This sentencing appeal addresses the interesting question of whether the district court may enhance a defendant’s sentence based on a prior conviction if that conviction was under a different name. Fingerprint evidence established conclusively that defendant Lashon Browning was the Marvin Prince named in an earlier conviction, so the district …

Appealing from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida after being convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C.S. §§ 846, 841(a)(1) and intimidation of witnesses in violation of 18 U.S.C.S. § 1512(b)(1), defendant contested the admission of taped conversations, letters to co-conspirators, …

U.S. v. Green, 436 F.3d 449 (4th Cir. Feb. 6, 2006) (Judge Niemeyer)
U.S. v. McManus, 436 F.3d 871 (8th Cir. Feb. 3, 2006) (Judge Gruender)

Almost as soon as the Supreme Court adopted its “reasonableness” standard of review of sentences in the post-Booker world, debates broke out among the …

In an intensely disturbing ruling that has generated virtually no coverage in the American press, Judge Trager dismissed this civil rights lawsuit by Maher Arar against various American officials for damages based on his alleged arrest and deportation to Syria for the express purpose of undergoing torture. The case is …

U.S. v. Green, 436 F.3d 449 (4th Cir. Feb. 6, 2006) (Judge Niemeyer)
U.S. v. McManus, 436 F.3d 871 (8th Cir. Feb. 3, 2006) (Judge Gruender)

Almost as soon as the Supreme Court adopted its “reasonableness” standard of review of sentences in the post-Booker world, debates broke out among the …

Defendant was a material witness in the investigation of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Defendant was charged with two counts of perjury that arose from his grand jury testimony. At a pretrial conference the court made an oral ruling and granted defendant's motion to preclude certain proposed testimony. …

The defendant in the case, Randy Lee Guzek, was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. At his sentencing (the third sentencing proceeding after he had won earlier appeals), Guzek sought to introduce live testimony from his mother providing additional evidence of an alibi, beyond what she had said as …

U.S. v. Lynch, 437 F.3d 902 (9th Cir. Feb. 10, 2006) (En Banc) (Per Curiam)
U.S. v. Williams, 438 F.3d 1272 (11th Cir. Feb. 8, 2006) (Per Curiam)

In these two cases, the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits gave decidedly rote endorsements of the use of acquitted conduct and uncharged crimes …

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this decision is its acknowledgment of the unsettled state of the law on the relatively straightforward issue of whether an appellate court may delve into the subjective intent of the police to determine whether or not the police have manufactured the very exigency that …

Holding that, after the INS had lost an earlier attempt to deport the petitioner because it failed, through a trial error, to prove her alienage, it was not barred by the doctrine of collateral estoppel from later relitigating the issue of her alienage.

In this immigration case, the Third Circuit …

This is another case in which a court upheld a sweeping special condition of supervised release which, on its face, appeared to have little direct connection to his crime of conviction. Gregory Smith was convicted of a “medley” of narcotics offenses; and one of the conditions of supervised release that …