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The United States Supreme Court chimed in this week to end the circuit split over the interpretation of the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act. The act requires individuals convicted of certain federal offenses to reimburse individuals who participate in the criminal investigation and prosecution for some reasonable costs related to the participation. However, recently, the Fifth Circuit held that a private lender that spearheaded a $4 million investigation after a company they worked with filed for bankruptcy was entitled to restitution for those costs....

In a petition for review of the BIA’s order removing petitioner from the U.S. based on his commission of a crime of moral turpitude, the petition is granted where indecent exposure under section 314 of the California Penal Code is not categorically a crime of moral turpitude. Read Nunez v. Holder, No. 06-70219 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted April 19, 2007 Filed February 10, 2010 Judges Opinion by Judge Reinhardt...

Be careful what you petition for. David Rhodes was convicted on drug-related charges in 1993, and sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment and ten years’ supervised release. In 2010, Rhodes filed a petition challenging the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ calculation of his sentence. The district court dismissed the petition as moot. Why? Because Rhodes was no longer in prison. Rhodes’ petition failed on redressability. Federal law allows a court to terminate a term of supervised release after one year, but Rhodes challenged the jail sentence he served in the past, not the supervised release he is currently serving....

A pair of closely watched tech cases which were expected to be taken up by SCOTUS have been denied certiorari. Both Facebook v. Powers and U.S. v. Nosal were expected to be taken up in order for the High Court to settle, once and for all, the question that has been killing legal scholars ever so softly: Is it a federal crime to share your Netflix password? The actual question that needs to be answered definitively is who has the authority to grant third party access to a user’s online service account: the user or the service provider?...

Bar pass rates declined by more than 20 percent for students from 35 law schools accredited by the American Bar Association between 2013 and 2017, according to the latest statistics. In a study of 203 ABA schools, about 20 percent saw pass rates fall anywhere from 10 to 20 percent. Analysts blame the decline on lower admission standards. They said the falloff in applicants with high LSAT scores was “particularly steep....

Do numerous consecutive sentences add up to the statutory maximum, if each prior sentence is revoked? Or does the court start the tally over, after each revocation? In U.S. v. Williams, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed the prison sentence of a woman who had been accused of bank robbery. The defendant claimed that her sentence exceeded the statutory maximum. During the course of her incarceration and supervised release, there had been several modifications made to the sentence, largely due to her failure to comply with the terms of her supervised release....

In a negligence class action involving the provision of contaminated lettuce to restaurant franchises, appeal following district court’s Rule 54(b) certification for immediate appeal is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction where the case does not present sufficient exigency as there is no danger or hardship in allowing it to take its ordinary course. Read Taco John’s of Huron, Inc. v. Bix Produce Co., LLC, No. 08-3432 Appellate InformationAppeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota....

For 19-year-old political hopeful David Krupa, Chicago-style politics aren’t something he’s afraid of. Krupa has filed a lawsuit against both the House Speaker, Michael Madigan, and his opponent, Alderman Marty Quinn, alleging the two have attempted to strongarm him out of the election. The lawsuit alleges that agents of Madigan and Quinn followed and threatened Krupa, telling him: “You’re a nice kid, but I’d hate to see something bad happen to you....

While Donald Trump campaigns to ‘make America great again,’ the Atlantic City casinos bearing his name have been doing anything but great. Trump casinos, hotels, and resorts have filed for bankruptcy no less than four times. The Trump Taj Mahal Casino first went into Chapter 11 in 1991, then again in September of 2014. That most recent bankruptcy led to a protracted battle with the casino’s union workers, who lost their bid to hold the Taj Mahal to its contracts last Friday, when the Third Circuit ruled that the bankruptcy code allowed debtors to escape their collective bargaining agreements....

In a False Claims Act action claiming that defendant-medical researcher made false statements in a grant application, plaintiffs’ appeal from summary judgment for defendants is dismissed where plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal more than 30 days after the district court’s summary judgment order. Read US ex rel. Haight v. Catholic Healthcare W., No. 07-16857 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted November 3, 2009 Filed February 4, 2010 Judges Opinion by Judge Graber...

It seems that the U.S. Supreme Court is not shying away from difficult questions. This term, the High Court has agreed to take up the Janus v. American Federation case which dismissed a constitutional challenge to a requirement for non-union members to pay “fair share” dues. As the law stands now, under Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, non-members can legally be required to pay “fair share” dues because the non-member employees also benefit from the union’s collective bargaining....

Ravi Ragbir, facing deportation, learned that freedom of speech is freedom indeed. Ragbir was scheduled to be deported following his convictions for wire fraud and conspiracy. He won repeated stays, however, and became an outspoken activist on immigration issues until his last stay expired. Frustrated immigration officials then deported him. In Ragbir v. Homan, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals said that’s not how the First Amendment works. First Amendment Technically, the Second Circuit blocked Ragbir’s deportation until at least January 2020 while he presses his claim that he was deported to stop his activism....

You’d have to imagine, at some point, that either Congress (ha!) or the Supreme Court will step in and clear up the confusion surrounding restitution for those depicted in child pornography, as well as the issue of joint and several liability of the present day possessors of the images. Though they’ve denied certiorari in Amy and Vicky cases before, the flood of circuit court confusion and circuit splintering continues. This isn’t the first time Amy and Vicky have reached the Ninth Circuit....

Burglary may not mean what you think it means. When Alfredo Huizar pleaded guilty to reentering the U.S. illegally after an earlier deportation, the district court held that Huizar’s 1995 California conviction for residential burglary qualified as a “crime of violence,” triggering a 16-level enhancement. On appeal, Huizar argues the enhancement wasn’t legally authorized and his sentence needs to be reconsidered. And the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals says that he is right....

Nikolas v. Omaha, No. 09-1679, concerned an action against the City of Omaha and its Planning Department Code Inspector, asserting federal constitutional claims under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 and an inverse condemnation claim under state law. The court of appeals affirmed summary judgment for defendant, on the grounds that 1) the practical effect of plaintiff’s argument – that neither the County nor the City had jurisdiction to take action against a serious health and safety hazard on his property – was contrary to manifest legislative intent; 2) the alleged littering was prohibited by the city ordinance at issue long prior to its occurrence; 3) if action taken pursuant to the ordinance violated Fourth Amendment warrant requirements, the resulting criminal prosecution may be tainted, but that does not render the authorizing statute unconstitutional; and 4) an inspector who was lawfully on the premises and who saw an apparent public health and safety violation from the exterior of a detached structure did not need a warrant before looking in the window to confirm or refute the apparent violation....

Last updated 11/15/2019 The Thanksgiving holiday week is upon us. You may be on the road, whether you’re driving to the in-laws to eat some turkey or to your friend’s house to watch the game. Just make sure you don’t let a Thanksgiving DUI ruin your holiday. While Thanksgiving may not be considered a heavy drinking day like New Year’s Eve or St. Patrick’s Day, most law enforcement agencies consider the Thanksgiving weekend to be one of the busiest for DUI enforcement....

The Eight Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to hold an en banc hearing on its October decision in favor of funeral protestors from the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church. The Eighth Circuit had previously ruled that the Missouri town of Manchester could not enforce a local ordinance banning protests near funerals. The town had adopted the ordinance in response to protests from the Westboro Baptist Church. Members of the notorious congregation have received national media coverage for protesting at soldier’s funerals with signs stating “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “Thank God for 9/11” because their deaths reportedly represent God’s punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality....

In September of last year, then-off-duty Dallas Police Officer Amber Guyger shot Botham Jean to death in his apartment. Guyger claimed she entered the wrong apartment, thinking it was hers, and mistook Jean for a burglar. Guyger was charged with manslaughter in Jean’s death, but a grand jury indicted her for murder. And this week, she was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Here’s a look at the conviction, and the controversial role, or lack thereof, of the “castle doctrine....

In a civil rights and wrongful death action involving the death of a prison inmate, district court’s grant of summary judgment for defendants is affirmed where: 1) the county’s booking policy at the time of plaintiff’s father’s murder was not unconstitutional; and 2) plaintiffs failed to show that the county’s decision to maintain the policy was made with deliberate indifference to its known or obvious consequences and that the county had any notice that its booking policy was so inadequate that a constitutional violation was inevitable....

To say Judge Boyce Martin of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals loathes the death penalty process is a gross understatement. The court’s vociferous liberal lion may be retiring, but he did anything but mince his words in Nicholas v. Heidle, his final capital case. Martin, 77, who often sported a bow tie in his more than three decades on the bench, concurred with the majority denying a death-row inmate’s habeas claim....