In a drug prosecution, a denial of defendant's motion for a reduction of sentence is affirmed where the district court lacked authority to reduce defendant's sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c), because the sentence was dictated by his plea agreement pursuant to Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(1)(C), and not the ...
Among the many ivory tower types of Federal statutes designed to punish repeat drug offenders, 21 U.S.C. §§ 862(a) and 862a (two different statutes) stand out as beacons of questionable wisdom. Both statutes deny a broad range of federal benefits to various categories of drug offenders and drug addicts; and ...
In a ruling marked by the strong dissent of 7 judges, the full court declined to grant a rehearing en banc of a prior decision that was described as “the first published opinion . . . reversing a within-Guidelines sentence as substantively unreasonable”.
Recently, the Ninth Circuit became the first ...
In a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action claiming that Defendant-Judge violated due process by paying Plaintiff less than the amount of compensation he requested as a public defender, the dismissal of the complaint is affirmed, where: 1) the determination of Plaintiff's compensation was a judicial act and thus entitled to ...
In this case of first impression, the Eleventh Circuit held that prominent criminal defense attorney Ben Kuehne of Miami could not be charged with money laundering under 18 U.S.C. § 1957(a) because the exemption set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 1957(f)(1) provides that transactions involving criminally derived proceeds are exempt ...
In this civil rights case the Estate of Anthony Carl Oliver filed suit against Orlando police officers Lori Fiorino and David Burk, charging they used excessive and unreasonable force in violation of the Fourth Amendment when they shocked Oliver with a Taser at least eight, and as many as eleven ...
In an action arising from defendants' confiscation of plaintiff's firearms inventory and suspension of her dealer's license, dismissal of plaintiffs' due process, Fourth Amendment, and tortious interference with business relations claims is dismissed in part, reversed in part and vacated in part where: 1) the court properly dismissed plaintiffs' Fourth ...
In a drug and firearm prosecution, the District Court's order suppressing evidence obtained through a wiretap is reversed, where the government’s affidavit in support of its application for the wiretap set forth facts "minimally adequate" to support the finding that a wiretap was necessary to the government’s investigation.
[Editor's Note: ...
On March 15, 2005, the Los Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”) obtained a search warrant from a California State court to search the premises operated by United Medical Caregivers Clinic ("UMCC"), a non-profit medical marijuana dispensary. During that search, they discovered and seized $ 186,416.00 in U.S. currency from the Clinic's ...
