Court held that because the defendant, a former prosecutor, had not been assigned to work on a case, he could not be convicted of violating Rule 6(e)(2) and its secrecy mandates.
One of the issues in this case was whether the Government's refusal to file a § 5K1.1 motion was based on unconstitutional motives. The defendant claimed that A.U.S.A. Ronald Rachow had promised not to prosecute him if he agreed to cooperate with the Government. He then cooperated; but he was ...
In this case, the Defendant pled guilty to the possession of crack cocaine and the Probation Department determined that the appropriate offense level was a 32 - calling for a sentencing range of 210 to 262 months. That wasn't enough for the Government; it wanted an offense level of 37 ...
This is multi-issue case is noteworthy for its surprising and strong discussion of the use of conduct relating to acquitted crimes to increase a defendant's sentence. The Court observed:
"We believe that a defendant's Fifth and Sixth Amendment right to have a jury determine his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt ...
Case held that Title III's protections extend to prisoner's conversations over institutional telephones.
This is another multi-issue case that arose out of a "massive land and air surveillance" of a 72 year old defendant and his automobile by "approximately fifty FBI agents and Rhode Island State police officers" that resulted in convictions for the interstate transportation of a single stolen car, the interstate ...
Case held that refusal of district court to grant a downward departure based on diminished capacity was not a proper subject for review.
Here's another one of those frequent "zap the rat" cases, where once again the rat get burned after providing the Government with assistance, thereby subjecting himself and ...
Court held that because the defendant, a former prosecutor, had not been assigned to work on a case, he could not be convicted of violating Rule 6(e)(2) and its secrecy mandates.
Guess what happens when a former "special attorney for the Justice Department" unlawfully releases confidential grand jury information to ...
Here's another one of those frequent "zap the rat" cases, where once again the rat get burned after providing the Government with assistance, thereby subjecting himself and his family to danger. In this case, the defendant gave substantial assistance in the "hope" that Government would file a 5K1 motion recommending ...
Here's another one of those frequent "zap the rat" cases, where once again the rat get burned after providing the Government with assistance, thereby subjecting himself and his family to danger. In this case, the defendant gave substantial assistance in the "hope" that Government would file a 5K1 motion recommending ...
The Court stated: "Absent any credible argument or evidence to the contrary, we must assume that the Sentencing Commission took deportable alien status into account when formulating a guideline that applies almost invariably to crimes, such as 8 U.S.C. § 1326, that may be committed only by aliens whose conduct ...
This is one of the rare cases in which a conviction is overturned because of the improper use of "other
crimes" evidence under Rule 404(b) of the Fed.R.Evid. In cross-examining a defense witness, the prose-
cution asked the witness whether she was aware that he had previously been convicted of ...
The Court noted that "The essential elements of a finding of criminal contempt under 18 U.S.C. sec. 401(3) are a lawful and reasonably specific order of the court and a willful violation of that order." (Id., at 1297). It then concluded that the protective order at issue was both lawful ...
Here the court reasoned that a restitution order which exceeded its authority under the VWPA is equivalent to an illegal sentence. The court then held that such a restitution order was "in excess of the maximum penalty provided by statute" and, therefore, the waiver of appeal was inapplicable to it. ...
