to consult its meaning in a legal dictionary (I do not know whether Black's Law Dictionary is applicable in Canadian litigation). The meaning of many words are much more specific in litigation compared to their common usage. Or would getting a real lawyer and spending only one hour of his time be better? I highly doubt it, especially if you have not gained any background in law. A lawyer will not explain things from scratch, let alone the intricacies you need to know. The most you could get from speaking with a lawyer for an hour would be notions which are too generic to be of any use at all. Moreover, I doubt that a lawyer in a phone interview will give you any legal references for you to verify on your own. In the very beginning of my litigation, I spoke with a law firm as assigned by a lawyer referral company. By then I already had some background in law and therefore I had specific questions. The guy from that law firm just kept babbling ambiguities very quickly. At the end of the phone call, I thought "nah, I will do this by myself". You might end up making that decision in your current or future matters.
To paraphrase the Princess Bride: "I don't think those words mean what you think they do". The "truther-activist", "sovereign citizen", and "Citizen vs. Human Being" concepts will only hurt you. It has never succeeded, to my knowledge; It has failed multiple times. Let me tell you a little about myself to illustrate what I mean: I am a software developer (and it seems from your profile, you are at least somewhat computer inclined, so this will hopeful make sense to you). The business side of the company I work for think that myself and my team write "magic code", and having the system do whatever they ask for is just a matter of pressing enough buttons in the correct order. It totally insane, and it completely analogous to what you are propose. The court is a carefully designed system, and you don't have the power to make arbitrary changes to it. Certainly not through the "arbitrary button presses" of "legal fiction". Some things to note Legal fictions are never summoned. People are. Organizations are. See initial paraphrase with regards to "legal fiction". Your legal fiction has not been summoned, you have. You will be appearing as yourself, not a straw man. I'm sorry to break it to you, but whomever you have heard this from is wrong, and in the most best case scenario, they are confusing what they want to be true for reality. If they have received any money from you in relation to this opinion, then they are almost certainly a scammer and a liar. If you insist on going further with this nonsense, then you WILL lose, regardless of what actual facts you have. My condolences. Now, to answer the question you asked: Yes, you can file a monition for discovery before first appearance (but not before pleading). You can file by mail, and in some jurisdictions, online. Source: https://www.nycourts.gov/courthelp/goingtocourt/caseBasics.shtml.
There does seem to be a meme in the UAE of people threatening legal action for negative reviews, as a form of defamation. The police will simply tell them that this is not a crime, go hire a lawyer if you want to sue them. If you block them, perhaps they don't have any other way to contact you (seems that was the point of blocking them), which means that you cannot receive their offer &quot;If you pay us AED 1,000 we will not sue you&quot;, which could be a problem if they win their court case. Still, it is perfectly legal to ignore or block them, up to the point that you are actually served with legal papers. When they actually sue you, &quot;blocking&quot; is irrelevant, they will hire a process server to hand you the legal papers that command you to appear in court.
The citation could be written but it should be easy to beat. In the circumstance that you describe the accused could just say the he was not driving his car at the time. If the prosecution is a sham with all your friends saying you all saw this thing, then the defendant can bring all of his friends to say that he was at some other place. The benefit to having a cop on the scene is that the cop will get ID and positive identification. The other thing the cop has is expert judgment. If a cop sees unsafe lane movement and writes a ticket, his testimony in court carries more weight than the "it was not unsafe!" testimony of the accused. Keep in mind, getting all of your witnesses to court on the same day, after continuances and other delays, and getting them all to tell the same story to overcome the presumption of innocence is no small feat. All that to say, it's easier with police as witness. There are two mechanisms which could get you where you want to go. Private prosecution and citizen's arrest. Private prosecutions are a part of history but not strictly unavailable at the state level. You could write up some charging documents to see if you can get your target indicted. Citizen's arrest is interesting because the rules are fairly unclear unless governed by a specific statute. There are two necessary parts of citizens arrest and the first part gets the attention. The first part is the detention (arrest). The crimes for which a citizen can legally detain a suspect are likely defined by state statute. The second part is giving testimony about the witnessed crime. Let's assume that you see a felony happen and watch the perp walk into a gas station bathroom. You are prepared to arrest, do part number one, and then call the cops, to do part number two. But while you wait for the guy to come out of the bathroom a cop walks up. You explain the felony and the cop goes into the bathroom and arrests the guy. It's purely witness testimony that led to the arrest and the indictment (physical evidence - let's say there is none) and even the trial. You successfully get the guy indicted and when you show up to testify you tell the story as you witnessed it. Now the accused gets to take the stand. When he takes the stand he says, "it was the other guy." When asked, "what other guy?" He says, "I was in the bathroom and a guy ran in and went into the stall. Then a cop came in and arrested me." Reasonable doubt right there. How much more if it's a bunch of friends ratting on some lone driver? Police need evidence. Prosecutors need evidence. Judges need evidence.