This habeas decision will probably not long be remembered for its holding: it was so fact-specific that it will have little, if any, precedential value. But the case will certainly be remembered for two other reasons: First, for the first time in our memory, Justice Rehnquist voted in favor of ...

In this case, the Supreme Court set some loose limits on the growing state practice of keeping sexual predators in extended civil confinement after their criminal sentences expire - holding that a state must show that a sexual offender lacks some ability to control his violent behavior to justify confining ...

Here the Court reversed a district court decision and held that a felon convicted or rape does not have a constitutional right to have access to, and to test, DNA evidence used at his trial, simply because he contends the new tests would exonerate him.

In 1990, the plaintiff in ...

This is a case that shows the importance of staying on top of the inordinately complex rules that often apply when district courts attempt to use “relevant conduct” and uncharged crimes as a means of enhancing sentences. The defendants in this case were members of a labor coalition known as ...

Once again, Judge Gertner of the D.Mass. has firmly rejected a Government attempt to allow it to seize virtual control over the sentencing process - here by attempting to engineer a dramatically increased sentence based on facts which, she concluded, bore “little relation to the allegations in the indictment, the ...

Once again Judge Gertner has presented a noteworthy analysis of an important sentencing issue. In this Sentencing Memorandum she gave a detailed explanation of some of the principles and parameters behind sentencing departures based on U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3. That section, entitled “Adequacy of Criminal History Category,” permits a sentencing judge ...