WEEKLY ROUNDUP FOR THE WEEK OF March 17, 2025
Division I:
Second amendment – Disarming those convicted of Vehicular Homicide by Disregard for the Safety of Others is consistent with the United States’ historic tradition of firearms regulation. State v. Hamilton, No. 85055-5-I (March 17, 2025).
Legal financial obligations – The DUI emergency response fee in RCW 38.52.430 is mandatory and cannot be waived due to indigency. However, it does require judicial findings that the amount imposed is “reasonable.” State v. Hamilton, No. 85055-5-I (March 17, 2025).
Division II:
Collateral attacks – When a subsequent collateral attack alleges good cause for failing to raise new issues in a previous collateral attack, a trial court errs by ruling on the merits without first addressing the procedural issue of whether good cause existed. State v. Airington, No. 58369-1-II (March 18, 2024).
Foreign cases of interest:
Potentially impeachable disclosures – Forensic scientists, and not just prosecutors and police officers, have a duty to disclose exculpatory evidence even absent bad faith. Clark v. Louisville-Jefferson Cnty. Metro Gov’t, No. 24-5061 (6th Cir., March 7, 2025).
Search & seizure – There is no 4th Amendment privacy interest in the bullet extracted by surgeons from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Although the surgeons who removed the bullet were government actors, since they routinely turn over all extracted bullets to police, a 911 call for emergency medical assistance is consent to surgical removal of the bullet. Additionally, falsely claiming that a “masked intruder” was the shooter is an abandonment of any possessory interest in the bullet. United States v. Gaye, No. 23-1240 (10th Cir. March 11, 2025).
ABA Formal Opinion:
Ethics – When a client commits a crime against a lawyer or the lawyer witnesses a crime against someone associated with the lawyer or related to the lawyer, RPC 1.6 implicitly permits the lawyer to disclose information about the client’s crime to the extent reasonably necessary to permit the relevant authorities to investigate and possibly prosecute the crime or to enable the lawyer to seek other services, remedy, or redress. ABA Formal Opinion 515.