Here the Court held, by a vote of 7-2, that 18 U.S.C. § 3599, which provides free defense lawyers for individuals facing a possible death sentence, allows such a lawyer to seek clemency for the client from state officials.
The principal issue in this case was whether 18 U.S.C. § ...
This case represents the Supreme Court’s second attempt during its current term to address the so-called “exclusionary rule.” That rule was first articulated by the Supreme Court in 1914 as a judicially-created deterrent against police misconduct. (See, Weeks v. U.S., 232 U.S. 383 (1914)). Essentially it established the principle that ...
This is another decision in the long and troubling history of legal proceedings relating to the 17 Chinese Muslim (or Uighur) citizens who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay since 2001 - despite the fact that the Government now concedes that none of them are “enemy combatants.”
All 17 of ...
Conviction for possession of counterfeit checks and bank fraud and sentence of 24 months on each count, to run concurrently, is affirmed over claims of error that: 1) defendant's sentence was procedurally unreasonable because the District Court did not provide defense counsel a meaningful opportunity to speak before imposing a ...
In a conviction for failure to file Currency Transaction Reports (CTR) in violation of 31 U.S.C. §§ 5313 and 5322(a), district court's orders of forfeiture and restitution are vacated where: 1) the court lacked an adequate factual record to determine whether the forfeiture ordered by the district court constituted an ...
In a conviction following a guilty plea for bank burglary, principal sentence to seven years imprisonment pursuant to an upward departure is affirmed where: 1) U.S.S.G. section 2B2.1(b)(4) required only possession of a dangerous weapon and applied even if defendant did not use the object in question as a weapon ...
In conviction for rape, incest, and endangering the welfare of a child, denial of petition for habeas corpus is affirmed where: 1) though the state trial court's decision to exclude the public from the jury selection process for one afternoon was not justified in view of Waller v. Georgia, 467 ...
Here a unanimous Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause does not require the automatic reversal of a murder conviction simply because of the trial court's good-faith error in denying the defendant's peremptory challenge to a juror.
In this case, a unanimous Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction of ...
Conviction for conspiracy to possess crack cocaine with the intent to distribute is affirmed where the buyer-seller exception does not apply to conspiracy with regard to other transfers of either the seller or the buyer and does not apply to a finding that the defendants conspired with the selling group ...
Three judgments entered after the district court determined that a prior state conviction for burglary in the third degree, and prior convictions for attempted burglary in the third degree were not crimes of violence are vacated and remanded where: 1) after the briefs were submitted in these cases, the present ...
In an important ruling dealing with the Government’s ability to detain suspected terrorists in military prisons for extended periods without any court oversight, Judge Bates held in the instant case that at least some of the prisoners being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan have the same legal rights ...
In this case, Craig and Wendy Humphries were accused of abuse by a rebellious 15-year-old daughter. They were arrested and charged with felony torture against their daughter and several misdemeanors. As a result of those criminal charges, the Humphries’ other children were taken away from them; and their names were ...
In this sentence appeal, the defendant argued that the Government had refused to file a motion to reduce his sentence pursuant to U.S. Sentencing Guideline § 5K1.1 to punish him for exercising his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, thereby denying him due process of law. On its third ...
