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David Michael Craig sounds like a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad person. Let’s qualify that. Craig pleaded guilty to four counts of producing child pornography. He produced those images by photographing his repeated sexual assaults on a friend of his daughter’s. He obtained additional images of her by threatening to kill her unless she photographed herself in sexually explicit poses and emailed him the images. The abuses began when she was 11 years old and continued until she was 14....

In plaintiffs’ section 1983 action arising from a search of their home and arrests for contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, resisting arrest and battery of a law enforcement officer, district court’s judgment is affirmed where: 1) summary judgment for defendants was appropriate as plaintiffs failed to establish that any statement in an affidavit in support of a search warrant was an intentional or reckless misrepresentation or omission; 2) because there was probable cause for the search warrant, plaintiffs’ argument that their arrests were illegal fails; and 3) district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the earlier portion of the police activity recordings as it would have confused the jury on the issue of excessive force....

Defendant’s firearm possession sentence is vacated where the district court did not have the benefit of the Supreme Court’s decision in Chambers v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 687 (2009), which cast doubt as to whether defendant’s conviction under 28 U.S.C. section 751(a) was a crime of violence. Read US v. Charles, No. 08-3212 Appellate Information Filed August 11, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Henry Counsel For Appellant: Cyd K. Gilman, Federal Public Defender, State of Kansas, Topeka, KS...

Defendant’s sentence for illegal reentry of a removed alien is affirmed where a Colorado conviction for attempted sexual assault on a child was a “crime of violence” under the Sentencing Guidelines that warranted a sixteen-level sentencing enhancement. Read US v. De La Cruz-Garcia, No. 08-2298 Appellate Information Filed January 5, 2010 Judges Opinion by Judge Lucero Counsel For Appellant: Scott M. Davidson, Scott M. Davidson, Ph.D., Esq., LLC, Albuquerque, NM...

Conviction and sentence for drug crimes is affirmed where: 1) defendant’s claim under the Speedy Trial Act is waived as defendant failed to move for dismissal and thus did not preserve his claim for appellate review; 2) a twenty-month delay between indictment and trial did not violate defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial as the circumstances of the delay fell short of establishing a Sixth Amendment violation; and 3) the court did not err in disqualifying defendant’s attorney....

Many of the most essential jobs in the United States, those that involve natural resources extraction and refining, moving goods, or construction, involve some element of danger. Unfortunately, according to the latest federal government data, thousands of workers are still killed every year here. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 5,250 workers died on the job in 2018. That was a slight uptick from 2017, but it is the highest amount of worker deaths since 2008....

Pleading not guilty in federal court is risky, as federal prosecutors have turned negotiating plea agreements into an art form. Defendants who take their chances at trial are often given lengthier sentences for failing to cooperate if convicted. But what about a defendant who pleads guilty without entering a plea agreement? The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals recently took this matter of first impression up in United States v. Cozad. They held that under federal law, a district court cannot impose a harsher sentence based solely on a defendant’s decision to plead guilty without a plea agreement....

A pair of wine collectors caught up in a Ponzi scheme got some disappointing news from the 10th Circuit last week: Their insurance policy doesn’t cover bottles of wine that were never delivered. Wine Scheme Defrauds Thousands of Customers Fine wine purchasers Malik and Seeme Hasan placed orders with John Fox, president of wine merchant Premier Cru, for roughly 15 years before Fox pled guilty to wire fraud – admitting that he had been running a Ponzi scheme....

The Supreme Court’s November sitting starts in October this year. That’s the beauty of being a Supreme Court justice; you can make your own rules and naming conventions. Without a federal holiday to schedule around, the Nine have a full schedule for the sitting beginning on October 29, (as it’s more-properly identified). The 12 cases on the November hearing schedule are: Monday, Oct. 29: Clapper v. Amnesty International USA – Does Amnesty International have Article III standing to challenge secret surveillance statutes?...

It seems that every so often, some wanted criminal gets the brilliant idea to post on social media in response to law enforcement posting their Wild West style wanted poster. And comically, so it seems, these wanted commenting criminals end up getting busted because of their comments on social media. It just recently happened again when a Pennsylvania woman taunted police in response to her wanted poster being posted on the police’s Facebook page....

In an action under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act and 42 U.S.C. section 1983 based on the alleged maltreatment of an autistic student by defendant school district, dismissal of the complaint is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff failed to timely request a due process hearing prior to his transfer to another district; and 2) the complaint failed to identify an unconstitutional district policy or custom that caused the alleged injuries....

An overburdened federal judiciary is requesting 79 new federal judgeships across the country even as courts begin to tackle the backlog of litigation arising from the pandemic. On Tuesday, March 16, the Judicial Conference of the United States recommended to Congress that it create as many as a dozen new positions in Texas and 11 in Florida, among others. It also recommended adding two judgeships on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals....

The federal judiciary is getting an extra $41 million to beef up security as part of the $1.5 trillion measure recently passed by Congress. Part of the latest omnibus spending bill (H.R. 2471), the budget sets aside $704.8 million for court security. That’s an increase of around 6% from last year’s budget dedicated to addressing heightened concerns about judges’ safety. Judiciary Requests More Security Funds Last month, the United States Judicial Conference (the national policy-making body for the federal courts) sent a letter to lawmakers requesting $515....

In an ERISA action seeking disability benefits, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed in part where, if an employer contributes to any employee’s payment of premiums, ERISA must apply to the entirety of the particular insurance program, regardless of whether one or more employees pays his own premiums in full; but reversed in part, where defendant did not engage in a deliberate and principled reasoning process in denying plaintiff’s claim....

Throughout the history of the United States Supreme Court, of the 113 SCOTUS justices that have served, according to CNN’s number-crunching, there have only been six justices that were not white men. Of those six justices, four are still on the Court today. The two who are no longer on the Court are Thurgood Marshall and Sandra Day O’Connor. Sadly, the last few nominees have not helped the Court achieve more diversity, which would undoubtedly be helpful to the constant goal of inspiring the public’s confidence and trust in the judicial system....

In multidistrict mass tort litigation concerning appetite suppressant drugs commonly known as fen-phen, district court’s final award of attorneys’ fees entered on behalf of class counsel is affirmed where: 1) the fee proceedings were amply transparent under the jurisdiction’s precedent; 2) given the duration of the litigation and the extraordinary efforts of class counsel, the amount of award, although extraordinarily large, is not excessive in this extraordinary case; and 3) while there are some reservations regarding the allocation of the assessments between the downstream opt-out claimants and the initial opt-out and the primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH) claimants, the district court did not abuse its discretion in apportioning the award as it did....

Jacoby & Meyers LLP won a Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruling Wednesday, reinstating its legal attack on a New York rule barring non-lawyers from owning an interest in law firms, Bloomberg reports. The order modifies a previous ruling from the court, which permitted the firm to amend its complaint to include additional state defendants, and challenges to New York Judiciary Law §495 and LLC Law § 201. Last March, District Judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed the case, holding that the firm lacked standing since it hadn’t proved it had been harmed by the rule....

Some of the most enduring images of the COVID-19 pandemic will be the eerie sight of empty city streets. With many office workers stuck in their home offices all year, downtowns from New York City to Los Angeles have taken on a post-apocalyptic feeling. A silver lining has been that it’s been much faster to get somewhere — especially during rush hour — when you do need to leave the house....

Gun control is among the most controversial issues in the country, and New Jersey, taking the lead from other states, enacted a ban on large capacity magazines that hold more than 10 bullets. Fortunately for the state, both the federal district and appellate courts have agreed that the law does not clearly violate the Second, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment, such that a preliminary injunction stopping the enforcement of the ban would be justified....

Can a creditor’s lien be avoided under 11 U.S.C. § 506(d) solely on the ground that the creditor’s proof of claim has been disallowed for untimeliness? The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals says no. Gary and Elizabeth Shelton filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy petition on September 21, 2010. The deadline for filing timely proofs of claim was January 25, 2011. CitiMortgage, which had a lien on the Sheltons’ home, did not file its proof of claim until August 22, 2011, almost seven months late....