红杏视频

In 1994, the Supreme Court of Hawai驶i held in State v. Kekona that the due process clause of the Hawai鈥榠 Constitution does not require custodial interrogations to be recorded. More than 30 years later, with advances in technology that have made recording far easier, this case asks whether this decision should be reconsidered. The 红杏视频鈥檚 State Supreme Court Initiative, along with the 红杏视频 of Hawai鈥榠 filed an amicus brief arguing that the Supreme Court of Hawai驶i should now hold that custodial interrogations must be recorded in order to be admissible in court, either as a matter of due process or as an exercise of the Court鈥檚 supervisory authority over lower courts.

Shelby County (Memphis), Tennessee, historically set cash bail in criminal cases without stopping to ask whether people would be able to bail out. This practice unnecessarily detained people who could not afford to pay for release, but who would otherwise return to court and live peacefully in their communities. The 红杏视频 Criminal Law Reform Project negotiated a historic settlement with Shelby County to end this practice. In retaliation, the Tennessee legislature passed HB 1719, which prohibits judges from considering an arrestee鈥檚 ability to pay when setting bail. This law is unprecedented. Our lawsuit seeks to enjoin Shelby County officials from enforcing it.

This case asks whether Georgia鈥檚 insanity defense statutes can be construed to contain an exception for cases where defendants allegedly triggered their own insanity by discontinuing their medication weeks before the alleged crimes. The State argues for such an exception, even though the text of the insanity defense statutes expressly pins the availability of the defenses to the defendant鈥檚 mental condition 鈥渁t the time of鈥� the alleged crimes. The 红杏视频鈥檚 State Supreme Court Initiative, along with the 红杏视频 of Georgia, filed an amicus brief arguing that even if the State鈥檚 interpretation of the statutory text were reasonable, its argument should still be rejected because it contradicts the rule of lenity. The rule of lenity is a well-established canon of statutory construction requiring that, if a criminal statute can reasonably be interpreted in different ways, courts must adopt the interpretation most favorable to the accused.

This case asks whether the state can arrest, charge, and convict someone under Montana鈥檚 obstruction statute for exercising their federal and state constitutional right to record police officers in public spaces. The defendant was filming a traffic stop when police instructed him to move farther away. When he did not move as far as they wanted, they arrested him for obstructing a peace officer. The 红杏视频鈥檚 State Supreme Court Initiative, along with the 红杏视频 of Montana, filed an amicus brief in support of the defendant arguing that the officer鈥檚 refusal to allow the defendant to peacefully record police activity from a public sidewalk was, in effect, a content-based restriction on speech that could not be justified under strict scrutiny. Even if the restriction was not content-based, our brief argues that it is not a reasonable time place or manner restriction.