Last week we reviewed a Tenth Circuit en banc decision (U.S. v. Wiles, 102 F.3d 1043 (10th Cir. 1996)) which explored at some length some of the confusion that has arisen among the courts as a result of recent Supreme Court pronouncements about harmless error jurisprudence in the context of ...

The Court noted that the "primary purpose of [Rule 48(a)] is to prevent harassement of a defendant by charging, dismissing, and recharging withou placing a defendant in jeopardy." (Id., at 1367). It also agreed that a request for a Rule 48(a) dismissal is improper if motivated by bad faith. However, ...

Perez v. Marshall, 946 F.Supp. 1521 (S.D.Cal. 1996) (Judge Gonzalez)
Duarte v. Hershberger, 947 F.Supp. 146 (D.N.J. 1996) (Judge Wolin)

Here are two more cases that explore some of the many important questions left hanging by the enactment into law of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), which ...

One of the many issues raised in this case was whether a defendant who asserts the defense of entrapment is entitled to a sentence reduction for acceptance of responsibility under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1. Although the D.C. Circuit declined to rule on that issue, it noted that a number of Circuits ...

Court affirmed sentence based on conversion of cash in the defendant's possession into the crack equivalent rather than the cocaine equivalent even though the presentence report recommended otherwise.

This is one of those rare cases in which a court granted a defense motion to produce a confidential informant for an in camera examination by the judge to determine whether disclosure of the informant's identity would be appropriate. The facts are important. After the defendant was arrested and some ...

One of the significant features of this case was a rare, albeit reluctant, finding by the Court that the trial judge had constructively amended the indictment by modifying an essential element of the crime charged. Under Count One, the defendant was charged with conspiracy to possess with the intent to ...

Duarte v. Hershberger, 947 F.Supp. 146 (D.N.J. 1996) (Judge Wolin)

Here are two more cases that explore some of the many important questions left hanging by the enactment into law of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), which was signed into law on April 24, 1996.

The Duarte ...

This multi-issue appeal arose from a two-year long sting operation in which the Government tempted four Washington-area suburban car salesmen with big sales of cars for cash. As usual, the incredibly busy D.C. Public Defenders Office raised a number of creative and thought-provoking issues - all of which were rejected ...

This multi-issue appeal arose from a two-year long sting operation in which the Government tempted four Washington-area suburban car salesmen with big sales of cars for cash. As usual, the incredibly busy D.C. Public Defenders Office raised a number of creative and thought-provoking issues - all of which were rejected ...

In this case, the Eighth Circuit approved a broad expansion of the use of DNA evidence and the PCR method of testing in criminal cases as a form of scientific evidence that is both reliable and admissible.

Here comes DNA testing to the Federal courts. The Eighth Circuit, having previously ...

Here the Court held that 28 USC § 1866(e)(1) of the Jury Selection Act does not require a trial to commence within a period of 30 consecutive days; thus rejecting a claim that the jurors in this case were effectively "volunteers".

This multi-issue appeal arose from a two-year long sting ...

Case rejected tax protester's contention that his conviction was invalid because the IRS failed to provide the notice of assessment as required by law because "Congress specifically imposed on individuals a duty to file tax returns and pay taxes.

This high-profile tax protester case raises a lot of the standard ...

In this case, the Eighth Circuit approved a broad expansion of the use of DNA evidence and the PCR method of testing in criminal cases as a form of scientific evidence that is both reliable and admissible.

Here comes DNA testing to the Federal courts. The Eighth Circuit, having previously ...

Court held that Government's use or peremptory challenges did not violate the rules established by the Supreme Court in Batson v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 79 (1986).

This multi-issue appeal arose from a two-year long sting operation in which the Government tempted four Washington-area suburban car salesmen with big sales of ...

Court rejected claim of prejudicial joinder because of absence of proof of prejudice and because it held that jury instructions cured any error.

This multi-issue appeal arose from a two-year long sting operation in which the Government tempted four Washington-area suburban car salesmen with big sales of cars for cash. ...

Last week we reviewed a Tenth Circuit en banc decision (U.S. v. Wiles, 102 F.3d 1043 (10th Cir. 1996)) which explored at some length some of the confusion that has arisen among the courts as a result of recent Supreme Court pronouncements about harmless error jurisprudence in the context of ...

This multi-issue appeal arose from a two-year long sting operation in which the Government tempted four Washington-area suburban car salesmen with big sales of cars for cash. As usual, the incredibly busy D.C. Public Defenders Office raised a number of creative and thought-provoking issues - all of which were rejected ...

Here the Court affirmed the district court's use of the commentary to USSG § 2D1.1 when interpreting whether a defendant possessed a weapon within the meaning of USSG § 5C1.2(2) so as to be ineligible for a safety valve sentence reduction.

Two interesting issues were raised in this appeal from dual convictions for distribution of crack/cocaine and possession with intent to distribute crack/cocaine. First, the defendant argued that the lower court erred by not instructing the jury that "it could not base a conviction of possession with intent to distribute . ...

Here's one of those far-fetched crazy cases that shows the extremes to which prosecutors will sometimes go to notch up another easy conviction. The defendant was charged and convicted on three counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). The trouble ...

The Court, in this case, focuses on the issue of whether the failure to instruct the jurors that they should not discuss the case with anyone outside the courtroom and that they should not discuss the case among themselves until they retired to deliberate was per se reversible error. Here, ...

QUOTE OF THE WEEK - The evils of subdividing crimes into multiple parts to enable Congressmen to go down in posterity with a crime named after themselves.

"Given the tendency of modern criminal legislation to divide the phases of a criminal transaction into numerous separate crimes, the opportunities for multiple ...