Suspended Suspension for ADA Mary Kellett's Misconduct

ADA Mary Kellett

Last week the Maine Board of Bar Overseers imposed sanctions on assistant district attorney Mary Kellett for Prosecutorial Misconduct. You can read the Judgment of the Board of Bar Overseers here. I have written before about this case, first when Kellett's Misconduct hearing began in October of 2012 and again in December when the grievance panel recommended that Kellett be suspended and referred the case for a Disciplinary Hearing. That hearing was held 7/15/13 and ADA Kellett has now been suspended. But kinda not, since the suspension itself was suspended and will almost certainly never be imposed. Today, she continues to work as a prosecutor in the same office.

Presumed Innocent but Already Sentenced: 72 Hour Hold for Prisoners

48, 72, what's the big deal? Image: kangotrageler via flickr

Current Maine Law says that prisoners can't be held for more than 48 hours before seeing a judge. At that hearing, the judge will review the evidence to determine if there is probable cause to believe the person committed a crime and will set bail. In some areas, jails and courts have been unable to comply with the 48 hour rule and so prisoners have been detained longer than allowed, some have even been released since continued detention was illegal. Naturally, Maine's Judicial apparatus is scrambling to fix the problem. You might expect that procedures will change and funding will increase to ensure that every defendant gets a hearing within 48 hours. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong. Instead, the proposal is to change the rule and allow for detention of up to 72 hours without a hearing.

Warrant Now Required to Collect Maine Cell Phone Location Data

Nicola since 1972 via flickr

On 7/9/13 the Maine Legislature passed LD 415 and Maine joined Montana as one of only two states requiring police to get warrants before collecting cell phone location data. The Public Law, now SP0107 is summarized in this earlier post. The law provides important protections for citizens who can currently be tracked at the request of police.

Alleyne v. United States: An Element By Any Other Name...

In Alleyne v. United States, the Supreme Court dropped the biggest bombshell on criminal sentencing since Booker in 2005. The holding is relatively simple, overruling the 2002 case Harris v. United States to find that any fact which increases the minimum sentence for a crime must be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt and cannot be found by a judge on a preponderance standard. This renders current federal sentencing procedure unconstitutional and invalidates the sentencing schemes in a large number state jurisdictions. It's an important decision that has been a long time coming, but it leaves some big questions unanswered.

Maine Legislature Considers L.D. 415 and Limits on Cell Phone Tracking

Maine's Law Factory

Secretly tracking people without a warrant or notice to the person is much cheaper than the alternative, so lets just keep doing that, right? That's essentially the the Maine Attorney General's Office response to L.D. 415 a bill that would limit Law Enforcement's currently unfettered access to cell phone location information. An article in the Portland Press Herald discusses the bill noting that:

Maine is one of the few states that are considering legislation to regulate access to cellphone records. L.D. 415, sponsored by Assistant Senate Minority Leader Roger Katz, R-Augusta, an attorney, would force police to get warrants to access location information from cellphones or other GPS-enabled devices, except in emergencies such as imminent threats of bodily harm.

Metrish v. Lancaster: Kiss Your Defense Goodbye

Wrong Burt Lancaster

The United States Supreme Court recently decided Metrish v. Lancaster. The Court reversed the Sixth Circuit and held that Lancaster was not entitled to federal habeas relief where the trial judge retroactively applied a state supreme court decision that eliminated a defense, which he had used at his first trial, at his retrial on the same charges. 

State of Maine v. Collier: No RAS, No Seizure, No Problem

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court recently decided State of Maine v. Matthew Collier 2013 ME 44, and vacated the trial court's order granting a motion to suppress. The court disagreed with the trial judge and found that, while there was no reasonable articulable suspicion to support a traffic stop, no RAS was needed since the defendant's interaction with police did not constitute a seizure for fourth amendment purposes.