The Court also reached a second issue that the panel did not address, involving two separate aspects of expert testimony presented by the Government at trial. Shortly after his arraignment, Cuellar filed a motion requesting expert witness disclosure from the Government under Fed. R. Crim. P. 16(a)(1)(G). The district court ...

The issue before the Court in this case was whether the Fourth Amendment permits the government to surreptitiously install a GPS tracking device on a suspect’s car and then track his movements. The circuits are split on this question; and, in this case, the Seventh Circuit joined those courts which ...

Here the Court held that sentencing courts may not use imprisonment as a means of promoting rehabilitation, in this case by increasing the defendant’s sentence to make her eligible to participate in the BOP’s 500 hour drug treatment program.

Valerie Manzella was arrested for attempting to cash a counterfeit check ...

In 2004, Humberto Cuellar was arrested in Texas while traveling toward Mexico with $83,000 in cash hidden underneath the floorboard of his car. He was subsequently convicted by a jury of international money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(B)(i).

On appeal, a divided panel from the Fifth Circuit ...

The defendant appealed his sentence of 188 months imposed by the district court following his guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The district court sentenced the defendant as an armed career criminal under 18 U.S.C.S. § 924(e); and the only issue on appeal was whether ...

The sentencing world continues to wait patiently for the Supreme Court to resolve some of the many questions left unanswered by the sentencing revolution that it started with its Apprendi/Blakely/Booker line of cases. Meanwhile, the lower courts continue to churn out a huge volume of Booker interpretative decisions, the distinguishing ...

This decision should serve as a warning for defendants who want to appeal their sentences. The defendant, Pamela Medley, was convicted for defrauding the government of funds intended for fire victims. Her initial pre-Booker sentence was 78 months, which she appealed successfully. On remand, the district court sentenced Medley to ...

This case involves the arrest and detention of Shawqi Ahmad Omar, an American citizen who went to Iraq either to help with the reconstruction effort or to join a terrorist network (depending on who is telling the story). A military panel concluded that Omar was an enemy combatant, as a ...