Obstruction of justice Guideline (USSG § 3C1.1) does not require that perjury forming basis for obstruction enhancement bear some relation to the offense of conviction; it is sufficient if perjury occurred during a hearing related to that offense.

The defendant in this case appealed from the imposition of a two-level ...

In this case, a unanimous Supreme Court held that convicted felons could not go to the Federal courts to seek restoration of their gun rights once Congress had blocked the funding needed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to investigate whether there were valid reasons to lift ...

Here the Court rejected, on procedural grounds, District Judge Young’s invitation to consider whether the practice of “fact bargaining” at sentencing had “unduly and unconstitutionally” burdened the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury.

In this decision (Berthoff II), the First Circuit gingerly squirmed through the minefield laid by ...

The principal message from this case is that the Guidelines “do not permit a downward departure for elderly defendants who are in good health.” (Id., at 22, n. 5.). Based principally on that premise, the D.C. Circuit held that the district court’s decision not to grant a downward departure to ...

The defendant in this case, an assistant branch manager of a bank, entered guilty pleas to bank theft and bank fraud charges after she took jewelry from safe deposit boxes and looted the account of an Alzheimer's patient. At sentencing, the district court granted a significant downward departure from a ...

The defendant in this case was found not guilty of kidnapping under 18 U.S.C.S. § 1201, but was convicted of interstate domestic violence, 18 U.S.C.S. § 2261(a)(1) and (b)(3), and unlawfully using or carrying a firearm during and in relation to the commission of a crime of violence, 18 U.S.C.S. ...

Here the Court reversed a downward departure in a child pornography case, holding that the district court had relied on factors that were either prohibited, discouraged or inadequately explained to take the case out of the Guidelines "heartland".

The defendant in this case was convicted of possession and distribution of ...

Here, in carrying out a “prank” designed to convince the police from the neighboring Montgomery County to be more receptive to transfers of custody when a detainee was subject to outstanding warrants in that county, the police from Prince George’s County handcuffed a pretrial detainee to a metal pole in ...

Here the Court held that while the President, “logically and legally,” has to right to designate and detain a U.S. citizen as an enemy combatant, the defendant also has the right to legal counsel to challenge the allegations against him in court.

The petitioner in this case, Jose Padilla, a ...

Although a drug conspiracy alleged in an indictment did not specify the quantity of cocaine and cocaine base, sentences did not trigger Apprendi because drug type and quantity attributed did not affect the statutory maximum.

The four defendants on this case were found guilty of conspiring to distribute and to ...

Earlier this year, Judge Rakoff of the S.D.N.Y. issued two landmark decisions in which he held that the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 (18 U.S.C. §§ 3591-3598) (FDPA) was facially unconstitutional. First, in U.S. v. Quiones, 196 F.Supp.2d 416 (S.D.N.Y. 2002) (“Quinones I”), he declared his tentative decision to ...

Somehow, the Supreme Court has managed to avoid getting embroiled in the never-ending political debate over the scope and meaning of the Second Amendment. It’s most recent pronouncement on that topic was its brief and somewhat cryptic decision in 1939, U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939). However, as the ...