Defendant's drug conspiracy conviction is reversed where the trial evidence was insufficient to permit the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that he had knowledge that the purpose of the conspiracy of which he was found to be a member was the distribution of narcotics.

[Editor's Note: For a ...

Here Judge Gertner explained her reasons for imposing a sentence of two years on a computer wiz who wrote some of the software used in the largest identity theft in American history, which resulted in losses of more than $20 billion.

During the period from 2004 to 2007, a man ...

Here the Court reversed the grant of habeas relief to a Guantanamo detainee held since 2002 on the charge that he was so connected to al-Qaida that he must have been “part of” it, saying some of the lower court's findings “may have been unduly atomized”.

In Salahi v. Obama, ...

In U.S. v. Grober, 595 F.Supp.2d 382 (D.N.J. Dec. 22, 2008) (P&J, 01/26/2009) (“Grober I”), District Judge Katharine Hayden of the D.N.J. issued a lengthy and noteworthy diatribe in which she condemned the Guidelines’ recommended sentences under U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2 for child pornography possession crimes as “outrageously high” and as ...

Defendant's drug conspiracy sentence is vacated where the district court evidently started with an assumption, invalid after so long an interval, that the baseline for the re-sentencing was the sentence imposed in 1991, and thereby failed to properly consider the factors set out in 18 U.S.C. section 3553(a) -- particularly ...

This is an interesting child pornography decision in which, inter alia, the Ninth Circuit vacated a conviction for the transportation of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(1) on the grounds that the pornographic images at issue did not travel in interstate commerce; the images were only transported ...

Here a unanimous Court held that defendants convicted of possession of a gun while selling drugs are subject to the five year mandatory minimum sentence on top of any other applicable mandatory minimum, despite the "except" clause in § 924(c)(1)(A).

This consolidated appeal involved dual challenges to identical five-year mandatory ...

In a prosecution of defendant for multiple counts of mail fraud and wire fraud, in connection with misrepresentations and misappropriation of millions of dollars in client funds, district court's denial of a motion for a new trial and imposition of a sentence of 120 months' imprisonment on each count of ...

Here Judge Scullin became the first judge in the Second Circuit to hold that U.S. v. Santos applies not just to cases where the "proceeds" were derived from illegal gambling operations but also to cases where the underlying crime is mail fraud.

The principal Federal money laundering statute, 18 U.S.C. ...