Thanks to District Judge Arthur Tarnow, Arthur Bell is one lucky man. In 1989, Bell was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment on a felony murder charge in a Michigan state court. After exhausting his state appeals, Bell filled for habeas relief; and, in Bell v. Howes, 757 F.Supp.2d 720 ...

This case is a good example of how blind adherence to the Guidelines paint-by-the-numbers philosophy can lead to absurd results that defy common sense. Fortunately, at least in this case, wisdom and justice prevailed in the end to excise the lunacy of a mandatory minimum sentence that was imposed because, ...

Because the foundations of our criminal justice system, which date back to the earliest days of common law, are so well established, it is rare to see a debate that strikes at one of great cornerstone of that system - namely the profoundly important principle of due process. Yet, that ...

In U.S. v. Jones, 565 U.S. ___, 132 S.Ct. 945 (2012), the Supreme Court unanimously held that physically attaching a GPS tracking device to a vehicle constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment - although, in the majority and two concurring opinions, the Justices largely agreed on little else.

Jones ...

Anthony Shippley, who served as the “Sergeant at Arms” for a chapter of the Mongols Motorcycle Club, was tried on various drug conspiracy charges. As the Court then explained: “At the end of trial, though, something strange happened. The jury returned a general verdict finding Mr. Shippley guilty of the ...

Any defense counsel who has ever sought to challenge a Government request for an above-Guidelines sentence knows that the task is not only daunting, it can be downright confusing - a fact absolutely confirmed by Judge Posner in the instant case.

Here, Francisco Castillo pled guilty to conspiring to make ...