Case discussed the meaning of the "immediately apparent" requirement of plain view searches which was raised by the Supreme Court in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443 (1971).

This case is noted because it examines an important, but little noticed, holding of the Supreme Court in
Coolidge v. New ...

Court vacates fine because the sentencing proceedings, including the PSR, did not sufficiently follow the dictates of Guidelines § 5E1.2, particularly failing to consider defendant's ability to pay the fine following his release from prison.

United States v. Drinkwine, 133 F.3d 203 (2nd Cir. 1998) (Judge Van Graafeiland)
United States ...

Court held that it was not an abuse of discretion to exclude polygraph evidence under the standards of Rule 403.

This case is noted because it recognizes still another novel ground for a downward departure under the Guidelines - one which the Court called a person’s “cultural assimilation” into American society. The Ninth Circuit described the basis for such a departure as “akin to the factor of ‘family and community ...

In this case, the district court reduced a Guidelines sentence from 63 months to 48 months based on the defendant's "longstanding record of exemplary service to [his] community", and possible economic injury to his community, citing both U.S.S.G. §§ 5H1.6 (community ties) and 5H1.11 (civic and charitable service). The Government ...

Tthis “Damm” case is another good example of the nitpicking redundancies and etymological distinctions that seem to prevail in all gun cases. Here, the defendant was a driver of an armored car truck. He was charged with assisting a bunch of co-conspirators in robbing his truck of some $1.5 million ...

Here the Court rejected challenges to the validity of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act on the grounds that they violated equal protection or the separation of powers doctrine.

If the Hobbs Act doesn’t raise any concerns about the inexorable expansion of Federal intervention into
our daily lives, perhaps this case will. The defendant was a land developer with more than 30 years
experience. He was the chief executive officer of a publically traded company with 240 employees, 2,000 ...

Case held that a finding of excessive force does not entitle the victim to compensatory damages as a matter of law.

Considering that the number of cases involving claims for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 seems to be
rising each week (there were more than a dozen such cases ...

In footnote 3 on page 222 the Court noted the following:

Application Note 1 was amended, effective November 1, 1997, to substitute the following for the concluding sentence [which required the Government to prove each of the elements of perjury by "a higher standard than a preponderance of evidence"]:

In ...

This case sheds some light on one frequently misapplied provision of the Guidelines - namely U.S.S.G.
§ 3C1.1 - a provision which permits the imposition of a two-level sentence enhancement where the
defendant has engaged in “obstruction of justice.” The defendant pled guilty to drug possession and
conspiracy charges stemming ...

Maybe they just felt sorry for the defendant. After all, he had been ripped off big-time by two big-time
lawyers. Maybe they just felt that the Government had gone too far this time. After all, a major element
of the Government’s latest sting operation involved one of those lawyers turning ...

Although the Court held that the vulnerable victim enhancement cannot be based solely on a victim's membership in a certain class, the enhancement does not require a finding that the defendant targeted his victim because of his vulnerability; and a single vulnerable victim is sufficient to support the enhancement.

Addressing ...

Over a strong dissent from Judge Dennis, the Court held that a police officer who knowingly and wantonly fired his .357 magnum at a family van containing two innocent children was entitled to qualified immunity.

The opening words of Judge Dennis’ dissent in this disgraceful civil rights suit for damages ...

Here the court addressed the overlapping scope of, and the difference bwteen, the vulnerable victims enhancement set forth in U.S.S.G. § 2F1.1(b)(2)(B) and the language in the Senior Citizens Against Marketing Scams Act - and it ultimately concluded that the district court had erred by attempting to distinguish the multiple ...

Case explored the six requirements that must exist before a state is eligible to qualify for the truncated review provisions of the "op-in" provisions of the AEDPA.

Maybe they just felt sorry for the defendant. After all, he had been ripped off big-time by two big-time
lawyers. Maybe they just felt that the Government had gone too far this time. After all, a major element
of the Government’s latest sting operation involved one of those lawyers turning ...

In this case a large number of drug sales were at issue, there was evidence befoire the court about the typical purity of the drug in question, and a sample of six undercover purchases was used as a baseline for calculations supported by substantial corroborating evidence.

Based on that evidence, ...

QUOTE OF THE WEEK - Some observations on the mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

"[T]he mandatory sentencing laws . . . have brought about such relative inflexibility with respect to sentencing that, once the charges are fixed, the judicial contribution is in a substantial proportion of the cases largely ministerial. . ...

In this case the defendant was convicted of attempted money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(3)(B). On appeal, one of the issues raised was that the district court had erred by not taking judicial notice of the contents of 31 C.F.R. § 103 - which governs the filing ...

If the Hobbs Act doesn’t raise any concerns about the inexorable expansion of Federal intervention into
our daily lives, perhaps this case will. The defendant was a land developer with more than 30 years
experience. He was the chief executive officer of a publically traded company with 240 employees, 2,000 ...

Case held that the BOP Program Statement No. 5162.02, which treats certain offenses as "violent" for purposes of disqualifying a prisoner from eligibility under the Drug Treatment Program, was overly broad. However, the Court still held that the petitioner was not qualified for early release under the Program - because ...

Court held that a statement in the presentence report that the Court "may consider" an upward departure in the fines that could be levied constituted adequate notice of the departure to the defendant.

United States v. Drinkwine, 133 F.3d 203 (2nd Cir. 1998) (Judge Van Graafeiland)
United States v. Garrison, 133 F.3d 831 (11th Cir. 1998) (Judge Birch)

Both of these cases deal with the law relating to the imposition of fines. In Drinkwine, the defendant was ordered to pay restitution in the ...

In this case, the defendant had been sentenced to two consecutive terms, one for a drug trafficking conviction and one for a §924(c) conviction. After the defendant successfully challenged his §924(c) conviction under Bailey, the district court resentenced him and added a 2-level enhancement to his
underlying drug conviction. The ...

This case described some of the purposes and limitations of the SCAMS Act as follows:

"The foci of the vulnerable victim enhancement and the SCAMS Act differ on two key dimensions. The SCAMS Act is directed toward criminal telemarketing conduct targeted at or actually victimizing a certain class of individuals, ...

In this case the Court held that the Hobbs Act prohibits interference with interstate commerce through either robbery or extortion, and because extortion does not necessarily involve violence, not all crimes under the Hobbs Act need be violent.

As a prelude to this case, it should be noted that, by 1991, there were more than 100 separate Federal
mandatory minimum statutes (see, U.S. v. Spencer, 25 F.3d 1105, 1112 (D.C.Cir. 1994)). In large part,
the application of those statutes depends not on the facts of the case but ...

The opening words of Judge Dennis’ dissent in this disgraceful civil rights suit for damages are all that are
needed to understand the import of this case - and how far the law will sometimes go to protect
intemperate gun-toting law enforcement agents who prowl the streets looking for targets ...