The government appealed from the judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, which suppressed defendant's confession to drug activity.
Defendant was questioned for 90 minutes before officers provided him with his Miranda warnings. After the warning was given, the officers requestioned defendant, detailing his participation ...
Judge Rosen held that the Government’s misconduct was of such a magnitude, and was so prevalent and pervasive as to lead to the inescapable conclusion that the defendants’ due process, confrontation and fair trial rights were violated.
On September 17, 2004, just six days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Attorney ...
In this decision, the Ninth Circuit presented a detailed analysis of the marital privilege; and it clarified two important principles regarding the use of that privilege. The defendant, James Montgomery (herein Mr. Montgomery), and his sister, Mary O’Connor, were convicted of mail fraud arising out of their operation of a ...
Defendant was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1153 and 1112. The United States District Court for the District of Montana sentenced defendant. Defendant appealed his conviction and appealed the condition of his supervised release which required that he give the government a DNA sample.
Defendant, ...
This case brings home some of the issues at stake in the Supreme Court’s decision in Blakely v. Washington, 124 S.Ct. 2531 (2004) and the harsh reality of a a Guidelines system that permits, if not encourages, huge upward-departures based on judicial findings that were never charged in the indictment ...
In 1997, following a lawful search of his computer room, David Hilton was charged with a one-count violation of possession of visual depictions of what “appeared to be” children engaging in sexually explicit conduct, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B), the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA). After numerous challenges ...
This is one of those twisted and bewildering child pornography cases that Judge Gerard Lynch of the S.D.N.Y. described as “without question the worst case of my judicial career.” The Government charged the defendant, Jorge Pabon-Cruz, with two separate crimes - namely advertising child pornography over the Internet in violation ...
In this decision, Judge Adelman examined in detail the scope of 18 U.S.C. § 207(a), a provision that permanently restricts former officers and employees of the executive and legislative branches from undertaking work in the private sector involving matters that they worked on while in the Government. The issue was ...
We have an early winner of our annual Chutzpah of the Year Award. This year’s winner is Assistant U.S. Attorney James Porter from the S.D.Ill.. His shameless bullying and irrational petulance deserve recognition for what they are - an example of astonishing and unmitigated prosecutorial misconduct that defiles the criminal ...