The United States District Court, Central District of California, denied defendant's petition for writ of habeas corpus, but granted a certificate of appealability as to two claims: (1) an alleged violation of his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process regarding jury coercion into rendering a guilty verdict; and (2) an ...

Here the Court rejected a claim that the district court had improperly added a new special condition of supervised release when it directed for the first time in its written judgment that the defendant must share in the cost of counseling services.

Because Rule 43 of the Fed.R.Crim.P. requires the ...

In this case, at the close of the Government's evidence in a drug case, the defendant moved for a judgment of acquittal on one of the counts in which the Government had sought forfeiture, pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 853, of all property derived from the defendant's alleged conspiracy to ...

Here the Court dismissed with prejudice a second indictment against the defendant, after ealier charges were dismissed for Speedy Trial Act violations, changing the Government's action encouraged irresponsible gamesmanship and eviscerated the Act.

Previously, in the instant drug prosecution, based on the government's violation of the Speedy Trial Act, the ...

The defendants in this case were charged by a 12-count indictment with violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA), 15 U.S.C.S. §§ 78dd-1 et seq. Defendants moved to dismiss the indictment under Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(b)(2).

The indictment alleged that defendants, as president and vice-president of ...

Here the court held that in sentencing for an embezzlement conviction, a downward departure was improper under U.S.S.G. § 5K2.13 (Diminished Capacity) where defendant's mental condition at the time of the offense was not adequately assessed.

The defendant in this case, Elizabeth Roach, embezzled more than $ 240,000 from her ...

Both of the defendants in this consolidated appeal were convicted long before Apprendi was decided and both pursued direct appeals in which they did not raise any Apprendi claims. Instead, both petitioners raised their Apprendi claims for the first time in their respective § 2241 habeas petitions. The respective district ...

The defendant in this case was charged with violating the provisions of Armed Career Criminal Act (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)) by possessing firearms on two separate occasions as a convicted felon. After he was convicted at trial, he appealed - arguing that the two-count indictment was multiplicitous because it charged ...

In this case, the plaintiff, a state inmate, was serving a sentence of 100 years to life plus 11 years. He wanted to artificially inseminate his wife because he was ineligible for family visits. When the prison warden denied him that right, the inmate sued defendant prison warden, in the ...

The defendant in this case argued that the government improperly referred to a prior arrest and prior conviction under the guise of impeachment and that the district court improperly admitted such evidence. While the Ninth Circuit generally agreed that the prosecutor had acted imroperly - probably egregiously so - the ...

Multiple appeals by nine defendants, from convictions and sentences for participation in a drug conspiracy, are denied except where lack of evidence of personal involvement and membership in a conspiracy, at the time of drug transactions, required dismissal of counts and vacating of life sentence against one defendant.

This decision is noted for its strong condemnation of the Government’s not uncommon practice of delaying the release of Brady materials to the defense until it is too late for the defense to examine and use them to its advantage at trial. The Second Circuit concluded that such tactics violated ...

Here’s the Government’s idea of the perfect recipe for prosecuting drug cases: (a) a drug-dealer turned cooperator with an extensive criminal background facing a lengthy sentence of his own; (b) an otherwise nondescript defendant with a 12-year old state conviction involving two grams of cocaine who had the misfortune of ...