This is a powerful and disturbing decision by Judge Hawkins of South Carolina in which he dismissed with prejudice a series of indictments against a number of legislators due to egregious prosecutorial misconduct and subornation of perjury.
Attorney Lionel Lofton from Charleston, South Carolina has sent us one of those ...
QUOTE OF THE WEEK - The demonizing game of tacking skins of victims to the wall!!
"While lawyers representing private parties may -- indeed, must -- do everything ethically permissible to advance their clients interests, lawyers representing the government in criminal cases serve truth and justice first. The prosecutor's job ...
Here the court rejected as untenable the "reasonable recipient standard" - I.e., whether an ordinary, reasonable recipient would interpret the statements as a threat - because in that case "a defendant may be convicted for making an ambiguous statement that the recipient might find threatening because of events not within ...
Here a Magistrate refused to allow the admission of polygraph evidence in a civil rights lawsuit against the police, concluding that while the witness may have been qualified, the scientific reliability of polygraph evidence had not been established.
While we don't usually report decisions of Magistrate Judges, this one is ...
Court held that the defense of sentencing entrapment was not available where the defendant showed a disposition to deal in smaller quantities of drugs than were ultimately offered by Government since defendant showed his disposition to deal in drugs.
Court held that money laundering charges were improperly brought in Missouri (where the unlawful funds were purportedly derived) and not in Florida (where the alleged money laundering took place).
This decision contains a detailed discussion of Guideline Amendment No. 500, and particularly Application Note 2 to the Commentary to § 3B1.1, which "was added to clarify confusion amongst the circuit courts as to the operation of § 3B1.1." Prior to that amendment, some circuits had concluded that a defendant's ...
In this case, two defendants were charged with an assortment of crimes stemming from four separate armed bank robberies. The charges were severed into two trials. After they were convicted on all counts at the first trial, but before they were sentenced, the defendants moved to dismiss the remaining charges ...
Case held that defendant does not have the right under either the Sentencing Guidelines or the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to subpoena witnesses to contradict evidence contained in presentence report or supplemental sentencing record.
After his conviction on a number of drug-related charges, the defendant in this case appealed, arguing principally that the district court had committed several reversible errors during the jury selection process.
Among the more interesting claims was a charge that the much-reversed District Court Judge Fuste had improperly refused to ...
This case is noted for the Court's conclusion that "it is highly questionable even today whether prison inmates have a Fourth Amendment right to be free from routine unclothed searches by officials of the opposite sex".
On the lighter side of criminal justice, this case is peppered with citations to ...
The defendant in this case was convicted of the usual tandem of drug and gun crimes, and he was sentenced to 81 months imprisonment. After serving the full 21 months imposed for the drug crimes and 39 months for the gun crime, he successfully appealed his gun conviction based on ...
Here, in affirming the Givernment's right to collect restitution after the end of supervised release, the Court held that the VWPA cannot have been intended to mean that restitution obligations terminate after some finite period of time.
United States v. Rostoff, 956 F.Supp. 38 (D.Mass 1997) (Judge Young)
United States ...
Here, although the Court agreed that counsel had an actual conflict of interest, without any hearing, it simply denied any relief to the defendant because he had failed to show that the conflict actually prejudiced his defense.
This is an interesting case that explores the meaning of an attorney's "actual ...
This case is noted because it is a rare case in which both the lower court and the Eighth Circuit dismissed a series of money laundering accounts on the grounds of improper venue. The money laundering charges were based on a series of deposits and withdrawals that were made at ...
Can sentencing manipulation constitute a proper basis for a downward departure under § 5K2.0? In this case, the First Circuit implied that under certain circumstances such manipulation could be a proper basis for a departure. The defendant in this case claimed that the Government had deliberately tampered with his Federal ...
Can sentencing manipulation constitute a proper basis for a downward departure under § 5K2.0? In this case, the First Circuit implied that under certain circumstances such manipulation could be a proper basis for a departure. The defendant in this case claimed that the Government had deliberately tampered with his Federal ...
Early one Sunday morning, a Roy Rogers restaurant in Washington, D.C. was robbed. The robber got some $30 and he fled using a get-away car driven by the defendant in this case. They were both caught and the defendant was charged with a number of Federal crimes including aiding and ...
This case points out another of the many traps in proffer agreements. The defendant signed a proffer agreement that contained a provision that appeared to offer him limited immunity for state ments made during the proffer session. It said: "Except as herein otherwise provided . . . the government will ...
Here the court rejected the BOP's assertion that it could exercise "broad discretion to adopt any reasonable definition of a 'non-vioilent offense'. " Relying heavily on its ruling in Downey v. Crabtree, 100 F.3d 662 (9th Cir. 1996), the agreed that the BOP has broad discretion, but noted that such ...
In what is probably the first case to address the meaning of "threats" within the meaning of the Three Strikes Statute, the court held that term encompasses a communicated expression that the defendant would use a gun.
United States v. Rostoff, 956 F.Supp. 38 (D.Mass 1997) (Judge Young)
United States v. Golino, 956 F.Supp. 359 (E.D.N.Y. 1997) (Judge Weinstein)
Although both of these restitution cases deal with restitution orders imposed under the provisions of the Victim and Witness Protection Act (18 U.S.C. §§ 3663 et seq.) (the ...
Case held that defendant does not have the right under either the Sentencing Guidelines or the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to subpoena witnesses to contradict evidence contained in presentence report or supplemental sentencing record.
Here the Court did acknowledge that Rule 11(e)'s prohibition against judicial participation in any discussions about a possible plea agreement is an "absolute prohibition" that applies to judicial participation in plea negotiations between counsel as well as discussions held in the defendant's presence.
Court held that there was no plain ...
In this case the Court vacated a sentence on the grounds that the defendant's sentence on four of five counts for which he was convicted was increased by Guidelines' provisions which were not in effect at the time of those earlier crimes. The Court acknowledged that it had not previously ...
In the overwhelming number of criminal cases, perhaps the most controverted of the Federal Rules of
Evidence is Rule 404(b), which permits the prosecution to introduce evidence of an accused’s extrinsic acts (i.e., acts that are extraneous to the crimes for which the defendant is being tried). In theory, that ...
Under U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3, the court may depart downward from the normal Guideline sentence if it concludes "that a defendant's criminal history category significantly over-represents the seriousness of a defendant's criminal history or the likelihood that the defendant will commit future crimes." Although a departure under that Section is rarely ...
Court held that Sentencing Commission did not exceed its authority in promulgating Guideline calling for fine covering costs of incarceration and that such a fine was proper even before Congress explicitly provided for such fines.
At first glance, this is but another routine appeal from a drug conviction where the Government's sole evidence came from one of those suddenly-turned-honest drug dealers who was able to trade his extensive knowledge and participation in drug transactions into a huge reward. As Judge Reinhardt once noted: "[M]ajor drug ...
United States v. Rostoff, 956 F.Supp. 38 (D.Mass 1997) (Judge Young)
United States v. Golino, 956 F.Supp. 359 (E.D.N.Y. 1997) (Judge Weinstein)
Although both of these restitution cases deal with restitution orders imposed under the provisions of the Victim and Witness Protection Act (18 U.S.C. §§ 3663 et seq.) (the ...
