Greenville South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog

Juries in South Carolina and around the country tend to find eyewitness testimony extremely persuasive, and this is especially true when witnesses are able to identify criminal defendants with confidence. However, the way that police departments conduct suspect lineups and the inner workings of the human brain can sometimes make witnesses seem far more confident in court than they were when they made the initial identification.

Researchers who have studied eyewitness identifications discovered that the conditions in which lineups are conducted can greatly influence their outcome. Lineup conditions are considered pristine when the officer conducting the lineup does not know who the suspect is and the suspect does not stand out from other members of the lineup in any meaningful way. These conditions can be extremely difficult to replicate in a busy police station, and conducting a pristine lineup may be impossible if the suspect has a distinctive appearance.

There are many kinds of fraud and they are classified as a white collar crime.

One example of this sort of criminal activity is insurance fraud, which is on the rise in South Carolina. What exactly is insurance fraud? Could a judge find you guilty of such a crime?

A 33-year-old man told a judge that he shot and killed a man inside a South Carolina Walmart store because a third individual wronged him. The admission was made during a July 6 bond hearing when the victim's father asked the man why he had killed his son. The man was denied bond and is being detained at the Greenville County Detention Center.

According to media reports, Greenville County Sheriff's Office deputies were dispatched to the Walmart store located on White Horse Road in Berea at approximately 1:30 p.m. on July 5. When they arrived at the scene, deputies say that they discovered a man near the store's entrance who had been shot multiple times in the head and torso. Bystanders are said to have told deputies that two men who appeared to know one another were involved in a dispute before the shooting started.

When police arrested a Florida man for marijuana trafficking violations, they allegedly discovered possibly incriminating information on the defendant's cell phone. Since the phone was locked, officers demanded that the defendant release his password, but the defendant refused. While police are required to get a warrant to search a cell phone, it's not clear whether or not they have the power to force someone to give up their password. There varying rulings in jurisdictions from South Carolina to California.

Several days after the defendant in Florida was released on bail, a warrant was put out for his cell phone and password. When confronted by police, the defendant again refused to give up his password and was subsequently arrested for contempt of court. He served 44 days in jail until most of his charges were dropped for a minor pot misdemeanor. Many people would not spend time in jail to avoid giving up a password, but others are refusing to let law enforcement invade their private lives.