Defendant was arrested and charged with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition in violation of 18 U.S.C.S. § 922(g)(1). Defendant moved to suppress the gun, claiming that it was seized in violation of his rights under the Fourth Amendment. The United States District ...

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled that certain prison visitation limitations were unconstitutional. On remand from the United States Supreme Court, the district court declined to dissolve its injunctive order of compliance, ruling that its Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process holding was not disturbed ...

Plaintiff prisoners sued defendant state corrections officials for violations of the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause and of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc et seq. The United States Supreme Court held that the RLUIPA did not violate the Establishment Clause and remanded ...

Here the Court vacated a restitution order that was based on the damages awarded in a state civil action, holding that a civil judgment is insufficient to support an order of restitution under the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act (18 U.S.C. § 3663A).

The defendant in this case, Patricia Havens, pled ...

The long and grisly saga of Ahmed Abu Ali is yet another example of the Government’s lawless approach to the rights of those it designates as a terrorist - even when they are U.S. citizens. This saga started in June, 2003, when Abu Ali, an American born citizen who was ...

Acting on the defendant’s motion to establish various procedures under the Federal Death Penalty Act (18 U.S.C. § 3596(c)) to determine whether he had sufficiently established a defense of mental retardation, Judge Lee: (a) adopted the American Association of Mental Retardation’s definition mental retardation as the appropriate standard - namely, ...

This is an intriguing decision that is filled with critical innuendo about the dichotomy between the lofty philosophical goals of the Guidelines and some of the practical realities of sentencing under the Guidelines. Of particular significance, after discussing the impact of Blakely and Booker on sentencing decisions, Judge Singleton explained ...

Here the Sixth Circuit held that the district court (Judge John Nixon in U.S. v. Young, 376 F.Supp.2d 787 (M.D.Tenn. 2005) (P&J, 08/22/05)) had erred in entering a pretrial order in this capital case calling for separate juries, one for the guilt phase and one for the penalty phase of ...

Islam v. Gonzales, No. 05-1390-ag (2nd Cir. Nov. 9, 2006) (Judge Parker)
Kim v. Gonzales, No. 05-2462 (1st Cir. Nov. 16, 2006) (Judge Boudin)

It sometimes seems as America’s immigration courts have become kangaroo courts where justice is imposed not by neutral arbiters, but rather by vigilantes who base decisions ...

The defendant in this case. Benjamin Scott, was convicted of being a felon-in-possession of a gun in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), based on a theory of constructive possession of the gun in question. Scott’s defense at trial was that a felon’s actual or constructive possession of a firearm ...

This is a rare decision in which a Circuit Court vacated a sentence on the grounds that the Government had acted in bad faith by refusing to recommend a downward departure based on substantial assistance. The defendant, Bennae Floyd, was originally charged with a number of drug crimes, including a ...

This case is noted for Judge Thompson’s cogent analysis of the Guideline provisions (principally U.S.S.G. §§ 2D1.1 and 1B1.3) relating to the determination of the amount of drugs attributable to a defendant in a drug conspiracy. After noting that the Guidelines require the district court to “attribute to a defendant ...