Case held that a defendant who had already executed a fraudulent $150,000 wire transfer and was thwarted only when the bank president seized the funds before the defendant had a chance to withdraw them had completed the crime for purposes of 2X1.1(b).

This is a rare case in which the ...

This case is noted because it reviews the difficult and elusive concept of "adoptive admissions" under
Rule 801(d)(2)(B). Essentially that Rule holds that adoptive admissions are not hearsay because the
defendants’ adoption of them makes them admissions against interest. The Court also ruled that the
Supreme Court’s decision in Williamson ...

Here the Court held the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act was unconstitutional; and of note the court quotes at length from a statement made by Judge Maryanne Barry Trump to Congress which called the legislation ill-advised.

In 1996, Congress passed what Judge Acker described as an "inappropriate addendum" to the Antiterrorism ...

This 42 U.S.C. § 1983 case involved a high-speed pursuit of two teenagers on a motorcycle by a law enforcement officer in a patrol car. One of the teenagers was killed. The Court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment on the issue of qualified immunity as to the ...

This case shows one of the penalties of claiming the defense of entrapment. Here, the Court affirmed the district court's decision not to grant any sentence reduction for acceptance of responsibility under § 3E1.1(a) because the defendant had asserted that he had been entrapped into committing the crime in question. ...

This case probably establishes the current (but almost certain to be shattered) judicial record for the meaning of "close in time." Here, one of the issues raised was whether it was error to admit evidence of other crimes or bad acts, pursuant to Rule 404(b) of the Fed.R.Evid., that occurred ...

Case held that the district court erred by not grouping mail fraud and money laundering counts even though crimes had different victims.

After the defendant in this case pled guilty to mail fraud and money laundering, the hard-nosed Judge Mills refused to "group" the two offenses for sentencing purposes under ...

The court held in this case that having sentenced the defendant to the maximum possible term of imprisonment for his misdemeanor offense for failing to appear for sentencing, the district court could not also sentence him to any form of home detention as a condition of supervised release.

Here the ...

This is an unusually stern decision in which Judge Haight granted a severance of new charges, pursuant to Rule 14 of the Fed.R.Crim.P., that the Government attempted to add in a superseding indictment, as well as a misjoinder of defendants pursuant to Rule 8(b) of the Fed.R.Crim.P. He called the ...

Here the Court rejected a claim that the Government improperly withheld favorable evidence by applying tangled distinctions between material evidence under the Brady rule and impeachment evidence under Rule 608.

This lengthy decision contains an excellent analysis by Judge Schwartz of the Government's obligations to disclose material evidence to the ...

Court granted Writ of Error Coram Nobis vacating a questionable conviction for theft of Government property.

Last week we didn't have room to note one amusing (?) case that should not go unnoticed - because it is a perfect example of how the Government often wastes its money in its ...

This is a rather astonishing case that shows the willingness, if not the eagerness, of the courts to sustain indictments that are defective on their face. We start, as did the Tenth Circuit, by quoting the Supreme Court when it ruled that an indictment must "first contain the elements of ...

Here the Court found proper jurisdiction for purposes of the Federal arson statute based on the fact that a State agency, which paid a significant percentage of a tenant's rent, could be deemed the "user" of that rented apartment.

This case is another one of those linguistic marvels. Here, the ...

This case is noted because it discusses two esoteric but important rules about appeals - namely, the law of the case doctrine and its complementary theory, the mandate rule. When the defendant in this case was originally sentenced for possession of marijuana and possession of unregistered firearms, Judge Saffels granted ...

The defendant in this case pled guilty to making a bomb threat against a Federal building (in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 844(e)) - one day after a bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Relying heavily on that fact, Judge Mills determined that the crime ...

Last week we reported two cases which highlighted the disturbing tendency of the courts to treat all crimes committed by law enforcement agents as nothing more than insignificant peccadillos and to sentence those favored offenders to incredibly lenient sentences that make a mockery of the Guidelines much-heralded goal of "uniformity ...

Ever since the Supreme Court narrowed the definition of "use" in Bailey v. U.S., 133 L.Ed.2d 472 (1995), for purposes of a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (using or carrying a firearm during the commission of a drug trafficking offense), the Government has struggled for ways to overcome that ...

Here the Court held that home detention may be imposed as a condition of probation or supervised release, but only as a substitute for imprisonment.

Here the Court rejected a claim that the Government improperly withheld favorable evidence by applying tangled distinctions between material evidence under the Brady rule and impeachment evidence under Rule 608.

This lengthy decision contains an excellent analysis by Judge Schwartz of the Government's obligations to disclose material evidence to the ...

The defendant in this case signed a Type B plea agreement, which means that she was bound by the guilty plea regardless of whether or not the court chose to follow the Government's recommendation for sentencing. However, the court failed to advise the defendant that she would be bound by ...

This case is a chilling example of the type of sensitivity, compassion and care exhibited by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and a good guide to the traps in seeking judicial review.

In his concurring opinion, Judge Kozinski wryly commented that "[w]hat happened in this case at the administrative level ...

This case is noted because Judge O'Meara dismissed one count of an indictment that charged the defendant with carjacking (in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2119) on the grounds that the Government had failed to prove the appropriate Federal jurisdictional element of the crime. The court noted that the car ...

This case probably establishes the new, almost comical, judicial record for the meaning of "close in time."
Here, one of the issues raised was whether it was error to admit evidence of other crimes or bad acts,
pursuant to Rule 404(b) of the Fed.R.Evid., that occurred some 17 years before ...

This case may signal a new turn in the Government's prosecution of tax protesters. Faced with a rising number of tax protestors, and legal arguments that are becoming more sophisticated and persuasive (as evidenced by a growing number of acquittals in prosecutions under the tax laws), the Government is slowly ...