Quote from an article in the Buffalo Criminal Law Review by two law professors who strongly criticized the Guidelines' as "disfunctional" due to their failure to achieve "honest, wise or equal sentences".

QUOTE OF THE WEEK - Is anyone out there listening?

“It is hard to know where to begin ...

In this case the Eighth Circuit affirmed a prison sentence of 262 months (21 years and ten months) imposed on a 21-year old Mexican citizen for a drug crime. The defendant’s only prior criminal record related to his failure to have a proper driver’s license. The brief decision is both ...

The defendant in this case was serving time in a State prison on a drug charge when the INS, during a “routine screening of inmates,” discovered that he had previously been deported. Twenty-one months later, the INS filed a complaint charging that he had illegally reentered the United States in ...

In this case the defendant originally pled guilty to a charge of theft of Government property and he was sentenced to a term of two years probation. The decision does not disclose the statute under which that conviction was obtained, so there was no way to verify the defendant’s unchallenged ...

As stated by Judge Lynch, in her dissent: "[This] the case has great constitutional and societal significance . . . . [I]t is an important one, not just for the development of Fourth Amendment law, but also for the quality of life in urban areas and the protection of individual ...

In this case, the defendant was convicted in 1996 in a State court for possession of cocaine; and the court imposed a sentence of five years, which was then suspended and probated for five years. After he was deported, he illegally returned to the United States and, when he was ...

In this case, the district court sus sponte reduced the sentence of four of the defendants, who were called "regents" of a drug gang, under the provisions of U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2(b) on the ground that they were "minor" participants in relation to some of the other defendants who were "governors" ...

This consolidated appeal involved two different bank robberies (both of which involved a common defendant, Courtney Butler) and two different issues - both relating to the use of the two level enhancement for using a minor to commit a crime pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 3B1.4 at sentencing. In a detailed ...

This case is noted for its detailed review of the issue of whether a district court is required to comply with a jury's request in a criminal trial for a definition of the term "reasonable doubt." By an equally divided vote, the en banc court affirmed the district court's decision ...

In this important decision, which has so far escaped the notice of most commentators, a divided Supreme Court addressed an important issue dealing with the use of impeachment evidence under Fed.R.Evid. 609(a)(1). That Rule permits the Government to use evidence of a defendant’s prior convictions, as impeachment evidence, if the ...

In this case, the Supreme Court continued its recent selective and highly unpredictable confrontation with Congress over the boundaries of Federal authority. Here, a unanimous Court held that the Federal arson statute (18 U.S.C. § 844(i) does not cover owner-occupied private residences which are not used for any commercial purposes. ...