One of the few bright spots in the Supreme Court’s criminal law cases over the past few years has been the resurgence in emphasis on the protections afforded by the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause. However, yesterday in a badly fractured 5-4 decision, the High Court took a step backwards, or maybe even sideways. The case…
Continue reading ›Federal crimes often involve questions about whether a person “possesses” an item. The concept of “constructive possession” allows a jury to convict a Defendant if he or she does not have actual possession, but has the power and intention to take control of the item at a later point. The United States Court of Appeals…
Continue reading ›Our beloved Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, just down the street here in Atlanta, recently refused to join the ever-growing chorus of other courts that permit expert witness testimony to illuminate the real shortcomings in eyewitness identifications. A 30-year old ruling in the 11th Circuit said that the Court of Appeals can never overrule a…
Continue reading ›Yesterday, I concluded my case where we represented the Defendant in what seems to be the very first federal criminal prosecution for selling the prescription drug “Adderall”. Early in the case, the prosecutor (and the probation officer) argued that the Sentencing Guidelines for this crime exceeded 10 years. Later, we got them down to 57-71…
Continue reading ›The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution includes the well-known protection against double jeopardy. Some lawyers and lay people might not realize that there is sort of a “little brother” to the protection against double jeopardy, which is called the rule of “collateral estoppel.” The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, down…
Continue reading ›A few hours ago the Atlanta-based United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed a former county attorney’s mail fraud and money laundering convictions based on a “material variance” between the allegations in the indictment and the proof at trial. The money laundering charges were based on the underlying fraud case, so these…
Continue reading ›Earlier this morning the United States Supreme Court issued a unanimous 9-0 decision, holding that the police engaged in a Fourth Amendment “search” when, without the benefit of a valid warrant, they put a GPS tracking device on a suspect’s vehicle. The case is Jones v. United States. This is potentially a huge ruling that…
Continue reading ›Today, by a 7-2 vote, the United States Supreme Court sided with a man on Alabama’s death row. The Supreme Court overturned a decision where the Eleventh Circuit held that a death-row inmate should lose his ability to challenge his conviction just because the mail containing an order never got to the out-of-state attorneys then…
Continue reading ›The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, siting here in Atlanta, reversed a federal tax conviction today because the judge impermissibly participated in plea discussions with the Defendant. The case is United States v. Davila. The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure make it crystal clear that while the prosecutor and defense attorney…
Continue reading ›In a case arising out of south Florida and its proximity with Cuba, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently affirmed parts of a case involving a plan to smuggle potential baseball players into the United States. Besides being an interesting view into the modern methods of stocking a Major League…
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