This is another of a long series of almost banal and highly fact-specific cases dealing with the “exhaustion requirement” of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) - the outcome of which does little more than confirm the Supreme Court’s long-held desire to eliminate virtually all prisoner ...

In this case, the Supreme Court endorsed a tough application of a 1996 amendment to the immigration laws to certain longtime illegal immigrants, clearing the way for summary deportations of perhaps thousands of aliens who have been living in the United States for a decade of more.

By a vote ...

In Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 53-54 (2004), the Supreme Court issued its landmark Confrontation Clause ruling in which it held that the Sixth Amendment bars the "admission of testimonial statements of a witness who did not appear at trial unless he was unavailable to testify, and the defendant ...

In U.S. v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112 (2001), the Supreme Court held that the police need only “reasonable suspicion” - not probable cause - to search the home of a person on probation who has “agreed” as part of his probation order to submit to searches of his home at ...

This is an interesting, albeit somewhat philosophical, decision that explores a creative argument about who has the burden of proving - or disproving - the affirmative defense of duress. The Court explained the essence of that defense as follows:

“Like the defense of necessity, the defense of duress does not ...

In U.S. v. Scott, 424 F.3d 888 (9th Cir. Sept. 9, 2005), a Ninth Circuit panel faced a question that was, surprisingly, one of first impression among the federal courts of appeals: whether police can search a defendant awaiting trial on less than probable cause. In a divided decision, a ...

Here the Court held that a sentence of six days imprisonment and three years of supervised release for the crimes of conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture containing methamphetamine and using a telephone to facilitate a drug trafficking offense was unreasonable. The Court reasoned that the ...