No Unanimity Required
The unanimity requirement for convictions of crimes in federal
court, laid out in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 31(a), does
not apply to overt acts under the criminal-conspiracy statute in the U.S. Code.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a conviction in which the court had
not instructed the jury that it must be unanimous as to which overt
acts were committed. In its ruling, the court distinguished between
the elements of an offense (requiring unanimity) and specific facts
relating to those elements (not requiring unanimity).
"White" and "Green" Text Messages Are Seen
(and Not Suppressed)
A legal search of the contents -- text messages, directories and
call logs -- of a cellphone requires no more than the use of the
generic terms "correspondence, address books and telephone
directories" in a search warrant, according to a Fifth Circuit
opinion. There, while the cellphone seized was
found in plain sight when
