Articles and publications

Christina Marie RIGGS v. STATE of Arkansas

CR 98-1281 ___ S.W.2d ___

Supreme Court of Arkansas

Opinion delivered November 4, 1999

1. Criminal law -- Miranda warnings -- when required. -- The safeguards prescribed by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), become applicable as soon as a suspect's freedom of action is curtailed to a degree associated with formal arrest; custodial interrogation is the questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of action in any significant way; Miranda warnings are not required simply because the questioning takes place in the station house, or because the questioned person is one whom the police suspect; in resolving the question of whether a suspect was "in custody" at a particular time, the only relevant inquiry is how a reasonable man in the suspect's shoes would have understood his situation; the initial determination of custody depends on the objective circumstances of the interrogation, not on the subjective views harbored by either the interrogating officers or the person being interrogated.

2. Criminal law -- objective circumstances of interrogation reviewed -- appellant in custody. -- Viewing the objective circumstances, a reasonable person in appellant's shoes wouldhave believed she was in custody; first, she was under a police guard at the hospital, she was strapped to her bed, and her family was prevented from seeing her; second, the police officers had found her dead children and had reasonable cause to believe that she had killed them based on the suicide notes found at her house; and third, she was read her Miranda rights by the police detectives, which indicated that she was more than a mere suspect.

3. Constitutional law -- confessions -- determining voluntariness. -- Statements made while in police custody are presumed to be involuntary; the burden rests on the State to prove their voluntariness and a waiver of Miranda rights by a preponderance of the evidence; in determini... Read More »

African Divorce

I have studied all documents that you sent. I have a few questions and the first one is whether you submitted the same documents to the court. According to the laws of the Russian Federation all foreign documents shall be legalized and translated into Russian. As your country, as far as I know, hasn’t signed the Hague Convention, 1961 all official documents issued in your country are subject to consular legalization. Lack of legalized and translated into Russian documents is a basis for refusal to accept the action. Please provide me with the copies of the documents as they were submitted to the court.

As for the merits of the matter. According to Art. 20 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation a place of residence is a place where a person resides permanently or most of the time. According to the Tax Code of the Russian Federation a resident is a person of any nationality who resides in the Russian Federation for more than 183 days a year. Where do you pay your taxes? Do you have a tax return?

The cumulative evidence of your permanent residence and work in Russia is the basis for termination of your marriage in the Russian Federation all the more so as your child lives in the Russian Federation. Does the child attend school? For how many years has the child been attending school? Will you be able to provide a certificate proving that the child attends school? Will your employer issue a certificate proving that you are permanently employed? Did you sign an employment contract?

As the court in Khabarovsk delivered the judgment that was upheld by the court of appeal, it will be difficult to obtain a difference judgment in the same court. Therefore I want to ask whether you are ready to obtain a registration at a difference place of residence. If we register you in St. Petersburg a judge in St. Petersburg, who is not aware of the judgment delivered in Khabarovsk, may deliver a different judgment and in this case the chances of success will be higher ... Read More »

CHANGE: TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING?

Life is a process of change and growth. We are conceived like spring, green with optimism and the hope of our parents. Born, we grow to youth feeling the heat of summer’s passion and confusion; a cold winter’s midlife sweeps in bringing frustration and pain; until, comes the autumn of years, we slow and savor the semi sweet melancholy of earned wisdom. These changes are all about us and within us as well. The changes we experience in life are neither preventable nor stoppable. Run from change, it will catch up and overtake you. Go to meet change and it will have arrived by another route. The best one can hope to do is to accept change as an inescapable aspect of life and adapt. If caught in a sudden rain storm, expect to get wet. Accept this reality and life is easy (paraphrased from the 1999 cult movie “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai” starring Forest Whitaker).
Michael in the controversial movie 1978 “The Deer Hunter” (director Michael Cimiino) and Larry in W. Somerset Maugham’s novel “The Razor’s Edge” both are changed by the horrors of war.
Michael returns to his static Pennsylvania factory town following a harrowing tour of duty in Vietnam. His old friends are unchanged, stagnating in safe, familiar, womb-like surroundings where one’s future is known. Michael is changed and puzzles his old friends. The former deer hunter turns away from an easy kill having seen enough killing. The movie was criticized for its Russian roulette scenes which historians said did not occur in the war. The brutal scenes, however, are not about the war per se; but represent the risks of life, never knowing what is in the next chamber and how one cope’s with that uncertainty, that reality, outside of a comfort zone. Growth and progress require taking risks. Michael realizes that he and Nick must play the diabolical, deadly game to have the slightest chance at escape. Nick, the American, traumatized beyond reason, however, cannot stop gambling with... Read More »

Affidavit to district court of State

I, KARINA KRASNOVA, being duly sworn, depose and say:

1. I am an attorney duly licensed to practice law in the Russian Federation. My registration number is 78/857.

I have been licensed by the Appellate Division, 2nd Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York as a legal consultant from Russia pursuant to Section 53(6) of the Judiciary Law of the State of New York, as limited by Part 521 of the Rules of the Court of Appeals, and in accordance with the rules of the Court. I am often called to testify in the United States courts as an expert on Russian laws. Read More »

THE LOST ART OF COMPROMISE

At the birth of our nation great men of character were able to forge historic compromises on the inflammatory issues of slavery and state’s rights in arriving at language for the Declaration of Independence and provisions in the U.S. Constitution. Our modern leaders seem to have lost the art, being motivated more by hubris and practical political realities than by character or wisdom. The hubris involves rejecting views apart from one’s own as unworthy of consideration and insisting on getting one’s own way at any cost. The lack of character consists of exhibiting cowardice in avoiding votes on issues that are politically volatile. That is not to say that there are not legitimate concerns about the state of our country. Such concerns are not new, however. In the 1945 Vincent Minnelli movie “The Clock” starring Judy Garland, a drunk, unable to obtain a drink in a diner because the establishment has no liquor license, blurts: “I have to have a license to buy a drink while this whole country is going to the dogs.” The Congressional two minute drill to stave off tax increases may lead to the passage of a tax extender bill but it will by no means secure a victory for the American people who will obtain a temporary reprieve from inevitable harsh economic measures necessary to reduce the federal budget deficit.
THE ARROGANCE OF CERTAINTY
The mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said, “Knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows.” In other words as we grow wiser we realize that we know less than we thought. Just hundreds of years past, scientists believed absolutely that the sun orbited our flat world. Last week, scientists reported discovering that the universe is not as they had believed, concluding now that there are three times as many stars as had previously been calculated. Other scientists were stunned to observe a microbe that lives in an arsenic environment thought previously to be inhospitable to life. Financial gurus and econo... Read More »