In this case, District Judge James Bredar held that sex offender registration does not meet the requirements of “custody” for purposes of Federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Here the defendant, Charles Clair, had completed both the prison portion of his sentence and the full term of probation ...

Here the Court granted an unusual Writ of Mandamus ordering the Magistrate Judge not to consider selective prosecution as either a defense to the merits of the prosecution or as the basis for a dismissal of the prosecution.

In this case, District Judge Royce Lamberth granted an unusual Writ of ...

Here the Court held (a) that a lawyer’s failure to seek safety-valve relief for his client constituted ineffective assistance of counsel; and (b) that a defendant is eligible for such relief once he tells the truth even if he lied earlier.

Under current Federal law, a sentencing judge is authorized ...

In a prosecution that included counts for violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) for aiding and abetting employees in exceeding their authorized access to a company database with intent to defraud, the district court's dismissal of those counts for failure to state an offense is affirmed, where: ...

In this case District Judge John Koeltl rejected a series of claims that a $340 fee charged by the City of New York for a “premises residence” handgun license violates the Second Amendment because it imposes an impermissible fee that unconstitutionally burdens the right to keep and bear arms. The ...

In this case, a unanimous Supreme Court held that, while a Federal court may generally raise a statute of limitations defense on its own initiative, it may not do so where the State was aware of the defense and intelligently chose not to rely upon it in the court of ...

If you have a client who is an alien and who has erroneously been placed on the Government’s secretive “No-Fly List,” does he or she have any remedy to get removed from that list?

Well, according to the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in the instant case, the simple answer is “maybe” ...

Here a unanimous Supreme Court held that the Torture Victim Prevention Act (28 U.S.C. § 1350, note § 2(a)) which imposes liability on “individuals” for certain acts of torture and extrajudicial killing, authorizes liability solely against natural persons.

In February of this year, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a ...

In this case, a unanimous Supreme Court held that a private attorney temporarily retained by a municipality to conduct an investigation is entitled to the same protections of qualified immunity as are generally available to full-time government lawyers, in civil rights lawsuits for damages under 42 U. S. C. § ...

In this case, District Judge Kimba Wood dismissed an indictment against Julian Heicklen, who was accused of jury tempering by passing out information on the steps of courthouses all over the country, including the Federal courthouse in Manhattan, advocating jury nullification. Arguing that such advocacy posed “a significant and important ...