Ken Strutin

July 22, 2014 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin writes: As DNA analysis progresses from surveillance to John Doe indictments to standalone evidence, the heart of a case will come to be litigated in a database before it ever reaches a courtroom. Therefore, the sampling, profiling and testing continuum must become the constitutional focal point.

By Ken Strutin

16 minute read

May 20, 2014 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin, director of legal information services at the New York State Defenders Association, writes: People have been wrongly incarcerated in numbers too high for a vaunted system of justice. Still, there is brewing a perfect storm of political will, economic necessity and fundamental fairness that might yet re-tune the machinery of guilt and punishment.

By Ken Strutin

15 minute read

March 25, 2014 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin, director of legal information services at the New York State Defenders Association, writes: In an era when databases have become commonplace extensions of human logic and memory, the data heavy transactions of law enforcement require meaningful case-by-case scrutiny.

By Ken Strutin

14 minute read

January 21, 2014 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin, director of legal information services at the New York State Defenders Association, writes: In criminal court, math can multiply mistakes and lead to injustice in several key ways: (1) the misuse of mathematics by prosecutors; (2) the failure of defense attorneys to recognize those errors; and (3) the courts' inability or unwillingness to correct them. Indeed, there is a body of case law and scholarship that has been addressing these issues for more than a generation.

By Ken Strutin

13 minute read

November 19, 2013 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin, director of legal information services at the New York State Defenders Association, writes: In the Internet Age, information flows back and forth at optic speeds, until it reaches the last leg of the justice system. At that distant point on the horizon where the right to counsel runs out of road, pro se inmates are tasked to fill the role of lawyers, investigators and experts, without any of their information advantages. Nationwide, there are potentially more than two million pro se or "prisoners at law" who must overcome the hurdles of information poverty and procedural impediments.

By Ken Strutin

13 minute read

November 28, 2011 | Legaltech News

Ken Strutin of the New York State Defenders Association writes that the law tends to criminalize now commonplace technologies because legal assumptions can lag behind popular usage.

By Ken Strutin

11 minute read

May 10, 2005 | New York Law Journal

Lie detection tools, new and old, can perform a critical function for the defense, helping to convince prosecutors and judges of a client's innocence.

By Ken Strutin

8 minute read

November 29, 2011 | Daily Report Online

What is exceptional today will be commonplace tomorrow. This truism applies to innovations as well as inventions. And the transition of the "exceptional" technology into everyday life can devalue its role as evidence in the calculus of guilt. In other words, possession of some things might be too common to be criminal.

By Ken Strutin

10 minute read

August 08, 2012 | New York Law Journal

Ken Strutin, director of legal information services at the New York State Defenders Association, writes that a prosecutor's display of unadmitted evidence during opening or making message arguments in closing can mislead juries, incite emotions, and inject external considerations into the deliberative process.

By Ken Strutin

12 minute read

January 24, 2012 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin, director of legal information services at the New York State Defenders Association, discusses how to reconcile standards of review that defer to jury findings and state court judgments when scientific research is updated, and how post-conviction standards should take into account the need to reject judgments based on discredited ideas.

By Ken Strutin

10 minute read