Here the Court examined the context of the expanded restitution coverage contained in the MVRA.
[Editor's Note: For a commentary on this decision, see "2nd Circuit: Attorney Fees and Accounting Costs Part of Restitution," by Mark Hamblett, as published in the New York Law Journal on August 25, 2008, as ...
This is a short, but notable and potentially very useful, sentencing decision in which Judge Weinstein explained his reasons for departing from a Guidelines sentence of 235 months to a sentence of five years probation, plus 500 hours of community service and a fine of $100,000 on the defendant, Ed ...
This is one of the first cases we have seen that has addressed some of the far-reaching, but largely-unnoticed, powers given to a new anti-terrorist office within the Treasury Department in the aftermath of 9/11. That new office even has a name that intentionally strikes fear and foreboding - the ...
Conviction for murder while engaging in a drug offense is affirmed where: 1) because some drug conspiracies in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 are "punishable under" § 841(b)(1)(A), criminal liability under § 848(e)(1)(A) requires no active involvement in drug distribution; 2) the nexus between a murder and a drug ...
This is an important and erudite decision that raises significant questions regarding both the scientific accuracy and the admissibility of ballistics evidence at criminal trials. The decision builds on a theme espoused by a number of judges in several recent cases that have suddenly cast serious doubts on ballistics evidence, ...
This is an important decision in which the Second Circuit placed some needed limitations on the ever-expanding use of so-called “officer expert” testimony - i.e., testimony by a police officer or agent who testifies as an expert about various aspects of a criminal scheme that are said to be outside ...
Conviction on charges arising out of involvement in an organized crime family, including racketeering, murder and related conspiracies, is vacated and remanded where admission of eight plea allocutions of non-testifying co-conspirators amounted to plain error under the intervening authority of Crawford v. Washington.
[Editor's Note: For a mor detailed commentary ...
A special condition of supervised release forbidding the defendant from residing with any person to whom she is not married or related by blood was overly broad and involved a greater deprivation of liberty than was necessary.
This case is another example of a district court getting carried away with ...
One of the several issues raised in this appeal was whether a criminal defendant has a due process right to a presentence report (“PSR”) that does not contain “materially untrue, inaccurate or unreliable” information. That issue was raised by one of the defendants who argued that the inclusion of an ...
Here, over a strong dissent by Judge Kozinski, the en banc court, by a vote of 10-1, expanded the border search doctrine to include personal correspondence contained in FedEx packages addressed for delivery outside the U.S.
In his opinion on behalf of the majority in this Fourth Amendment “border search” ...
