Posts

It seems the Supreme Court is trying to clear its plate this week to make room for its late-term blockbuster cases. Yesterday, the Court issued four opinions, including one of the term’s two dog sniff decisions. Today, the justices topped the Tuesday tally with five additional opinions. While we’re still waiting on big decisions from early arguments like Fisher v. University of Texas, the Court shared plenty of thoughts on court errors during trial....

District court’s sentencing of a defendant to 180 months’ imprisonment, convicted of knowingly possessing a firearm after having been convicted of a misdemeanor crime, is reversed and remanded where the court erred in determining that defendant was an armed career criminal, as the government failed to prove up defendant’s convictions before he would be subject to the enhancement issue. Accordingly, district court is directed to resentence defendant based on the record already before it....

Conviction and sentence for drug crimes is affirmed where: 1) the district court did not err in denying defendant’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to explain that the application of the U.S.S.G. section 2D1.1(b)(1) sentencing enhancement required proof of a connection between the firearm and the narcotics offense, as trial counsel’s actions in explaining the government’s evidentiary burden did not fall below an objective standard of reasonableness; and 2) defendant could not show that had he gone to trial his challenge to the inclusion of the enhancement would have succeeded....

Defendant’s mail fraud sentence is affirmed where the District Court correctly held that it was precluded from considering evidence of Defendant’s post-sentencing rehabilitation in determining whether it would have imposed the same sentence had it known the Sentencing Guidelines were advisory. (Amended opinion) Read US v. Medina-Villa, No. 07-50396 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted February 3, 2009 Filed May 28, 2009 Amended June 23, 2009 Judges Before: Harry Pregerson, Susan P....

White-collar criminals present a unique sentencing challenge. Unlike most thieves, the criminals behind securities fraud and embezzlement are unlikely to become repeat offenders. After all, is a CEO going to be rehired by another company after an Enron-esque scandal? Then again, whereas a mugger might rob one person, a crooked CEO can, with one conspiracy, harm hundreds of victims. Two cases decided today illustrate the difficulties inherent in white-collar sentencing:...

When the cryptocurrency exchange FTX secretly transferred $10 billion in client funds to its sister trading firm Alameda Research, FTX stopped being able to cover customer withdrawals. Soon after, both companies filed for bankruptcy protection. As the companies attempt to reorganize their business affairs in bankruptcy court, FTX’s clients are asking, “Will I get my money back?” The short answer: Probably not. The Long Answer FTX estimates that the company may have more than 1 million creditors, whose ranks include everyday account holders who can’t access their money due to the financial fiasco....

The Supreme Court’s three justices from Yale made the trip back to New Haven, Connecticut, on Saturday to receive the school’s Award of Merit. The event was especially sweet for Justice Clarence Thomas, who for a long time has had a cold, estranged relationship with his alma mater. He remarked that the event was “far more special to me than at the time of my graduation.” But the event wasn’t just a look into the life of Clarence Thomas....

This post was updated on December 13, 2022. The common knowledge surrounding divorce is that you not only lose your spouse, but half of everything you own as well. As it turns out, you might only lose half of everything both you and your spouse own collectively, and even that could depend on what state you live in. While some states divide all marital property equally upon divorce, others follow rules of “equitable distribution,” meaning it’s more likely that a spouse will leave the marriage with all of the assets or property that he or she acquired during it....

Jerry Seinfeld is still working during the pandemic. His new Netflix stand-up special, taped last year, just released. He is appearing on talk shows from his home in Long Island. However, he has given hints that his popular show, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, may be over. Seinfeld might be less incentivized to quit the show, however, after the Second Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the famous comedian in a lawsuit over who first had the idea....

Transcript Panel 1: A round, green character holds its phone possessively and looks unhappily at a hand protruding toward it from the right. Around the hand, in between the hand and the character are the words “gimme,” “phone,” and “hand it over.” A speech bubble coming out of the character includes the title “Can my school take my phone?” by Maddy Buck. Panel 2: Four round characters stand on a black line, all holding cell phones....

In US v. Barnhart, No. 07-2729, the Seventh Circuit faced a challenge to a conviction for wire fraud involving a fraud of a former employer and a fraudulent scheme to obtain $500,000 from a bank. In affirming the conviction, the court held that although the district judge’s questioning of the witnesses during defendant’s trial went too far, it did not prejudice defendant’s substantial rights given the overwhelming evidence of defendant’s guilt....

Federal Rule of Evidence 1002, better known as the “best evidence rule,” states that a party seeking to prove the content of a writing, recording, or photograph must produce the original unless an exception applies. Further, Rule 1001(d) provides that, for electronically stored information, an “original” means a printout or other visually-readable output that “accurately reflects the information.” Screenshots are a common way to save and share a visual copy of messages we receive....

If you fly regularly, you have encountered the great syntax mystery of air travel: why do flight attendants demand that we “stow all electronics in the off position,” instead of telling us to “turn off” or “power down” our gadgets? It’s like asking someone to “instruct me in the ways of thy Douglas” instead of “teach me how to Dougie.” And it’s weird. While debating this question, you may have also wondered if the airlines have similar obligations....

Supreme Court litigants rarely obtain celebrity status after decisions are rendered. Norma McCorvey, better known as Jane Roe, is probably the most famous former litigant because she switched sides and became a pro-life advocate in 1995. Most people don’t know that Brown v. Board of Education plaintiff Oliver Brown was a welder, or that Ernesto Miranda died after a bar fight. Winners typically slip from their Supreme Court victories back into their normal lives....

In a move straight out of a science fiction movie, news broke earlier this month that the state governments of Utah, Vermont, and Washington scanned millions of driver’s license photos for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Facial recognition technology has been on the scene for several years now. But this appears to be the first time that states allowed ICE access to driver’s license photos without the license holders’ consent. Those three states allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses....

Is there going to be a new tax applied to transactions involving digital payment platforms like PayPal and Venmo? That question has been circulating recently in social-media circles, and the answer is no. People who use these digital wallets won’t have to pay an additional tax on money they receive. They’ll just be facing new requirements to pay taxes that they may have grown accustomed to ignoring. New income-reporting rules are slated to go into effect next year, and it appears that they will affect most people who use these peer-to-peer (P2P) payment platforms for their businesses or freelance gigs....

Should a chief circuit judge lose his post for sending a racist email? Last month, Richard Cebull, the chief district judge in Montana, forwarded a racist joke about President Barack Obama and his mother from his official government email address to six friends. Several forwards later, the “joke” found its way into a reporter’s inbox. Judge Cebull apologized, and asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to review whether his actions qualify as judicial misconduct....

President Obama nominated Judge Jacqueline Nguyen to serve on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this week. Nguyen has served as a U.S. District Judge in the Central District of California in Los Angeles since 2009. She was a Los Angeles Superior Court judge before migrating to the federal bench. Originally from Dalat, Vietnam, Judge Nguyen received her AB from Occidental College in 1987, and her JD from UCLA School of Law in 1991....

A stunning piece of legislation out of California requires all presidential candidates to have disclosed their taxes in order to be included on the primary ballot. If the legislative move sounds familiar, that’s because the California legislature did it once before in 2017, but Governor Jerry Brown vetoed that effort, claiming it would be unconstitutional. However, now that Gavin Newsom is the governor, the chances of this bill being signed into law are much higher, as Newsom has been an outspoken advocate for governmental transparency....

In US v. Stout, No. 08-6025, the Sixth Circuit faced a challenge to the district court’s imposition of a 300 month sentence on remand, on a defendant convicted of possessing and distributing both crack and powder cocaine. In rejecting defendant’s arguments that the district court erred in basing its relevant conduct finding on unreliable statements and that additional evidence of relevant conduct should not have been admissible because the district court was operating on limited remand, the court affirmed the sentence in holding that the original order remanding the case did not contain any language limiting the district court to the original record and the statements relied upon by the district court in determining defendant’s relevant conduct were supported by indicia of reliability....