The Court also held that "The statutory class 'whoever' in the federal bribery statute, § 201(c)(2), was not intended to encompass a federal prosecutor actually engaged in the investigation or prosecution of a crime." (Id., at 1334).

This is another case which rejected the rationale of U.S. v. Singleton. Here ...

This case set off a seething and often ungracious donnybrook; and it is noted not just for its important and detailed (albeit dramatically conflicting) discussions of the current state of the law of immunity in civil rights suits for damages, but also for the majority's conspicuously strained efforts to achieve ...

The defendant in this case told an informant that he wished to buy a gun with a silencer. The informant told him that he could arrange for such a purchase for $200 in cash; and he then set up a meeting with an undercover ATF agent who posed as a ...

This is one of those sadly amusing cases in which a prison warden sued the Arkansas Department of Corrections and several of its officers for damages - and won. Terry Campbell was a career employee of the Arkansas Department of Corrections and the warden of the State maximum security unit ...

In holding that the defendant had failed to preserve his rights to contest the denial of a suppression motion when he entered into an uncondictional guilty plea, the Court stated: "The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provide that a defendant may enter a conditional plea of guilty with the approval ...

One legislative rule that has long grated many prosecutors and judges alike is the lack of statutory authority to impose restitution in tax cases. As one court has noted: "Federal courts have no inherent power to order restitution. Such authority must be conferred by Congress" through statute. U.S. v. Helmsley, ...

The Court did note that Guideline Amendments 266 and 459 expressely permitted an acceptance of responsibility sentence reduction "to provide an incentive . . . [to] defendants subject to the career offender privisions." (Id., at 684),.

Case held that, as a matter of law, the Guidelines precluded a downward departure ...

En banc Court held that police were not required to allow defendant to leave when their suspicion that he was driving while intoxicated proved unwarranted, but they could continue to detain him and expand the scope of their search for other reasons.

This is another en banc decision that is ...

Here the Court stated: "We have held that a depletion of assets potentially affecting interstate commerce constitutes a sufficient nexus to interstate commerce under the Hobbs Act. See Zeigler, 19 F.3d at 490. To establish this de minimis effect on interstate commerce the government must show that the crime depleted ...

This is one of those rare cases in which a conviction was overturned "because the evidence raise[d] a reasonable doubt that the Government improperly induced a citizen to commit crimes that he was not predisposed to commit, yet crimes for which he was charged and convicted." (Id., at 12). Under ...

Departing from the rule in most other Circuits, the Seventh Circuit suggested that the content of the defendant's threats alone (as opposed to some overt act) are sufficient to support an enhancement under USSG § 2A6.1(b)(1).

Here the Court determined that the defendant's violent letters, including one in which he ...

Quote from Justice Burger which notes that policemen do not have the time, inclination, or training to read and grasp all the nuances of appellate decisions which define the standards of their expected conduct.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK - One of the fallacies behind the rationale for qualified immunity.

"Whatever ...

One legislative rule that has long grated many prosecutors and judges alike is the lack of statutory authority to impose restitution in tax cases. As one court has noted: "Federal courts have no inherent power to order restitution. Such authority must be conferred by Congress" through statute. U.S. v. Helmsley, ...

Court rejected a four level departure for "unusual acceptance of responsibility" based on extraordinary restitution, noting that although the defendant made full restitution, a large part consisted of returning goods he had stolen but not yet peddled.

In this case the defendant O'Kane defrauded his employer of over $300,000 worth of baseball cards and used some of his profit from the sale of those cards to purchase various items for personal use, including a computer and a pickup truck. (Id., at 970). The defendant entered into a ...