During voir dire, the most important concern for criminal defense attorneys is getting prospective jurors to express true feelings. In the quest for a juror’s truth, defense counsel must create a connection with that juror. Jason Sosa writes that the key to success in voir dire is reflective listening, which involves defense counsel trying to understand a juror’s viewpoint and then communicating that perspective back to the juror to assure the juror that it was understood.

If police credibility is a critical issue at trial, the defense needs jurors to believe one of two possibilities – the police officers are not credible either because they are mistaken or because they are dishonest. Are the prospective jurors open to the idea that police officers will lie under oath? What hypotheticals can defense counsel use to educate the members of the venire while simultaneously searching for cause challenges?

The HIPAA Privacy Rule generally prohibits the disclosure of health and medical information without an individual’s authorization. However, the rule contains exceptions that aim to balance the right of privacy in one’s medical information with important public interests. When can medical information be disclosed to law enforcement? How does the law enforcement exception apply in DUI cases?

The open fields doctrine is an exception to the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches, not seizures. While police officers can lawfully search a person’s property under the open fields doctrine, that doctrine does not speak to whether they can seize items they see.

Jury consultant Robert Swafford writes that by carefully drafting questions and appropriate follow-up questions, lawyers can significantly increase the number of strikes for cause they obtain during voir dire. Swafford utilizes loaded questions, which are questions that make it easy for a juror to express opinions that result in the juror being struck for cause.

for Criminal Defendants

Wholesale destruction of communications evidence on agents’ cellphones and elsewhere is something that criminal defendants and their lawyers face with shocking regularity.

Should criminal defense attorneys consider electoral and political stability to be a criminal justice issue?

How can defense counsel impeach witnesses when they exhibit behavior that is inconsistent with their stories?

This month Patrick Boylan reviews Free Justice: A History of the Public Defender in Twentieth-Century America by Sara Mayeux.

This month John L. Kane reviews American Contagions: Epidemics and the Law from Smallpox to COVID-19 by John Fabian Witt.

This month Tucker Carrington reviews A Shot in the Moonlight: How a Freed Slave and a Confederate Soldier Fought for Justice in the Jim Crow South by Ben Montgomery.

Understanding the Issues & the Science

The new and improved NACDL Resource Center offers multi-faceted support to NACDL members. We assist you by providing you access to member-provided documents, external resources, experts, and hands-on support from our resource counsel attorneys when you can't find what you need. With more resources than ever, the Resource Center is an invaluable component of your NACDL membership. Only NACDL members may access the Resource Center. If you are not a member, join today.

The Lawyers' Assistance Strike Force has a clear mission of representing and counseling criminal defense lawyers who are members of NACDL when they are imperiled with the risks of contempt, disqualification or subpoena for privileged information.

These briefs on a series of questions, including whether the government is required to prove knowledge of drug type and quantity to trigger mandatory minimum and increased maximum sentences in drug cases were filed in the 9^th Circuit by the federal defender and sentencing resource counsel in LA.