Federal Plea Agreements The Devil is in the Details Over 95% of federal defendants plead guilty, according the the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Because of Bill Otis, Law Professor and contributor to Crime and Consequences, most plea agreements now come with appeal waivers: a waiver of the defendant’s right to appeal. On the surface, the …
The title of this post comes from this Yahoo News article. A new plan for Obama clemency policy is going to be official. (2017 Update: According to the Pew Research Center, former President Obama ended up granting clemency for more than 1,900 felons before he left office. More than 1,700 of these were sentence commutations …
Obama Clemency Plans for Hundreds of Drug Offenders Read More »
Here are a couple of stories from around the U.S. that will interest those searching for some sanity in American criminal justice. To start, we have a story from the Federal Criminal Appeals Blog. It turns out that the government believes riding in a car with drugs, even if a defendant had no idea drugs …
This press release from the office of Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL and then-assistant-majority-leader) gives some pointed details about the Smarter Sentencing Act. Its tagline states the intent of the bill like this: “[The] Bill Modernizes Drug Sentencing Policy, Focuses Resources on Violent Offenders and Public Safety Risks, Promotes Consistency with Fair Sentencing Act” The press …
The end of May was not a good one for anybody sitting at the defense table in Federal (and even State) courtrooms. This post is a quick look at the decisions that make defendant’s lives harder. Maryland v. King This case is all about 4th Amendment rights, and what constitutes too much invasion of personal …
One of the the many blogs and news outlets that inform PCR Consultants about what is going on in the world of federal criminal issues is The Federal Criminal Appeals Blog. This is a great source for good news, defendant wins, and circuit case law for whatever might interest a reader who is researching or …
The Issue For the last year or so, there has been a debate raging that seems to defy common sense. Namely, the debate concerns the 5th Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination. We’ve all heard congressmen, mob bosses, and steroid-riddled professional athletes use these protections to the point where, “Pleading the Fifth,” is part of the American …
A week before the arguments are heard by the United States Supreme Court, the folks at SCOTUSblog have this commentary on the case, and what it all means. Below are some notable excerpts of the article. This is a narrow case. It involves a defendant who represents a relatively small and, with time, diminishing class …
Tapia on Prison Rehabilitation In a 2011 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, defendants were no longer allowed to be sentenced to longer terms of imprisonment for the purposes of rehabilitation (discussed in earlier posts here and here). In a predictable move, prosecutors and some district court judges decided that this rule only applied to …
Federal Supervised Release Conditions Federal supervision is oftentimes misunderstood. What conditions can a court impose and what conditions are too much? This post is intended to clear the fog a bit using a case from Kentucky. This interesting case was decided by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year. In part, the appeals …
Federal Supervised Release Conditions – Restrictions on Court Discretion Read More »
