Joel Cohen

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Articles

Luigi Mangione's trial and the potential threat of jury nullification

Dec 27, 2024 | thehill.com | Joel Cohen

It may seem an apostasy for someone in my line of work, as a criminal defense attorney, to pontificate on what is such a delicate subject. But here goes.
US courts zero in on border searches of electronic devices

Aug 15, 2024 | globalinvestigationsreview.com | Joel Cohen |Maria Beguiristain |Marietou Diouf |Robert J. DeNault

In summaryIn this article, we will discuss the US government’s authority to search electronic devices, particularly cell phones, in reliance on the border search exception to the Fourth Amendment. First, we review the border search exception, which allows searches at the border without a search warrant, probable cause or reasonable suspicion. Next, we examine recent Supreme Court cases that restrained the government’s ability to access cell phone data without a search warrant.
Kamala Harris is accused of being ‘soft on crime,’ but is there any evidence?

Aug 13, 2024 | thehill.com | Bennett L. Gershman |Joel Cohen

One of the lines of attack against Vice President Kamala Harris in her presidential candidacy is that she is soft on crime and as president will pursue a “woke,” or unduly progressive, criminal justice agenda. Is there any basis for that accusation? Let’s consider the facts. Harris served nearly 15 years as a prosecutor in California, first as a deputy county attorney, then as San Francisco district attorney, and finally as the state attorney general.
Does the public have a right to a speedy trial in the Trump case?

Mar 1, 2024 | thehill.com | Joel Cohen

The Supreme Court has just taken Donald Trump’s appeal of his claim — until now, denied — that, effectively, he is immune from prosecution for anything he did while president. A further delay, of course. Anyone paying any attention knows that Donald Trump has wanted to delay every criminal case against him since, well, forever. A speedy trial is the furthest thing from Trump’s mind. After all, Trump isn’t in jail awaiting trial.
If Supreme Court Decisions reflected ‘the will of the people’

Nov 21, 2023 | thehill.com | Joel Cohen

We, through the vehicle of the U.S. Constitution, have occasionally made the final arbiter of difficult societal issues our Supreme Court, a body consisting of “unelected officials” who often seem, in the stated view of many in America today, unresponsive to the popular will of the body politic.
Can Tanya Chutkan actually judge Trump fairly and without bias? Can anyone?

Oct 6, 2023 | thehill.com | Joel Cohen

One would have to live under a rock to not believe that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who sits on Donald Trump’s D.C. prosecution, has negative views about him, whether it’s just from her being an aware citizen or because she has presided over the prosecutions of a number of January 6 defendants and has said that Trump allegiance was at the root of their criminal conduct. Still, she declined to recuse herself from the pending Trump prosecution regarding Jan.
Do the politics of the Trump prosecutions override the administration of justice?

Aug 22, 2023 | thehill.com | Joel Cohen

I don’t know Jack Smith. Still, by all accounts and by all appearances, it seems that he’d be almost willing to indict his own grandmother — if she deserved it. If she’s guilty of a crime, particularly a heinous one, of course she should be prosecuted. And it shouldn’t matter if the public would be offended over the hideous spectacle such a prosecution (by him, in particular) might create.
Can judges actually leave their biases aside?

Jul 14, 2023 | thehill.com | Joel Cohen

Retired Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner often referred to a judge’s past, with all that that entails, as his or her “priors.”He hardly meant a judge’s rap sheet of sorts. Rather, he meant a collection, even a collage, of all of a judge’s learning, thinking and experience brought to the bench after taking the oath — whether or not that thinking and experience were in the public interest.