San Jose Criminal Defense Law Blog

The mental competency of Jared Lee Loughner continues to be in dispute. In order to stand trial on murder charges, Loughner must be declared mentally competent. In order to help Loughner become mentally competent, he has been forcibly medicated at a prison hospital against his will. However, Loughner's attorneys won a temporary victory at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit this week that may change that.

Loughner suffers from various psychological issues and is being housed at a prison hospital until he is deemed mentally capable of standing trial. He has met with a court-appointed psychologist a number of instances in March, but on two occasions, Loughner grew angry and heaved a chair at the individual. Two medical experts confirmed at a competency hearing that Loughner suffers from both schizophrenia and delusions.

Fourth of July weekend is typically a period of high DUI enforcement in San Jose and across the state of California. Now that Independence Day celebrations are over, we are seeing that the 2011 edition of the Fourth of July was no exception to this rule.

In fact, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office has reported a whopping 33 percent increase in DUI arrests this last weekend over Independence Day weekend 2010. A spokesman with the sheriff's office said that a total of 141 drivers were arrested for drinking and driving in Santa Clara County over the weekend. In 2010, that number stood at 94.

How would you feel if the police put a GPS tracking device on your automobile without having a warrant? Without your knowledge, they would be able to track your movements quite well. If the police did this to you in order to gather evidence used to accuse you of a crime, you might rightly feel that your constitutional rights have been violated.

After all, the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects people facing criminal charges in California and across the United States from unreasonable searches and seizures. Logically, you could assume that placing a GPS device on a person's car without a warrant would be precisely that type of unreasonable search. However, law enforcement authorities would like to be able to do just that. The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to take on a case that will address this precise issue.

On April 13, a jury convicted former San Francisco outfielder Barry Bonds on federal charges of obstruction of justice for allegedly giving evasive testimony to a grand jury in 2003. That same jury refused to convict Bonds on perjury charges. However, the jury did not give a verdict of not guilty, and this resulted in a mistrial being declared on the perjury charges.

Although Bonds' attorneys insisted that any retrial happen quickly, prosecutors have debated whether to retry Bonds on the perjury charges. Prosecutors argued that they needed more time to decide whether to seek a retrial. Two months after the initial verdict, a federal judge gave prosecutors even more time to make their decision.

An accident near San Jose involving an alleged drunk driver provides a good example of the complications that can ensue from a drunk-driving arrest.

The facts of the story show how the deck can seem stacked against those accused of a DUI: According to the California Highway Patrol, a 15-year-old boy was driving a Lexus around 1:30 p.m. Monday when he drove off the road for unknown reasons and crashed into a fence near Gilroy. The teenager was not seriously injured, but he was arrested on suspicion of being under the influence of alcohol and taken to Santa Clara County Juvenile Hall.

Ever since the housing bubble burst and the financial crisis tightened its grip on California, law enforcement authorities have been taking a hard line against people accused of financial crimes. In particular, authorities have aggressively pursued investigations into crimes involving mortgage fraud.

Although there is no federal criminal law specifically entitled "mortgage fraud," mortgage fraud can generally be defined as a false statement that is made in order to obtain a mortgage. Typically, cases involving mortgage fraud involve the federal statutes that prohibit bank fraud, mail fraud or wire fraud. Unfortunately, many Californians who are implicated in a mortgage fraud investigation are not aware that they may have violated the law until authorities contact them.

Because the potential penalties for fraud charges can be quite severe, experienced legal representation is very important for people charged with often-complex mortgage fraud crimes.

Despite what authorities might want you to believe, breathalyzer tests and other sobriety tests are not 100 percent accurate. In fact, sobriety tests used by law enforcement are often prone to error. Unfortunately, many DUI defendants are unaware of this fact and admit guilt all too quickly.

Now, a faulty breathalyzer may give San Jose DUI suspects new hope. In Santa Clara County, the breathalyzer used during field tests has been proven to be faulty. A manufacturer's defect allows for the possibility of condensation to build up within the tube of the device. The county is considering filing suit against the manufacturer of the device.

The Alco-Sensor V was used in stops by the Palo Alto and San Jose police. In Palo Alto, which had 49 of the questionable cases, it was used from February 2010 to December 2010. In San Jose, which had 809 of the cases, the same device was used from November 2010 to April 2011. Santa Clara County has 7,000 DUI cases per year. Most defendants plead no contest or guilty.

Late last month, the U.S. Supreme Court found that overcrowded conditions in California prisons violated the Constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. California's prison system was designed to hold about 80,000 inmates but currently has 143,435 people incarcerated. Because of the Supreme Court's decision, California has been ordered to reduce its current inmate population by 23 percent, or 33,630, to 109,805 by 2013.

The Supreme Court found that the medical and mental health care that inmates received had fallen below the standards of decency required by the Constitution. The Court pointed to abuses such as 54 inmates being forced to share a single toilet, lengthy backlogs for receiving medical care and suicidal inmates being confined in cages the size of a telephone booth. Critics of California's penal system point to the incarceration of people charged with non-violent drug crimes and the "three strikes and you're out" policy for contributing to the overcrowded conditions in state prisons.