San Jose Criminal Defense Law Blog

Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois, has been sentenced to 14 years in federal prison for charges of trying to sell Obama's U.S. Senate seat after Obama moved to the White House as president. Blagojevich denied wrongdoing and refused to step down as governor. He was later impeached. At his sentencing on Wednesday, Blagojevich apologized for trying to sell the Senate seat and said he accepted responsibility for his crimes.

The federal judge, however, felt that this apology, if it was sincere, should have come sooner. Blagojevich's wife and children had written letters asking the judge to be lenient in the sentencing, but the judge said he felt Blagojevich should have had his family in mind when he committed the federal crimes. He said that if it was consolation to Blagojevich's two children he was not being convicted of being a bad father, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Another man in California has come forward saying that his DUI arrest was the result of a set-up meant to "dirty him" for his divorce proceedings. According to Courthouse News Service, the man has sued the Town of Danville, a sheriff's deputy, his ex-wife, Contra Costa County, a sheriff, a private detective and others for violations of his civil rights, bad faith arrest, false imprisonment, conspiracy and other charges.

The man claims that his ex-wife hired a private detective to get him arrested for DUI in order to have the upper hand in divorce proceedings. The man says the private detective set him up by hiring a man who pretended to want to make a reality TV show about the man's winery business.

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to decide whether the constitutional rights of two teens were violated when they were sent to prison without the possibility of parole after being convicted of murder. The Supreme Court consolidated two separate cases that involved the same question of constitutionality and heard the arguments for the cases earlier this month.

At issue is whether is cruel and unusual punishment to send juvenile offenders to prison for life without the possibility of parole. This sentence does not leave room for rehabilitation as the teen ages and matures in a correctional facility. The justices will decide whether it violated the juvenile offenders' rights to not have the chance or possibility for rehabilitation, and whether this should be a key component to be kept in mind when sentencing minors for violent and other crimes.

The defendants were both 14 at the time of their crimes and both note in their cases that only 73 people are currently serving life sentences for crimes committed at that age.

The police department in Lancaster, California, will launch an aerial surveillance program in May with the goal of responding faster to reported accidents and crime scenes. The plane will be piloted and will be equipped with optical equipment and cameras in order to record what is happening on the ground. The cameras will be able to zoom in much closer than what a pilot could see with the naked eye.

The police department says that they hope to catch people in the act of robbery or committing property damage. The plane will circle the skies for ten hours a day and will respond to the scene of accidents or reported crimes if a call is made to the police department.

On Tuesday, retroactivity for crack cocaine prison sentences went into effect. Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act in August 2010 to address the wide disparity between minimum sentencing guidelines for drug crimes involving crack versus powder cocaine.

The disparity between length and severity of sentences for crack versus cocaine was 100 to 1. The new guidelines keep the disparity, but cut it down to 18 to 1. The sentencing disparity disproportionately hurt African-Americans because people convicted for crimes involving crack were more likely to be African American. Around the country, more than 12,000 people currently in prison for crack cocaine offenses could be eligible for reduced sentences.

Michael Jackson's private physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, was convicted by a jury yesterday in a Los Angeles courtroom of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death in 2009. He will be sentenced on November 29. He faces a maximum sentence of four years in prison. He will be jailed in the time prior to sentencing for his manslaughter conviction.

Murray is trained as a cardiologist, but his medical license has been suspended in California since he was charged with criminal negligence in Jackson's death. Prosecutors said that Murray was greedy and incompetent and his negligence played a significant role in Jackson's death. Murray had administered a powerful anesthetic to Jackson to help him sleep, but did so without the use of monitors and other equipment. The drug caused Jackson to go into cardiac arrest.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was wrong in overturning a grandmother's conviction for murder in her grandson's death. A jury believed that the baby died from "shaken baby syndrome" at the hands of the grandmother in 1996. The medical examiner found blood inside the baby's skull and concluded that the grandmother had shaken the baby. The grandmother must now return to California to finish her jail sentence.

Death investigations into finding cause of death of children have been under greater scrutiny in the media lately because the conclusions of these investigators can lead to people being wrongly convicted of homicide, child abuse and other crimes.

Paroled sex offenders in California are under curfew tonight, as they have been for the last 20 years on Halloween. This year, transient paroled sex offenders are also under curfew and law enforcement officers will be rounding them up to make sure they are not having any contact with children out for Halloween festivities.

Paroled sex offenders who have a residence must stay inside and turn off lights. They are prohibited from answering their door to trick-or-treaters or from handing out candy. The law enforcement officers are imposing the curfews with the goal of preventing sex crimes against children.