MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR

Another season passes, and it is time for a new Criminal Law Journal!

This issue contains a draft petitioner’s brief to the United States Supreme Court by recent California Western School of Law graduate Sahar Karimi. The brief applies the case of Riley v. California 134 Sup. Ct. 2473 (2014) to a fictional Circuit Court of Appeal case on appeal in the Supreme Court. Ms. Karimi participated in the 2016-2017 Marshall Shulman Writing Competition and received an Honorable Mention; she now returns with a brief that is of great relevance to all of us criminal practitioners, touching on a hot button topic regarding the search of computer files without a search warrant.

Additionally, this issue includes an article by 2018 Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University College of Law graduate Chandelic Jackson. She writes on the so-called "CSI Effect" by exploring the history of legal proceedings on television and discussing the effects on jurors and how juror expectations are altered by what they see on television.

I hope that you enjoy this season’s Journal, and as the calendar year comes to an end, all of us with the Executive Committee thank you for your membership this year, and look forward to seeing you return to the Criminal Law Section next year. We have plans for more webinar programming in the coming year and the California Lawyers Association is continuing to expand its offerings to section members; you do not want to miss out on the great things coming in 2019 to the CLA and the Criminal Law Section!