Defendant's 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion was held to be timely under § 2255 (3).

In this case, the defendant Valdez filed a post conviction petition for relief that the district court construed as a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion and dismissed as untimely. On appeal the court held that ...

The defendant in this case was charged with various acts of child molestation. The first issue raised on this appeal is whether Judge Kocoras abused his discretion when he admitted the testimony of the
prosecution's FBI expert on child molesters. Before trial, the government filed a notice of its intent ...

QUOTE OF THE WEEK - The hazards of the elastic conspiracy net in our criminal laws.

Judge Learned Hand once described the conspiracy laws of our country as "the darling of the modern prosecutor's nursery." Harrison v. United States, 7 F.2d 259, 263 (2nd Cir. 1925). Years later, Judge Friendly ...

In 1997, the district court in New Mexico adopted a new policy for handling cases, under which a different judge from Albuquerque sits in the court house in Las Cruces each month. Because of that rotating assignment system, four different judges from the District of New Mexico ruled on various ...

Although it is difficult at times to fathom the real message from this decision, it is a potentially significant decision because it may well reflect a growing judicial disenchantment with the routine and almost blasé manner in which so many defendants are sentenced under the harsh crack-cocaine sentencing laws. In ...

In this case Judge Gertner granted a significant downward departure based on aberrant conduct to a defendant who suffered from a gambling compulsion and fell prey to the wiles of a loanshark who offered a means to wipe out his debt.

The Court stated: "I do not suggest that Iaconetti's ...

In her analysis of the scope of § 5K1.13, Judge Gertner observed: " Broader than U.S.S.G. § 5H1.3, U.S.S.G. § 5K2.13 explicitly "encourages" a departure for a mental condition that reduces the mental capacity of a non violent offender.

For a claim of diminished capacity, attributable to compulsive gambling, to ...

Although it is difficult at times to fathom the real message from this decision, it is a potentially significant decision because it may well reflect a growing judicial disenchantment with the routine and almost blasé manner in which so many defendants are sentenced under the harsh crack-cocaine sentencing laws. In ...

In this case the Second Circuit held that the calculation of a fraud defendant's offense level under Section 2F.1 of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines may be based on "intended loss" even if no "actual loss" was possible in view of the fact that the supposed victim of the fraud was ...

Here the Court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to reduce the defendant's term of supervised release, even though it was clear that he had spent extra time in jail due to an acknowledged sentencing miscalculation.

In this appeal, the defendant argued that the ...

The Court stated that " Historically, conditions of supervised release, and drug testing among them, have not been regarded as punishment, but instead as means to further the deterrent, protective, and rehabilitative goals of sentencing. . . . The drug testing condition does not serve one of the traditional aims ...

Here the Court held that the trial court abused its discretion by failing to sever the trial of two defendants, where the codefendant presented a mutually exclusive defense and improper evidence that was improperly elicited.

In its decision the Court rejected the Government's claim that the Supreme Court's holding in ...

Here the Court rejected defendant's contention that his sentence should not have been enhanced for obstruction of justice because he did not find out he was under investigation until after the obstructive conduct occurred.

The Court stated: "It is clear, however, that a defendant need not know that he is ...

In this case, relying on United States v. Fleming, 594 F.2d 598 (7th Cir. 1979), the defendant contended that his statement to a detective was not admissible under Rule 801(d)(2) as an admission by a party-opponent because it was not inculpatory. That Rule provides that admissions by a party-opponent do ...

Here, affirming that the granting of use immunity to a witness is an executive, not a judicial, function, the Court denied the defendant's request for an order compelling such immunity, explaining the limited circumstances under which a court may act.

In this case the Court affirmed a district court ruling ...

Here the Court held that the mandatory restitution statute for sex offense crimes (18 USC § 2259) authorizes the courts to impose restitution obligations to cover future medical and counseling services and that the statute is phrased in generous terms.

In this case the defendant objected to the imposition of ...

Here the Court held that in order to determine the appropriate sentence for a member of a conspiracy the court must make an individualized assessment of the defendant's agreement with the conspiracy.

In this case, the defendant was convicted of conspiracy to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine in ...

In 1992, largely in response to a previous Third Circuit decision (U.S. v. Kopp, 951 F.2d 521 (3rd Cir. 1991)), the Sentencing Commission amended U.S.S.G. § 2F1.1 to provide that “loss” in fraud and deceit cases “does not . . . include interest the victim could have earned on such ...

At one point in this decision, Judge Goodwin observed that “[n]o appellate court has addressed the issue of whether assistance rendered by a third party may justify a substantial assistance motion.” (Id., at 589). The dearth of reported cases may not accurately reflect the prevalence of this practice; and the ...

The principal issue addressed in this case was the ever-expanding scope of conspiracy liability for a defendant whose sole involvement consisted of buying drugs from another member of the conspiracy. Sixteen defendants were charged with a conspiracy to possess and distribute both powder cocaine and crack cocaine in violation of ...

This is an unusually broad decision in which the Tenth Circuit remanded a case back to the district court for a determination as to whether the failure to appoint an interpreter under the Court Interpreters Act (28 U.S.C. § 1827) (CIA) rendered the defendant’s trial fundamentally unfair. The CIA provides ...