This lengthy and complex decision deals with the President’s war powers in general and, more specifically, his legal authority to establish unilaterally the military commissions designed to try at least some of the alleged terrorists seized in America’s war on terror. In that sense, the Court’s decision (herein sometimes referred ...

James MacEwan is a 71-year-old repeat offender of the federal laws prohibiting the distribution and receipt of child pornography. As a condition of his probation in a previous case, he was required to consent to random searches of his computer. During three such searches, the probation officer discovered more than ...

The rules regarding the timing and nature of sentences imposed on defendants who face sentencing in both federal and state courts have always been somewhat confusing - in part because of often dramatically different punishment schemes and customs that apply under the different state and Federal laws; in part because ...

U.S. v. Martin, 455 F.3d 1227 (11th Cir. July 11, 2006) (Judge Hull)
U.S. v. Crisp, 454 F.3d 1285 (11th Cir. July 7, 2006) (Judge Carnes)

In these two decisions, the Eleventh Circuit cracked down - hard - on what it perceived to be excessively lenient sentences imposed for white ...

On May 30, 2005, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) spotted a "go-fast" boat alongside a fishing vessel in international waters off the coast of Ecuador. After a brief chase, the USCG stopped and boarded the boat and discovered a total of 118 bales of cocaine. Manual Estupian and his crew-mates ...

This is an important decision in which Judge Kaplan held that the Government had violated the Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights of a number of former KPMG partners and one outside counsel, by causing KPMG to cut off payment of legal fees and other defense costs to those defendants, as ...

In this important Fourth Amendment decision, a divided panel of the D.C. Circuit puts limits on the ever-widening scope of the warrant exception for searches incident to arrest. Here, officers saw defendant Ronald Powell and a friend urinating in public, near a parked car. Two officers walked over to confront ...

Joining with similar decisions from the Third and Eleventh Circuits, the Second Circuit has ruled that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) exceeded its statutory authority when it promulgated a February 2005 rule categorically limiting the amount of time that a defendant can serve at a halfway house (or "community confinement ...

Here the Court approved a substantial upward variance in a sentence as not an abuse of discretion; but the case is noted for Judge Heaney's regognition that upward variances are approved more than 90% of the time and downward variances less than 15%.

In this case, the defendant pled guilty ...

In this case, the Third Circuit undercut much of the legal arguments set forth in Judge Panner's outspoken and highly critical decision in U.S. v. Detwiler, 338 F. Supp. 2d 1166 (D. Or. 2004), stating in part:

"We need not consider whether Detwiler was correctly decided under the then-mandatory Guidelines ...

U.S. v. Martin, 455 F.3d 1227 (11th Cir. July 11, 2006) (Judge Hull)
U.S. v. Crisp, 454 F.3d 1285 (11th Cir. July 7, 2006) (Judge Carnes)

In these two decisions, the Eleventh Circuit cracked down - hard - on what it perceived to be excessively lenient sentences imposed for white ...

The Fourth Amendment provides in part that "no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." In this case, several agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) ...

Here a divided panel held that a within-guideline sentence was unreasonable due to a "lack of adequate explanation.".