In a ruling that epitomizes the Supreme Court’s current conservative-versus-liberal alignment of Justices, a 5-4 majority overruled the Court’s 23-year-old holding in Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625 (1986) and made it easier for the police and prosecutors to question suspects in custody outside the presence of their lawyers.

In ...

In this brief and unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held that an individual cannot be held liable under 21 U.S.C. § 843(b) for “facilitating” felony drug distribution by using a cell phone to arrange a misdemeanor purchase of drugs for personal use.

That issue, which has divided the Circuits, arose ...

Motivated by the belief that damages suits filed by prisoners against state correction officers were largely frivolous and vexatious, New York State passed Correction Law § 24 (herein “CL§24"), which divested state courts of general jurisdiction of their jurisdiction over such suits (including those filed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983). ...

If this rather nondescript decision is remembered for anything at all, it will probably be remembered for its repeated and caustic verbal spanking of the Sixth Circuit. In a demeaning tone that is rarely used, this brief and unanimous decision accused the lower court of many errors and “misunderstandings” - ...

Back in 2006, Judge Gertner issued a partial ruling on an issue that has grown in significance and importance - namely, does a prisoner have a due process right to post-conviction access to biological evidence. She addressed that issue in the of Robert Wade, who was convicted in 1997 of ...

Conviction for intentionally inflicting on a person, because that person was a provider of reproductive health services, an injury resulting in death is affirmed where: 1) district court properly denied defendant's motion to suppress evidence as untimely, and defendant provided no valid basis for a claim for relief from the ...

This case is noted for its strong affirmation of the principle that a prosecutor cannot escape his Brady obligations to disclose exculpatory information to the defense on the grounds that the information was not in his personal possession.

For anyone looking for a powerful, recent decision spelling out the obligations ...

The plaintiff in this case, Anthony Eubanks, a prisoner in South Carolina, appealed from a summary judgment against him dismissing his constitutional challenges to a new South Carolina law requiring prisoners to provide DNA samples for South Carolina's DNA bank. As relevant here, the law provides that, “before parole or ...

In a strained decision that often limps under the weight of frail logic, a divided panel from the Ninth Circuit has affirmed the constitutional validity of 18 U.S.C. §§ 931 and 921(a)(35), which criminalize the possession by a felon of body armor that has been “sold or offered in interstate ...