Law Office of William J. Barabino

03/12/2024

Critical Federal Sentencing Guidelines amendments reduce racial disparities, reverse prison growth, and align with bipartisan efforts.

Critical Federal Sentencing Guidelines amendments reduce racial disparities, reverse prison growth, and align with bipartisan efforts, offering a path for criminal justice reform.

02/09/2024

A statute of limitations is a law that defines the maximum amount of time in which parties involved in a dispute must initiate legal proceedings following an alleged offense.

A statute of limitations is a law that sets the maximum time that parties have to initiate legal proceedings from the date of an alleged offense.

02/08/2024

Although the police can get creative when trying to get a confession, there are theoretical limitations. If you're in police custody, it's generally wise to request a lawyer and refuse to answer questions until they arrive.

Are you a cop? You have to tell me if you're a cop! Unfortunately, no, they do not have to tell you if they're a cop.

01/26/2024

Thanks to a series of technological advances, it's now possible to detect DNA at levels hundreds or even thousands of times lower than when DNA fingerprinting was developed in the 1980s. But this heightened sensitivity can create false positives.

Greg Hampikian expresses how DNA analysis has helped free thousands of wrongly convicted people, but it can also implicate bystanders

01/18/2024

Private security footage is nothing new to criminal investigations, but two factors are rapidly changing the landscape: huge growth in the number of devices with cameras, and the fact that footage usually lands in a cloud server, rather than on a tape.

Police “nerve centers” are blurring the line between public and private surveillance.

01/18/2024

Eyewitness testimony can be a crucial part of the criminal justice system, but it has flaws. The consequences of inaccurate testimony can be serious, particularly if it leads to the conviction of an innocent person.

Eyewitness testimony carries weight in a courtroom, but is one person's account enough evidence to convict someone of a crime? Learn about what research says about the reliability of eyewitness testimony and examples of cases where it led to wrongful convictions.

01/06/2024

Alphabet Inc.’s Google is changing its Maps tool so that the company no longer has access to users' individual location histories, cutting off its ability to respond to law enforcement warrants that ask for data on everyone who was in the vicinity of a crime.

The company said location data will soon be saved directly on users’ devices, blocking Google from seeing it and, by extension, blocking law enforcement demanding that information.

12/14/2023

Facing criminal charges can be overwhelming. Let the attorneys at Law Office of William J. Barabino safeguard your fundamental rights and advise you on potential defense strategies based on the facts in your case. Visit our website for more information. https://www.williambarabino.com/

10/26/2023

Not every prison sentence is served entirely behind bars. If you are granted parole, you are released from prison early, but remain under supervision for the rest of your sentence. During this time, you must abide by the conditions of your parole, or risk going back to prison. Not everyone is eligible for parole, and being granted parole is not guaranteed. If you have questions about the parole laws in your state, consider speaking with an attorney.

10/04/2023

Wire fraud is a federal crime that can land someone in prison for a maximum 20-year sentence in addition to fines. The statute of limitations on wire fraud is typically five years unless the wire fraud was associated with a financial institution, in which case prosecutors have 10 years to bring legal proceedings to the defendant.

Wire fraud describes any fraudulent activity that takes place over telecommunication or the internet.

10/04/2023

Law enforcement all over the US are increasingly using tools called reverse search warrants – including geofence location warrants and keyword search warrants – to come up with a list of suspects who may have committed particular crimes.

In this week’s newsletter: ‘Geofence warrants’ tied a man in the wrong place at the wrong time to a crime he didn’t commit – is he the only one?

09/28/2023

In recent years, prisoners and their lawyers have challenged a number of forensic disciplines: from hypnosis to roadside drug tests to testimony about blood splatter, hair, photographs, burn patterns, bite marks, tire tracks and speech patterns. Since the 1980s, nearly a quarter of overturned convictions have featured “false or misleading forensic evidence,” according to the National Registry of Exonerations, a collaboration of several universities that tracks such cases.

A Texas man faces ex*****on for his daughter's death. Now science suggests it was an accident.