The appeals court ruled that a restitution payment schedule is both a floor and a ceiling unless the sentencing judge specifies full payment is due at once.
The court held that the legal basis for a physician’s claim under Ruan v. United States was reasonably available when he pleaded guilty, defeating cause for procedural default in his Section 2255 case.
The panel affirmed in part, denied cross-appeals, and remanded after finding no due-process violation in the detective's charges and reducing a $250,000 punitive award against the officer to $12,000 based on the 4:1 ratio marker.
In United States v. Bolandian, the court held a trial judge's duty to investigate a juror's expressed doubts about impartiality cannot be waived by defense counsel's silence or agreement, ordering a new trial.
Over the dissent of five judges, the full court leaves in place a panel ruling that the Equal Access to Justice Act waives sovereign immunity for attorney fees in habeas challenges to immigration detention, with dissenting judges warning the decision conflicts with circuit precedent and invites abuse.
The appeals court said a trial judge appeared to apply the wrong Rule 403 framework when excluding prior-conviction evidence in a child-exploitation prosecution.
The panel said Jairo DeJesus was not entitled to acceptance-of-responsibility credit after trying to flee the country and later minimizing his culpability.
A published Sixth Circuit panel said officers had reasonable suspicion to search a Michigan house tied to a supervised releasee, rejecting both suppression arguments and a constitutional attack on the federal felon-in-possession law.
A Ninth Circuit panel dismissed Nevada's appeal from an order vacating Lamar Brown's felony conviction, saying the state could not unwind a later misdemeanor plea deal it had already secured.
A published Ninth Circuit panel held that murder-for-hire resulting in death is not categorically a crime of violence under the federal solicitation statute, requiring two convictions against James Terry Henrikson to be vacated.
A published panel said a distribution enhancement did not double count conduct already captured by the federal child pornography guideline.
The panel said a defendant challenging a firearm-related sentencing enhancement showed error over a marijuana-possession predicate, but not the kind of plain error needed to undo his 77-month sentence.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said a Suffolk County man collected more than $100,000 in Social Security disability benefits while posting weightlifting videos and advertising personal training work.
A D.C. federal judge refused to detain Ken Chiaen Chanlee before trial in a drug-trafficking case, finding release conditions could address prosecutors’ flight and safety concerns.
The justices reversed the Ninth Circuit and held that federal supervised release does not automatically extend when a defendant absconds.
The Eighth Circuit said officers lawfully stopped and searched Robert Lee Drayton Jr.'s car during a Cedar Rapids drug investigation, affirming the denial of his motion to suppress evidence tied to drug and firearm charges.
The panel said prosecutors needed only a preponderance showing that Keshon Baxter’s firearm possession fit a historical analogue, while a concurrence warned the circuit’s Section 922(g)(3) cases are drifting.
A published Fourth Circuit panel said a West Virginia marijuana-manufacturing conviction could count as a controlled substance offense under the sentencing guidelines despite the court's earlier Campbell ruling.
The panel affirmed a 15-year methamphetamine sentence, holding that the state-law label on an expungement does not decide whether a prior conviction counts under the federal Sentencing Guidelines.
The panel affirmed denials for two defendants seeking sentence cuts based on nonretroactive Section 924(c) amendments, applying the Supreme Court's new Rutherford ruling.
The U.S. Supreme Court asked the solicitor general to weigh in on two pending petitions and sent three cases back to federal appeals courts in a wide-ranging order list.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from a Supreme Court order barring an Indiana prisoner from future noncriminal in forma pauperis petitions, warning that the court's frequent-filer sanction is being applied too broadly to incarcerated litigants.
The U.S. Supreme Court said the Fourth Circuit failed to give proper AEDPA deference to a Maryland appellate ruling that rejected a convicted man's Brady materiality claim.
The justice dissented from the Supreme Court's refusal to hear a case asking when supervised-release violations can add prison time beyond the statutory maximum for the original crime.
Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Jackson, said the Supreme Court should have taken up James Skinner's case because his codefendant won relief over overlapping Brady evidence.
The Supreme Court ordered the Fifth Circuit to reconsider Grande Communications' dispute with UMG Recordings in light of the justices' Cox Communications ruling, while also issuing several other grant-vacate-remand orders.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari after Michael Lairy received relief from a prison term Justice Sonia Sotomayor said exceeded the lawful maximum by five years.
The U.S. Supreme Court vacated an Eleventh Circuit decision against Florida death row prisoner Gary Whitton, saying the appeals court relied on DNA evidence the trial jury never heard when assessing the effect of allegedly false informant testimony.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied review in a case asking it to reconsider United States v. Kagama, drawing a dissent from Justice Neil Gorsuch that attacked federal Indian-law plenary power doctrine.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied a recall motion in two pending Callais matters and appointed a Washington lawyer to argue a sentencing-guidelines deference issue in Beaird v. United States.
The Seventh Circuit affirmed a wire fraud and money laundering conviction, holding that using a defendant’s own discovery production as one circumstance to authenticate incriminating messages did not violate his right to testify.
The panel said a Southern District of Texas plea agreement did not block a later Central District of Illinois wire fraud conspiracy prosecution.
A Seventh Circuit panel held that a Southern District of Texas plea agreement with Babajide Adefusi bound only that U.S. Attorney's Office, leaving federal prosecutors in Illinois free to pursue a later wire fraud conspiracy case.
The panel said an Illinois trooper's motives could matter when a commercial-trucking inspection is used to justify a warrantless stop.
The justice concurred in denying certiorari but said a district court was wrong to think federal judges are barred from explaining the criminal burden of proof.
The justices said one act that violates both 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) and § 924(j) can support only one conviction absent clear congressional authorization.
A Washington, D.C., federal judge dismissed a pro se prisoner's sprawling civil rights case against the U.S. government, finding some allegations too insubstantial for federal jurisdiction and the rest too incoherent to proceed.
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously revived an ex post facto challenge to a federal restitution order, holding that Mandatory Victims Restitution Act restitution counts as criminal punishment.
The justices said AEDPA required deference to a Maryland court's finding that an undisclosed forensic report was not material to Charles Brandon Martin's conviction.
Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Jackson, said the Supreme Court should have reviewed James Skinner's bid for the same Brady relief his codefendant previously won.
The panel said a Massachusetts defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in Freenet Opennet requests that law enforcement received and logged through a peer-to-peer monitoring tool.
The panel told defense counsel to explain why Joseph Harris’ guilty plea, appeal waiver and potential appellate issues leave no arguable basis for relief before it rules on withdrawal.
The panel said evidence of force, fear and corroborating injuries supported the jury's verdict against Ellery Zephier Sr.
The D.C. Circuit affirmed convictions and prison terms for two men tied to a scheme that used cash bribes to slash D.C. business tax bills, finding any flaw in the bribery instructions harmless.
The U.S. Supreme Court stayed a Fifth Circuit order that had suspended 2023 FDA mifepristone dispensing changes, drawing dissents from Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito over emergency relief for the drug's manufacturers.
The panel said an Illinois federal judge properly treated Malaia Turner as a leader in a methamphetamine conspiracy and found no reversible error in the drug-quantity calculations used at sentencing.
The justice concurred in denying certiorari after the government said it had mistakenly fought Michael Lairy's challenge to a prison term five years above the statutory maximum.
The panel said a Decatur, Illinois, traffic stop was valid, the dog sniff did not unlawfully prolong it, and the evidence was enough to show constructive possession.
The justices held 6-3 that prisoners cannot use Congress' nonretroactive reduction of Section 924(c) firearm-stacking penalties as an extraordinary and compelling reason for compassionate release.
The Justice Department says two Florida defense contractors schemed to corrupt a competitive procurement process for a military technology innovation campus in the Pacific.
Justice Sotomayor urged lower courts to weigh the Supreme Court's recent waiver reasoning before enforcing appeal or collateral-review waivers against defendants challenging their convictions.
The panel said two Massachusetts cocaine convictions did not qualify as federal guideline controlled substance offenses because the state definition was broader than the federal drug schedules.
The panel affirmed a firearms sentence after holding that Minnesota third-degree murder qualifies as generic murder under the federal sentencing guidelines.
The en banc Eleventh Circuit held that an Alabama sex-offender residency law burdens a fundamental parental right, sending the dispute back to a panel for further proceedings.
The Fourth Circuit said jurors should have been instructed that bodily injury under a federal civil-rights statute must be a proximate result of the defendant's conduct.
A split Fourth Circuit said jurors needed a proximate-cause instruction before finding that a former prison official's civil rights violation resulted in bodily injury, while leaving false-statement convictions intact.
The Fourth Circuit affirmed the denial of compassionate release for a federal prisoner with end-stage renal disease, holding that courts must assess whether the condition is terminal on the defendant-specific record.
The panel said a Kentucky federal court violated criminal forfeiture timing rules but that the mistakes did not justify vacating Jeremy Wayne Harrell's forfeiture sentence.
The Fifth Circuit said a felon-in-possession defendant could keep challenging two supervised-release conditions tied to a later revocation, then struck them because they were not properly pronounced in court.
The panel said a state court reasonably found that an improperly admitted confession was harmless despite a Miranda violation.
The panel said counsel's second-degree murder strategy did not trigger McCoy structural error or Cronic presumed prejudice in Kyle Quentin Sago's postconviction bid.
The Third Circuit said a firearm with one illegible serial number can trigger a four-level Guidelines enhancement even if another serial number on the gun remains readable.
The Seventh Circuit affirmed Luisito Espanola's wire fraud and money laundering convictions, holding that using his own discovery production as part of the authentication analysis did not violate his right to testify.