My Blog Posts

A combat veteran enters a courtroom charged with a crime.  During his first appearance he tells the judge, in colorful language, he doesn’t care about the charges nor what sentence the judge will impose.  He does this even as the judge tries to explain to him that while charged, he has not been convicted of anything. He

Written by Judge Brian MacKenzie (Ret.) and Judge Kevin Burke (Ret.) There are cases where everyone in the courtroom knows that a litigant or witness has suffered a traumatic injury. But what if the judge does not know about the person’s traumatic injury? Self- represented litigants will often not tell a judge their history and

The generally held belief that alcohol consumption is a matter of personal choice, can make it difficult to identify an individual suffering from an alcohol use disorder (AUD).  While alcohol is the single most abused drug in the United States, with 14.1 million Americans suffering from AUD and another 25.8 million abusing alcohol, not enough

Forensic impression evidence has become the subject of increased levels of scientific scrutiny. In particular, bite-mark evidence has been seriously questioned due to its weak underpinnings and the exaggerated testimony about it by some witnesses. This raises a question: how did bite-mark evidence become admissible in the first place Witchcraft and Bite Marks With one

As I post this blog article, Vladimir Putin has order the illegal invasion of the Ukraine.  So it is perhaps a good time to remind ourself we are a nation of laws. Whether we agree with a particular law or not, in the United States, we all still subject to the rule of law. So it

Within a workplace setting what does an employer do when there is a legitimate reason to believe that the employee has been abusing alcohol or taking other drugs.  The law regarding employee privacy is evolving and many testing programs should be considered open to a legal challenge.  What is the right balance of the privacy

If you’re a registered voter, Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution (CPMC) claims you are stupid.This shirt backs the anti-gerrymandering ballot proposal. (Instagram photo by Voters Not Politicians) That’s an insider political group which surfaces during election years. Its sole purpose seems to be to suppress ballot initiatives preventing voters from changing Michigan’s laws or Constitution. This

On a bright morning just outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a semi truck hauling two trailers crashed into a motorcycle that was stopped for a red light. The bike and its rider were driven into the back of a pickup truck before being pinned beneath the semi’s cab. Nearby emergency crews were able to lift

In Gideon vs. Wainwright the Supreme Court announced that the right to an attorney was both “fundamental and essential” to rule of law under the Sixth Amendment to our Constitution, which provides that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right … to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.” Yet 55

Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, as Irish philosopher Edmond Burke is credited with saying in the 1700s. A new poll by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, of 1,350 American adults found that two-thirds of American millennials surveyed had not heard of Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi death camp.