Since the enactment of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, we can’t recall a single defendant who experienced a more charmed Federal criminal prosecution than Elena Corchado-Peralta (“Elena”), the defendant in this case.

Elena is the wife of Ubaldo Rivera Colon (“Colon”), a convicted drug dealer. They met in the ...

Here the Court vacated a drug conspiracy conviction due to insufficient evidence in a case where the Government’s evidence was so weak that the Court was forced to conclude that it could not ratify a verdict “based on unsupported speculation”.

This highly improbable decision involved the reversal of the drug ...

One of the issues raised on appeal in this case was a challenge by one of the defendants that the district court had erred by not granting him a downward departure based on aberrant conduct. Specifically he contended that the district court did misunderstand its authority under the revised policies ...

Here the Court colcnuded that the district court had committed plain error that was reversible when it imposed a mandatory sentence on a drug defendant by aggregating the drugs he manufactured on three different occasions to reach the statutory threshold.

Here the Sixth Circuit held that the district court had ...

Here the Court confirmed the generally accepted rule that, for sentencing, it is not necessary for the Government to show that the substance i question contained sodium bicarbonate in order to demonstrate that the drugs in question were crack cocaine.

U.S. v.Gamez-Gonzalez, 319 F.3d 695 (5th Cir. 2003) (Judge Barksdale) ...

In a decision with potential far-reaching impact, a divided en banc court held that the public defender's office may be held accountable for damages under § 1983 for policies that lead to a denial of a person's right to effective assistance of counsel.

In a decision with potential far-reaching impact ...

U.S. v.Gamez-Gonzalez, 319 F.3d 695 (5th Cir. 2003) (Judge Barksdale)
U.S. v. Waters, 313 F.3d 151 (3rd Cir. 2002) (Judge Becker)

As we all know by now, in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 490 (2000), the Supreme Court held that “other than the fact of a prior conviction, ...

This is the companion case to U.S. v. Corchado-Peralta, No. 01-2086 (1st Cir. 1/29/2003). Here, in addition to affirming two money laundering convictions that it refused to disturb in Corchado-Peralta, the First Circuit vacated a six-level upward adjustment imposed on one of the defendants in this money laundering case, pursuant ...