July, 2018

Subscribers to the Criminal Defense Resource Center’s online resources, found at www.sado.org, have access to more than 1,800 appellate pleadings filed by SADO Attorneys in the last five years. The brief bank is updated regularly and is open to anyone who wants to subscribe to online access. On our site, briefs are searchable by keyword, results can be organized by relevance or date, and the pleadings can be filtered by court of filing. Below are some of the issues presented in briefs added to our brief bank in the last few weeks. For confidentiality purposes, names of clients and witnesses have been removed.

BB 310470:  Because defendant-appellant’s leave application was pending in the Supreme Court, the trial court lacked jurisdiction to conduct the trial.

BB 311024:  The trial court imposed a sentence that was not consistent with the plea and the plea agreement as stated on the record, violating defendant’s due process rights at sentencing. This error requires resentencing, or alternatively, plea withdrawal.

BB 311565:  Defendant was denied his Sixth Amendment right to an attorney during questioning and his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination; the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress his statement.

BB 311572:  The prosecution relied nearly entirely on the testimony of two cooperating witnesses to establish that defendant was guilty of conspiracy. Defendant was denied his right to a fair trial where the prosecutor strategically and carefully crafted his questions and argument at trial to prevent the jury from learning of a potential source of bias for one of the cooperating witnesses; defendant was denied his right to the effective assistance of counsel by his attorney’s failure to effectively cross examine and impeach the witness with the fact that the prosecutor had agreed not to file charges against him in exchange for his testimony against defendant.

by John Zevalking
Associate Editor