The defendant in this case pled guilty to unlawful re-entry of a deported alien, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 and urged a sentence at the low end of the applicable range. The government moved for an upward departure under U.S.S.G. § 4A.1.3 on the grounds that defendant's criminal …

Here a plurality of the Court reversed a district court ruling that had held that the attorney fee restrictions contained in the PLRA were unconstitutional, concluding, over a bitter dissent, that such provisions had a rational basis.

In this case, Cedric Johnson, an inmate, brought a lawsuit against Dr. George …

This case makes one wonder if the State of Arizona - or at least its prison system - is still part of the United States of America. The plaintiffs in this case are various prisoner and human rights advocacy groups that maintain websites as an integral part of their advocacy …

Here the en banc court refused to reinstate a habeas petition for a death row inmate who claimed that one juror deliberately misled the court about his deep-seated prejudice against blacks - because the habeas petition was filed one day late.

In 1992, Kenneth Rouse, an African-American, was convicted by …

In this case, District Judge Rosenthal denied a defendant’s motion to introduce expert testimony regarding aural spectrographic voice identification evidence (which is used to determine the identity of an unknown recorded speaker). After a detailed review of the science and protocols used, he concluded that the technique had questionable scientific …

The defendant in this case pled guilty to using the Internet to persuade a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b). The District Court sentenced defendant to 33 months' imprisonment, accepting a recommendation that U.S.S.G. § 2A3.2 was the proper sentencing guideline under …

A district court has the authority to depart downward both horizontally in a defendant's criminal history category and vertically in his offense level to account for overrepresentation of his crimnal history based on his career offender status.

The defendant in this case was convicted of knowingly and intentionally distributing a …

In this case, the appellee, Michael McKevitt, was being prosecuted in Ireland for membership in a banned organization and for directing terrorism. He sought an order compelling the appellant journalists to produce tape recordings of their interviews with key prosecution witnesses. The District Court for the Northern District of Illinois …

Here the Court held that the failure of defense counsel to offer any expert testimony regarding battered woman syndrome to support the petitioner’s claim of self-defense constituted ineffective assistance of counsel that was prejudicial.

The petitioner in this case, Teresa Paine, shot her husband three times with a single-shot 12-gauge …

Plaintiff sued defendants, a police officer, a city, and a police department, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging deprivation of his Fourth Amendment rights when the police officer shot him in the back and asserted state law tort claims against the officer. The United States District Court for the …

The defendant in this case pled guilty to using the Internet to persuade a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b). The District Court sentenced defendant to 33 months' imprisonment, accepting a recommendation that U.S.S.G. § 2A3.2 was the proper sentencing guideline under …

The two defendants in this case were arrested at the Philadelphia International Airport in July, 2001 for their alleged involvement as so-called "mules" in a cocaine trafficking network. Shortly thereafter, the Government filed a complaint charging defendants with conspiracy to import cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 963. With …

Here, in a case of first impression for any Court of Appeals, a divided panel from the Ninth Circuit held that the forced extraction of blood from parolees pursuant to the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act (42 U.S.C. § 14135a) requires individualized suspicion under the Fourth Amendment, and that the …

Here the Court affirmed a conviction for bribery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(2), notwithstanding the failure of the District Court to submit to the jury the issue of whether the government had proved a nexus between the bribe and federal funds. Noting that the statute on its face …