As modern day technology continues to test the limits of many long-held constitutional precepts, the question before the Court in this case was whether the Government conducts a “search” under the Fourth Amendment when it accesses historical cell phone records that provide a comprehensive chronicle of the user’s past movements. ...

This is a strange and disappointing Guidelines sentencing decision that hopefully will soon be forgotten. It is strange because Justice Ginsburg was somehow persuaded to sign on to the majority’s nonsensical ruling. It is disappointing because the majority went out of its way to say that an unnamed and somewhat ...

In this case, the Supreme Court addressed the scope of “plain error” review for unobjected-to Guidelines miscalculations at sentencing; and its decision announced some significant and far-reaching rules about determining when a sentencing error “affects the substantial rights” of a defendant, as that phrase is used in Rule 52(b) of ...

This is a complicated case that addressed some highly fact-specific issues that generated a sharp debate among the Justices about the reach of the protections of the Fifth Amendment’s Double Jeopardy Clause, particularly about whether that Clause includes issue preclusion protection for defendants, as first suggested in the Court’s 1970 ...

In this case, brothers Salvador and Armando Vera, along with 13 co-conspirators, were charged with conspiracy to distribute narcotics in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846. Each of the 13 co-conspirators ultimately pled guilty; and only the Vera brothers went to trial. After a five-day trial, the jury ...

In this case, the Ninth Circuit upheld the use of a four-level sentencing enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 2A2.2(b)(2)(B) for the use of a “dangerous weapon” - where the “dangerous weapon” at issue was a pair of tennis shoes that the defendant was wearing during the assault that took place.

Paul ...