The defendant in this case challenged the district court's refusal to hold a Daubert hearing [Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 589, 125 L. Ed. 2d 469, 113 S. Ct. 2786 (1993)] on the science and reliability of the methods used to collect some latent fingerprint evidence ...

Here the Court rejected a series of constitutional challenges to the Witness Tampering Act (18 U.S.C. § 1512) by the defendant who argued that the failure to include a mens rea requirement in the statute rendered it void for vagueness.

In this case the Court rejected a series of constitutional ...

This case is noted for its thorough analysis of a number of questions relating to a defendant’s right to challenge the validity of a foreign conviction that serves as the predicate offense for a charge of unlawful possession of a gun by a felon.

This decision explores a number of ...

This decision addresses one of those classic conflicts between two inconsistent provisions of Federal sentencing law, namely 18 U.S.C. §§ 3561(a)(1) and 3553(e). Section 3561(a)(1) [and U.S.S.G. § 5B1.1(b)(1)] provide that a sentence of probation may not be imposed in a case where the defendant has been convicted of a ...

The defendant in this case, James Zillgitt, was convicted at trial of one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846. The district court (Judge Scullin of the N.D.N.Y.) set Zillgitt’s base offense level at 28 as a result of its ...

According to statistics released on April 2, 2002 by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the growth rate of America’s prison population has slowed to 4.4% - the lowest annual growth rate since 1979. As with most Government statistics, those figures don’t tell the whole story. Most of the decline was ...

This is an interesting case principally because it contains one of the most comprehensive judicial discussions that we have ever seen regarding the parameters that should apply to the Government’s use of a “stun belt” on a defendant during a trial - as well as some very forceful language that ...