Here a plurality of the Court held that the Child Online Protection Act's use of "contemporary community standards" to define material that should be prohibited was not per se overly broad or vague - but did little else to address the statute's validity.

This is the Supreme Court’s second significant ...

In plaintiff inmates' 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Eighth Amendment action, defendant prison officials appealed an injunction issued by the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan, arguing error in exercising jurisdiction over facilities not subject to an earlier consent decree and to find that failures to ...

Here the Court held that its decision in Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367 (1988) did not qualify for retroactive treatment under either of the two exceptions established in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989).

Here, by a 5-to-4 vote, the Supreme Court held that its decision in Mills ...

In this case, the Supreme Court considered whether the failure to properly Mirandize a suspect requires the suppression of physical evidence obtained as the result of the inadmissible - though not coerced - questioning.

Samuel Patane, a convicted felon, was arrested for harassing his ex-girl friend. Federal firearms agents went ...

Defendant was charged with distribution of cocaine base, and he pled guilty to the charge. The trial court convicted defendant of the offense, and a presentence report was prepared. The report placed defendant's adjusted offense level at 29, and coupled with his criminal history category of IV, put his imprisonment ...

This decision was perhaps the most surprising of the three companion terrorist detention cases decided by the Supreme Court on June 28, 2004. Jose Padilla is an American citizen who was first arrested on American soil on a material witness warrant. Then, almost as soon as counsel appeared on his ...

This decision is the latest chapter in a case that dates back to 1986, when petitioner Robert Tennard was convicted of capital murder in Texas. During the penalty phase of his trial, Tennard’s parole officer testified regarding Tennard’s low IQ, and his defense counsel argued that the low IQ mitigated ...

The narrow but important issue before the Supreme Court in these two consolidated cases was whether United States courts lack jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of the 600-plus foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and imprisoned at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, ...

Ever since the Supreme Court established, in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), that suspects are entitled to certain warnings before they may be interrogated, law enforcement officials have attempted to find ways around that rule. In 2000, the Court rejected a major assault on Miranda’s rule when it ...

There were, essentially, two issues before the Supreme Court in this case: (a) the legality of the Government’s detention of Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen, on United States soil as an “enemy combatant,” and (b) the rights of, and the process that is constitutionally owed to, such a person ...

Defendant's estate appealed a judgment of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas convicting defendant of arson, mail fraud, and money laundering. Defendant was ordered to pay restitution of $ 1,317,834.

Following defendant's conviction, the government approved his sale of three tracts for $ 1,900,000 under ...

The court considered, en banc, appeals in three cases, two from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, and one from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, to answer common questions that had arisen about the use of Fed. R. Civ. ...

Relying on Apprendi v. New Jersey, a sharply divided Court held that the Sixth Amendment requires a jury determination of the factual basis for upward departures - a principle that threatens some of the major premises of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

Relying on its decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey, ...

This case is an outgrowth of the long battle by Dr. Humberto Alvarez-Machain (Alvarez) to achieve justice for his kidnapping from Mexico by the DEA in 1990. The details of that battle are more fully recounted in U.S. v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655 (1992) (“Alvarez I”). In 1985, an agent ...