Next Witness...Please

Retribution and weaponization of governmental agencies against political foes are on the rise but the motivations behind them are not new. To see them in action in our recent history, we only need turn back to Jane. Fonda, 89, who has been the target of the government for decades. A new biography about Fonda spotlights years of her activism but also focuses on her being a frequent target of govern...

We live in an era where our dinner conversations are often dominated by the darkest corners of the human psyche, as society remains endlessly gripped by the world’s most chilling true crime cases. Why are we so occupied with reality television and the popularity of true crime shows when our current news headlines are full of real-life and real-time legal dramas of national proportion? Next Witness...

President Donald Trump’s attack on federal civil service workers continues and is about to hit a new crescendo. For two terms Trump has been targeting some federal civil service workers trying to take them out of civil service protections and make them employees “at will.” This allows for political appointees, patronage, and quick hiring and firing of top-ranking federal workers without civil serv...

One often hears the term “sentencing guidelines” when following a federal criminal case. But what are they and how do they work? The guidelines are for federal judges to use in sentencing defendants convicted of federal crimes so there is some consistency from court to court across the country, says John R. Mitchell, award-winning attorney in the Taft Law Firm’s Compliance, Investigations, White-C...

Judges, both federal and state, are increasingly under attack and are becoming targets of abuse and even violence from citizens and politicians alike. Sometimes, state legislatures target judges for punishment for First Amendment speech. One such case is happening in Ohio. On Oct. 21, two members of the Ohio House filed a joint resolution demanding that a Hamilton County (Cincinnati) Municipal Cou...

As President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) continues to target his political foes with criminal indictments, the topic of vindictive prosecutions is making headlines. Currently the judicial landscape is strewn with cases against former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Lettia James, former National Security Advisor John Bolton and others less well known. Special gran...

As Election Day 2025 is upon us, President Donald Trump is still calling for the elimination of mail-in ballots and early voting. He wants to limit voting to same-day, in-person voting only. However, his opinion is contrary to the official position of the Republican Party. Instead, party officials having been trying to get Republicans to embrace early forms of voting. As early as August, the Presi...

As a result of an aggressive law enforcement presence in Washington DC, over the past month, federal grand juries have refused to indict almost a dozen cases presented by the Department of Justice (DOJ). They have found that the cases lack probable cause to bring indictments. So, the DOJ lawyers have attempted a back door approach by taking rejected cases to a local grand jury to get indictments....

Why does it take so long to resolve civil cases in both federal and state courts? Even though approximately 95 to 97 percent of civil cases settle before trial, they still take a long time to get to that point of agreement. The average federal civil case takes 2 years and 7 months before trial. In state courts the average time before trial is two years, with the time extending even longer for comp...

President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order trying to eliminate cashless bail in Washington D.C. and in other parts of the country with alleged high crime rates. However, many states have had a cashless bail option that has worked well over decades. States set their own criteria for what judges may consider in ordering a bond and what kind of bail may be set by a court. There are sig...

As President Donald Trump fends off critics of his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking of minors’ case, new attention is swirling around Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted as a conspirator in 2022. She has been interrogated for a day and a half by Trump’s former defense attorney and now Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. She has been subpo...

President Donald Trump has asked Senate leadership to forego the Senate’s traditional August recess and “long weekends” to push through a series of his appointments to key federal positions. One such nomination that is hanging in the balance is the appointment of ultra controversial Trump loyalist Emil Bove to a seat on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. That court spawned conservative Supreme Co...

“Next Witness…Please” examines the bill that could turn abortion into homicide—and voters into bystanders. You might have thought that abortion rights were safe in Ohio after the Ohio Reproductive Freedom amendment to the Ohio Constitution was passed by 57 percent of the vote in 2023. But think again. In mid-June, House Bill 370, the Ohio Prenatal Equal Protection Act was introduced in the Ohio Ge...

After two trials and months of gripping testimony, a Massachusetts jury has acquitted Karen Read of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe. In a case that drew national attention—fueled in part by a Netflix documentary—Read was found guilty only of driving under the influence. Her sentence: one year of probation. Prosecutors argued t...

For decades, federal health regulation has been a cornerstone of America’s public well-being. Agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have long been trusted to uphold safety standards, push the boundaries of science, conduct vital research, and operate...

Music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs is on trial in federal court in New York, facing two sex trafficking charges, two counts of transporting individuals across state lines for sex work, and one count of racketeering conspiracy. Testimony began May 12, with witnesses detailing wild, days-long sex parties dubbed “Freak Offs.” These allegedly took place in multiple states and involved Combs’ girlfriends,...

Over the last five years, we have witnessed an uptick in attorneys being disciplined for lying to courts in addition to filing frivolous lawsuits. Some have even faced criminal charges Now, lying to the court seems to be the new normal for some U.S. Justice Department attorneys. Is this something that is expected by President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi or something that should be...

Defending white-collar crime defendants is more than just going to trial and winning. It is far more complex and complicated. Defending is really a combination of three skills that law firms can offer to keep corporations and corporate executives safe, according to John R. Mitchell, a partner in the Taft law firm and one of the nation’s top white-collar criminal defense attorneys. First, law firms...

As the Sean “Diddy” Combs trial opens this week in New York and other trials like the murder trial of Karen Read continue outside Boston, it is vital to understand the importance of opening statements and closing arguments in a trial. Opening statements are stage-setters for what evidence the jury will receive during the trial. Some experts call them roadmaps to follow while evidence is being pres...

The federal government has started arresting state trial judges who are not cooperating in the federal government’s roundup of alleged undocumented immigrants in state courthouses. Is this a message from federal agents that no one is above the law or are these actions an assault on the judiciary? That is the question currently being debated by legal scholars. Recently, Wisconsin state trial judge,...

Court orders are piling up against President Donald Trump and his Executive Orders and the administration seems to be setting a course of not following them. What happens next? Judges don’t like people not following their orders and there are many options available to judges if they feel a party is flaunting non-compliance. If a judge feels her/his order is legitimately confusing or vague, the jud...

The second murder trial of defendant Karen Read is underway just outside Boston and this case has taken on national prominence. Read, 45, is accused, after a night of drinking with friends, of hitting her boyfriend, Boston Police officer John O’Keefe with her SUV on Jan. 29, 2022, and leaving him to die in a snow blizzard on the front lawn of another police officer. The two were allegedly arguing....

With mountains of litigation piling up against President Donald Trump’s many Executive Orders, it is important for the average citizen to understand the differences between civil law and criminal law. A civil case is when one entity brings a legal action against another entity to correct some alleged wrongdoing. The corrective action may be an injunction to stop something from happening or to make...

The Trump Administration is setting out on a constitutional collision course by impounding funds that Congress has already appropriated. The question will be: Does the president have the power to halt, delay or not spend money that Congress has appropriated for specific projects or agencies? Article 1 Sec. 9 Clause 7 gives Congress the power of the purse. Congress has the power to appropriate mone...

It’s time for Criminal Law 101, a primer on how criminal law works within our American judicial system. This episode of Next Witness…Please translates some of the intricacies of the criminal law process in terms that the average listener can understand. We must start with the premise that there is a major difference between what may be considered immoral and what is criminal. An act is not crimina...