Here, the Court rejected a claim that the district court had improperly delegated too much discretion to the Probation Officerto set a schedule for the payment of restitution. The Court did acknowledge that "the fixing of restitution payments is a judicial act" (id., at 500); and that "a court abdicates ...

In this case, the Court ruled that the defendant was not entitled to the return of his property despite the Government's failure to commence any forfeiture proceedings, since the defendant had already signed a Forfeiture Agreement relinquishing any possessory claim to the property in question.

Here the Court held that a motion to recuse a judge under 28 USC § 455(b) must be timely filed, despite the absence of any language in the statute specifying such a requirement.

Here the Court rejected the petitioner's motion for disqualification of the trial judge, based on a conflict ...

One of the many issues addressed in this multi-defendant drug conspiracy case dealt with a claim by one of the defendants that he had neither the capacity nor the intent to produce the five kilograms of cocaine that were attributed to him at sentencing by the district court (Judge Sprizzo). ...

Citing its decision in U.S. v. Rodriquez, 114 F.3d 46 (5th Cir. 1997), the Court affirmed that 28 USC § 2255 vests the district court with the power to resentence a defendant who successfully challenges his § 924(c) conviction only, and that the court may consider the imposition of the ...

Here the Court held that although the temporal remoteness of extrinsic evidence introduced to show intent weakens its probative value, the age of a prior conviction has never been held to be a per se bar to its use under Rule 404.

In his electrifying book about the American Criminal ...

The Ninth Circuit has issued another strong entrapment decision in which it affirmed Judge Panner’s
decision to grant a judgment of acquittal on the grounds that the defendant had been unlawfully entrapped
into committing the drug crime for which he had been convicted. (See, U.S. v. Martinez, 924 F.Supp. 1025 ...

In this child molestation case, the defendant argued that the district court had erred by admitting prior bad acts evidence that he had twice previously sexually assaulted girls under the age of 14 - and the Eighth Circuit agreed.

The Government argued that the evidence was relevant to show intent, ...

Court held that when the defendant contends that he lacked both the intent and the ability to produce a certain quantity of drugs, "negotiations ordinarily constitute reliable admissions as to the defendant's intent." (Id., at 229).

Here the Court agreed that the basic purpose of Rule 48(a) was "to check the common law power of prosecutors to enter a nolle prosequi before jeopardy attaches and then proceed to reindict the defendant on basically the same charges and evidence." (Id., at 558).

The defendant argued that the ...

The defendant in this case, a suspected wartime Nazi collaborator, was an 84 year old Lithuanian who had
lived in the United States for some 36 years. As part of an investigation seeking to deport him, he was served with a subpoena by one of the many branches of the ...

Here, the Court rejected a claim that the district court had improperly delegated too much discretion to the Probation Officerto set a schedule for the payment of restitution. The Court did acknowledge that "the fixing of restitution payments is a judicial act" (id., at 500); and that "a court abdicates ...

In this case, the Court approved a restitution order of $79,000 even though (a) the defendant would be 54 years old when released from prison, had no significant job skills, and was a high-school dropout; and (b) the court refused to impose a fine because it found that "the defendant ...

Here the Court rejected the defendant's claim that consideration of conduct from dismissed counts would seriously undermine the plea bargaining process and threaten the proportionality in sentencing that the Guidelines seek to foster.

Case denied Government's motion for summary judgment due to lack of probable cause that property was tied to drugs.

In this case, the Government sought summary judgment in a civil forfeiture brought against two vehicles owned by the claimant and alleged to have been involved in or purchased with the ...

In this case the Court acknowledged that supervised release is "punishment" for purposes of the Ex Post Facto Clause. It wrote: "Supervised release is punishment; it is a deprivation of some portion of one's liberty imposed as a punitive measure for a bad act. A defendant on supervised release is ...

Quote from the Second Circuit about the riddles of the Fifth Amendment which continue to confound and confuse.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK - The complexities of the Fifth Amendment.

"The origins and history of the Fifth Amendment are complex and controversial. . . . And its purposes are myriad and ...

It has become so commonplace for defendants to be denied bail these days, that we often forget the Supreme Court's warning that "Unless this right to bail before trial is preserved, the presumption of innocence, secured only after centuries of struggle, would lose its meaning." Stack v. Boyle, 342 U.S. ...

The Ninth Circuit has issued another strong entrapment decision in which it affirmed Judge Panner’s
decision to grant a judgment of acquittal on the grounds that the defendant had been unlawfully entrapped
into committing the drug crime for which he had been convicted. (See, U.S. v. Martinez, 924 F.Supp. 1025 ...

In his electrifying book about the American Criminal Justice System, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, (Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1984), Professor Jeffrey H. Reiman of the School of Justice at the American University in Washington, D.C., described a project he gave to his graduate students ...

Although the Court ultimately affirmed the defendant's conviction because there was no plain error, it held that the term "matter" in § 2252(a)(4)(B) refers only to the physical medium that contained the visual depictions - the hard drive and disks.

The Court reasoned as follows: "Possession of computer drives and ...

United States v. Turner, 119 F.3d 18 (D.C.Cir. 1997) (Judge Garland)
United States v. Taylor, 119 F.3d 625 (8th Cir. 1997) (Judge McMillian)

The principal topic of these two cases was two of the many court-ordered exceptions to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment. In Turner the D.C. Circuit ...

Here, the Government argued that evidence of prior sexual misconduct was relevant to show intent, in particular the intent element required by the statute - but the court held that "intent is not at issue . . . When the defendant specifically denies only the criminal act." I(id., at 660). ...

United States v. Turner, 119 F.3d 18 (D.C.Cir. 1997) (Judge Garland)
United States v. Taylor, 119 F.3d 625 (8th Cir. 1997) (Judge McMillian)

The principal topic of these two cases was two of the many court-ordered exceptions to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment. In Turner the D.C. Circuit ...

Citing its decision in U.S. v. Rodriquez, 114 F.3d 46 (5th Cir. 1997), the Court affirmed that 28 USC § 2255 vests the district court with the power to resentence a defendant who successfully challenges his § 924(c) conviction only, and that the court may consider the imposition of the ...

Citing earlier cases, the Court held that it is not error to apply the § 2D1.1(b)(1) enhancement to a defendant's sentence when only his co-conspirator was shown to have used the gun - so long as the use of that gun was reasonably foreseeable to the defendant. "A court may ...

In this case, the Government sought summary judgment in a civil forfeiture brought against two vehicles owned by the claimant and alleged to have been involved in or purchased with the proceeds of drug transactions. The Government's case rested on drawing a series of inferences from certain factors that apparently ...

This is a significant decision about upward departures, which holds that encouraged departures may not be used to increase a sentence if the conduct is already taken into account by the crime of conviction, unless present to an extraordinary degree.

The defendants in this case pled guilty to second degree ...

Citing its earlier decision in U.S. v. Fountain, 83 F.3d 946 (8th Cir. 1996), the Court affirmed that Guideline Amendment 506 is invalid because it conflicts with the plain language of 28 U.S.C. 994(h).