Here the Court unanimously held drug sentences enhanced by judges with drug quantities not stated in the indictment may not be vacated where the defendant failed to raise any objections at sentencing and where the evidence of quantity was overwhelming.

Almost two years after the Supreme Court issued its landmark ...

In this case the district court ordered the Government to give notice of its intent to introduce evidence of other crimes and bad acts under Rule 404(b) at least 45 days prior to trial. The Government argued that Rule 404(b) notice thirty days prior to trial constitutes reasonable notice under ...

This case falls in the Ripley’s Believe-It-Or-Not category. Twice, Darrell Thomas has been tried in Federal court on drug conspiracy charges; and, on both occasions, he was convicted of conspiring with one Mable Jones and her associates to distribute crack cocaine. Miraculously, on both occasions, the Seventh Circuit reversed the ...

Here the Court held that the methodology undertaken by the Government's fingerprint expert, who was prepared to testify about matches of latent fingerprint evidence, met the Daubert standards for reliability.

In this case, the defendant, relying "exclusively" on the ruling in U.S. v. Plaza, 179 F.Supp.2d 492 (E.D.Pa. 2002) (which ...

The defendant in this case filed a motion to suppress statements made at his home and at the jail. The district court suppressed the statements made at defendant's home, but admitted the statements made at the jail. Defendant was convicted in the United States District Court for the District of ...

Here the Forth Circuit declined to grant en banc review of the decision previously reported at 278 F.3d 370, where the panel concluded that a felon convicted of rape did not have a constitutional right to DNA evidence that might exonerate him.

In this order, the Fourth Circuit declined to ...

In holding that a new sentence, five months longer that the sentence that the court had previously vacated, did not warrant relief based on a presumption of vindictiveness, the Court stated: "Even assuming, arguendo, that the circumstances would support a presumption of vindictiveness, Judge Curran articulated reasons for the increased ...

Here, despite agreeing that the Government had committed numerous, serious errors (including the failure to assure that expert testimony was reliable), the Court held they were harmless since they "more probably than not did not affect the verdict".

Reading this decision one is reminded of the Jabberwocky language used in ...

Here a sharply divided Supreme Court held that an indigent defendant has a right to court appointed counsel even in misdemeanor cases that result in a suspended sentence - a position that four Justices claimed would impose a large burden on many states.

In this case, a sharply divided Supreme ...

Here, on remand from the Supreme Court's decision, Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001), the Fifth Circuit granted habeas relief to the petitioner, agreeing now that there was no significant likelihood of the petitioner's removal in the foreseeable future.

Here, on remand from the Supreme Court's decision reported at ...

Here the Court held that the use of a verdict form that permitted the jury to find specific amounts of cocaine attributable to appellant, when the indictment was silent as to drug quantities, was not constructive amendment of the indictment in violation of the Fifth Amendment, and did not violate ...

Here the Court granted the petitioner's habeas petition, reversing inmate's conviction for rape where government's delay of over five years in bringing inmate to trial violated his right to a speedy trial.