Shabazz v. Artuz, 336 F.3d 154 (2nd Cir. 2003) (Judge Pooler)
Su v. Filion, 335 F.3d 119 (2nd Cir. 2003) (Judge Calabresi)

Promises of leniency given by the Government to cooperating witnesses have long been an integral part of the prosecution of crimes - but they are not without controversy. ...

Defendant sought review of a decision of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, which denied defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal and convicted defendant, after a jury trial, of being an unlawful user of a controlled substance in possession of a firearm, and possessing an ...

Two separate petitioners, state inmates, filed mixed federal habeas petitions in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, which were dismissed. Petitioners then exhausted their state remedies on all claims and refiled the habeas petitions, the court dismissed the claims as time-barred under the Anti-Terrorism and ...

Here the Court held that New York State's discretionary persistent felony offender statute (N.Y. Penal Law §70.20) was unconstitutional since it violated the rule established in Apprendi v. New Jersey.

The petitioner in this case was convicted and sentenced in state court. On remand, the sentencing court resentenced him, again ...

Defendants sought review of a judgment from the District Court, which convicted them of wire fraud and aiding and abetting wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C.S. §§ 2, 1343. After defendants' convictions were vacated by a two-to-one panel decision (reported at 305 F.3d 291), a majority of full-time, active ...

This case is noted for Judge Bright’s remarkably candid concurring opinion in which he warned that the Feeney Amendment “creates new and greater problems in federal sentencing” and in which issued a call to arms to his fellow judges: “Let your opinions disclose your views about the injustice in the ...

On March 12, 1965, a man named Teddy Deegan was murdered in Massachusetts. FBI agents in Boston had immediate, specific information that the murder was in fact carried out by several undercover FBI informants, including Vincent “Jimmy” Flemmi and Joseph Barboza, who were long time members of a New England ...

Here the Court affirmed the denial of habeas relief, holding that the petitioner had failed to prove that the prosecutor had elicited false testimony about promises of leniency made to a key witness, although it admitted the case was "troubling".

Shabazz v. Atruz, 336 F.3d 154 (2nd Cir. 2003) (Judge ...

Here the Ninth Circuit held that the district court had erred when it concluded that Washington State’s felon disenfranchisement scheme did not violate the federal Voting Rights Act (42 U.S.C. § 1973) (VRA). The district court agreed that the state scheme disenfranchises a disproportionate number of African-American, Hispanic-American, and Native-American ...

Here the Court held that the imposition of special conditions on a defendant convicted of drug crimes requiring him to participate in sex offender treatment and register as a sex offender, based on 40 yeal old charges, was improper.

After defendant in this case violated the terms of probation for ...

In this case, following the entry of the defendant's guilty plea to mail fraud, the District Court ordered that defendant make restitution in the amount of $ 1,104,557 due and payable immediately to defendant's former employer. Defendant appealed the restitution order principally on two different grounds.

First, he argued that ...

This sordid case has a long and convoluted history, much of which is recounted in far greater detail in Spurlock v. Satterfield, 167 F.3d 996 (6th Cir. 1999) (Spurlock I). In essence, this case arose out of what the Sixth Circuit described as “a persistent and pervasive conspiracy among law ...

Here the Court held that a five-year pretrial delay in the prosecution of the petitioner violated his speedy trial rights and warranted dismissal of his indictment with prejudice.

Petitioner, a California pretrial detainee, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C.S. § 2241. The District ...

Defendants were convicted of felony murder, attempted robbery, attempted burglary, and several firearms charges. The District Court sentenced defendants to life imprisonment on the felony murder convictions, and to other terms of imprisonment on the other convictions. The defendants appealed.

After a night of drinking and smoking marijuana, defendants along ...