If you have watched the news in the past few months, you have most likely heard the term “hate crime” being used. This is a phrase that is often used injudiciously to describe any scuffle between people of different races or religions. Yet, the United States government has specific parameters that give a solid definition of “hate crime.”
Sometimes you may hear about "due process" in connection with your rights in the criminal justice system. But what exactly does that mean, and what are its sources of authority? In this and some of our future posts we will address due process generally as well as its core opponents.
The term "money laundering" can invoke images of organized crime mobsters engaged in activities such as taking over businesses and using them to hide ill-gotten funds derived from other illegal activities. That may, indeed, be one example of money laundering in practice, but money laundering can include many different kinds of activities some of which may be less obvious than the previous example.
Cyber-bullying is a form a bullying that takes place using electronic technology, such through a computer or cell phone. Most commonly, the bullying occurs on social media websites like Facebook, by e-emails, or over text messages. Recently, cyber-bullying became a crime in the state of New Jersey.
The "right to a speedy trial" is grounded in the Sixth Amendment. But this amendment provides much more than a requirement that the government not unduly delay a criminal trial. Below we break down the protections that this important part of the Bill of Rights includes.
This post is the third in our series covering due process in criminal law actions. In the first two posts we addressed the concept of due process rights generally, and the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in particular. In this post we will examine the Fifth Amendment.
A form of white collar crime that most New Jersey residents have heard about and some have unfortunately become first-hand familiar with is the fraudulent investment scheme. This trap usually comes in the form of a purported investment opportunity that promises a return on investment that is the epitome of the saying, "Too good to be true." There are many types of fraudulent investment schemes, from supposed foreign royalty looking for someone to help them to deposit large sums of money to insider trading on the stock market.
Embezzlement is when a person in a position of trust misappropriates assets entrusted to him or her. The New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice does not specifically use the term embezzlement. Rather, embezzlement is defined as theft by failure to make required disposition of property received.
It does not take long to find examples of people being accused of trying to defraud the system of government-provided health care. Take, for example, the recent story of a doctor in Englewood, New Jersey who is being charged with health care fraud in connection with charges for office visits that never took place, or prescription refills billed as office visits. His case, which will be heard in a federal court in Newark, is not unusual.
This post continues our series examining the provisions of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution in connection to your rights to due process under federal and New Jersey law when you are accused of a crime. Thus far we have considered the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution; here, we will look at the Eighth Amendment.