In this unusually long and blunt analysis of the tactics used by prosecutors to wrest control of the sentencing process from the judiciary, Judge Young concluded that the Guidelines are unconstitutional, unwise and unjust.

In the context of appeals from two sentences that he had previously imposed, Judge Young wrote ...

Here the Court joined most of the Circuits in holding that that the term “total punishment” as used in U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2(d) means the sentence chosen by the district court “from the appropriate sentencing range” - and is not limited by the Guideline range.

The Ninth Circuit agreed to hear ...

In a landmark decision, a divided panel from the 6th Circuit ruled that prisoners cannot be placed or indefinitely detained in solitary confinement at an Ohio supermax prison without due process. The district court (Judge Gwin of the N.D.Ohio) had earlier concluded that a surplus of high-maximum-security cells led to ...

In 1997, Richard Ford filed two pro se federal habeas petitions just five days before the statute of limitations expired. Because the claims in his petitions were “mixed” (i.e., they included claims for which he had not exhausted his state remedies), Ford also filed motions to stay the petitions while ...

In this case, the Seventh Circuit discovered a new way to excuse both material perjury by the Government’s main witness at trial and the Government’s impenitent failure to alert the court or the defense to that perjury.

Here the Court upheld a murder conviction after finding that a Brady violation ...

Defendants were charged with conspiracy and substantive counterfeiting offenses. One defendant moved to suppress counterfeit money allegedly seized from the floor in the back seat of the car that he was driving on the day defendants were arrested. The other defendant moved to suppress that evidence and the counterfeit money ...

Larry “Dudley” Hiibel, a Nevada cattle rancher and a person dubbed by the Nevada courts as a “dedicated libertarian,” was prosecuted under a Nevada law for refusing to reveal his name or show an ID during an encounter with the police on a rural road in 2000. The police officer ...