Recently in Criminal Law Category

Convicts sentenced for crack-related offenses under old federal guidelines may get a chance for a reduced sentence after a Third Circuit decision in early June.

In US v. Savani et al., the Court determined that prisoners sentenced under the old federal sentencing guidelines for crack convictions, which imposed certain mandatory minimums, could appeal to lower their sentences once new guidelines were put in place.

This may mean earlier release for some petitioners who would have been incarcerated for near a decade.

A former state judge's conviction and 28-year sentence was affirmed by the Third Circuit this week. The former "Kids for Cash" judge was convicted by a jury for 12 of 27 counts including racketeering and money laundering conspiracy in February 2011.

The former juvenile court judge's appeal was rejected except for 1 count for Honest Services Mail Fraud. The court supported the argument that the former judge did not waive his statute-of-limitations defense to this count, but he was not so successful in his other arguments.

When I first stumbled upon the case of Mr. Pelullo, the first words that caught my eye were “mafia” and “organized crime.” He had been indicted, along with Nicky Scarfo, Jr. (the son of a convicted crime family boss), in a white-collar mortgage company takeover scheme that had allegedly bilked millions from the public company’s coffers (and by extension, the shareholders).

Plus, he has a blog. Bloggers love blogs.

Under the Hyde Amendment, a district court in a criminal case “may award to a prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney’s fee and other litigation expenses, where the court finds that the position of the United States was vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith, unless the court finds that special circumstances make such an award unjust.”

Louis Manzo thinks he deserves a Hyde Amendment payout. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals disagrees.

Nathaniel Benjamin was arrested while on parole and living with his fiancée, Stacy Esprit. Benjamin’s parole officer, who knew that Benjamin’s license had been suspended, observed Benjamin driving, and he organized a search of Esprit’s home, where Benjamin was residing.

That search turned up way more than we can detail in one post: drugs, a pit bull in a cage, etc. We’re just going to focus on the gun from the search.

Do law enforcement agents need to obtain a warrant based on probable cause to track a vehicle's movements? Didn't we get an answer to this question last year in U.S. v. Jones? Are we stuck in a time warp?

Not quite.

Tuesday, lawyers for a trio of brothers accused of robbing Philadelphia-area pharmacies asked the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether warrantless GPS tracking constitutes an unreasonable search.

When a criminal defendant waives his right to appeal, the courts take him at his word that he is, in fact, waiving appeals.

A lot of the defendants don't think that "waiving appeal" means what the courts think it means (Inconceivable!) and they appeal anyway. It usually doesn't work. But a Third Circuit concluded this week that a waiver of appeal did not bar an appeal of an order modifying the terms and conditions of supervised release.

Disgraced politician Vincent Fumo returned to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in December to challenge court-ordered restitution in his fraud case, and may end up paying even more restitution.

Maybe that challenge wasn't such a good idea?

The rules regarding exculpatory evidence are pretty clear. In Brady v. Maryland, the Supreme Court held that "the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment." In United States v. Bagley, the Court clarified, "Impeachment evidence, ... as well as exculpatory evidence, falls within the Brady rule." The prosecution has an affirmative "duty to disclose such evidence" even if the defense doesn't request it.

And when a defendant actually requests evidence? You guessed it. The prosecution has to comply.

Kelly Huff was sentenced to 12 months in prison and three years' supervised release after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Because Huff already had spent more than a year in prison while awaiting trial, her period of supervised release began on July 22, 2008.

In 2010 and 2011, the United States Probation Office filed two Petitions on Supervised Release, alleging that Huff had violated the terms of her release. Huff conceded the violations, and the district court ordered her back to jail for 10 months with no subsequent period of supervised release.

Huff appealed, claiming that the sentence was substantively unreasonable. But, as she was released from custody almost two months early, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decided that her appeal was moot.