McQuiggan v. Perkins, No. 12-126 (U.S. Sup. Ct. May 28, 2013) (Justice Ginsburg)
Trevino v. Thaler, No. 11-10189 (U.S. Sup. Ct. May 28, 2013) (Justice Breyer)

In these two habeas cases, the Supreme Court made it somewhat easier for state prisoners to challenge their convictions in Federal courts. It did ...

For decades, the Federal Government’s approach to sentencing defendants convicted of crack cocaine offenses was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. It created out of whole cloth a 100:1 sentencing regimen that treated one gram of crack cocaine as the equivalent of 100 grams of powder cocaine. As expected (if ...

McQuiggan v. Perkins, No. 12-126 (U.S. Sup. Ct. May 28, 2013) (Justice Ginsburg)
Trevino v. Thaler, No. 11-10189 (U.S. Sup. Ct. May 28, 2013) (Justice Breyer)

In these two habeas cases, the Supreme Court made it somewhat easier for state prisoners to challenge their convictions in Federal courts. It did ...

In this landmark decision regarding the rights of the police to take DNA samples from arrestees, a bitterly divided majority held, by a 5-4 vote that: “When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause for a serious offense and bring the suspect into the station, taking a cheek swab ...

This case addressed an important, but largely unresolved, issue of whether a motion for substantial assistance, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e) and U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1, may be based in whole or in part on substantial assistance from a third-party or surrogate. In his comprehensive and noteworthy review of that ...

This is a noteworthy decision in which the First Circuit vacated a conviction for a single count of possession of a stolen firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(j) on the grounds that the district court erred as a matter of law by declining to instruct the jury on ...

In this capital habeas case, the State of California appealed from an Order filed by Judge Christina Synder granting habeas relief to Ronald Lee Deere, who had been convicted of murder and then sentenced to death by a state judge who, at the time of sentencing, was alleged to have ...