Here the Court vacated a conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm on the grounds that the prosecutor engaged in “highly improper” conduct by stating, during the rebuttal phase of the closing arguments, that the defendant and his counsel should “get their stories straight,” which, the majority ...

"Improper double counting occurs 'when a district court imposes two or more upward adjustments within the same guidelines range, when both are premised on the same conduct.' United States v. Haines, 32 F.3d 290, 293 (7th Cir. 1994). That is, the same conduct cannot be described in two different ways ...

Here the Court held that the BOP's revision of its long-standing policy regarding the placement of inmates in halfway houses at the end of their prison terms was not an appropriate exercise of discretion under the enabling statutes.

Pro se petitioner inmate brought a habeas corpus petition pursuant to 28 ...

In this case the Court addressed whether a criminal defendant has "a federal constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel with regard to a post-conviction, post-direct appeal motion for reduction of sentence made by the government pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(b)."

The Court answered that question in ...

In habeas proceedings, a motion for relief under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) is not to be treated as a successive habeas petition if it does not assert, or reassert, claims of error in the movant's state conviction.

This is one of those “ugh” and “shrug” cases could accurately ...

In this case the defendant/appellant argued that the district court had erred by not holding an evidentiary hearing at the time of sentencing regarding the issue of drug quantity. That argument evoked the following rather surly response from the panel:

“We do not agree: evidentiary hearings at sentencing are the ...

Technically, the issue before the Court in this case was whether the Sixth Circuit had abused its discretion by withdrawing an opinion in a habeas case months after the ruling should have been made final and then staying the execution of Gregory Thompson based on previously undiscovered evidence from a ...

In a case that must be read to realize the full import of the trial court’s blind acceptance of the Government’s case, the Seventh Circuit vacated the defendant’s conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm after finding that the more than four-year variance between the jury instruction ...

The Court held that the Federal Sentencing Guidelines do not permit a district court to consider matters unrelated to the defendant's assistance to law enforcement officials when determining how far to depart below the Guidelines range pursuant to a departure motion based on the defendant's assistance.

The Eleventh Circuit reheard the appeal that was presented by defendant police officer that challenged the decision entered by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The district court had determined that the police officer's acts were unconstitutional and not protected by qualified immunity after two ...

This decision is a throwback to an era when the courts actually policed the Government’s use of wiretaps and held the Government to rigid - rather than ritualistic - standards of adherence to the wiretap statutes. Sadly, the decision is also a stark reminder of what has happened to the ...

Defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C.S. §§ 371, 1956(a)(1)(A)(I), (h). He appealed after the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Corpus Christi Division, sentenced him to concurrent 90 month ...

Plaintiff, a nonresident of New York, challenged the handgun licensing scheme under N.Y. Penal Law art. 400, 265, arguing the scheme violated the Second Amendment and the Privileges and Immunities Clause of U.S. Const. art. IV, § 2, cl. 1. The United States District Court for the Northern District of ...

Some two weeks after the defendant was sentenced, the Government filed a motion requesting the court to enter an order of forfeiture of approximately $4 million in a drug case. Noting that the Government had failed to raise any issue regarding forfeiture at sentencing, and citing the provisions of Fed.R.Crim.P. ...