It is indeed fitting that this decision was published the day before the Justice Department finally decided to release the Office of Professional Responsibility’s Final Report, dated July 29, 2009, showing the results of its investigation into the Office of Legal Counsel’s Memoranda Concerning Issues Relating to the Central Intelligence ...

As we have frequently noted, sentences in child pornography cases continue to escalate like topsy. As Judge King noted in the instant decision, during the period from 1994 to 2007, the mean sentence in child pornography cases rose from 36 months to 110 months.

That rapid rise has generated a ...

Here the Court blasted the U.S. Attorney’s Office for its practice of prosecuting illegal aliens who have no significant criminal history - a practice, he wrote, that was not only expensive, but was unreasonable and “simply mind boggling”.

This brief Order by Judge Sparks raises some intriguing and timely philosophical ...

Here the Court affirmed a sentence of probation after stating that the sentence imposed by a sentencing judge will be deemed to be substantively unreasonable only if it is “arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, or manifestly unreasonable”.

Long after the Supreme Court attempted to put to rest the debate about the degree ...

In a wire fraud prosecution, the court of appeals' prior order relieving appointed counsel as a sanction for defendant's misconduct is vacated where the order was not preceded by notice to defendant and an opportunity to respond. Thus, the court of appeals' prior dismissal of defendant's appeal for failure to ...

Here the Court rejected as both procedurally and substantively unreasonable a sentence of probation imposed on a defendant convicted of tax evasion, largely because the sentencing court failed to consider the policy statements contained in the Guidelines.

U.S. v. Engle, No. 08-4497 (4th Cir. Jan. 13, 2010) (Judge Traxler)
U.S. ...

Because the Federal Circuit has no jurisdiction over criminal cases (it primarily deals with patent and trademark appeals and appeals from the Federal Court of Claims), we rarely review cases from this Circuit Court. But we could not resist commenting on the facts and holding of this intriguing appeal to ...

In this third reversal of a below-Guidelines sentence for the Millennium Bomber, the Court vacated a 22-year sentence as both procedurally and substantively unreasonable - a ruling that some commentarors said was based on subjective views.

U.S. v. Engle, No. 08-4497 (4th Cir. Jan. 13, 2010) (Judge Traxler)
U.S. v. ...