United States v. Matos, No. 22-1561 (2d Cir. Aug. 13, 2026) (Cabranes, Livingston, Nardini), is the Second Circuit’s first published application of Hunter v. United States, 146 S. Ct. 1702 (2026). The result of Judge Livingston’s opinion is unremarkable: Matos’s challenges to his criminal history calculation under the Guidelines and to the substantive reasonableness of … Read more
United States v. McCrone, No. 22-3178 (L) (2d Cir. July 21, 2026) (Walker, Lee, Robinson) The Second Circuit today struck, on plain-error review, a supervised-release condition requiring the defendant to “continue to take any prescribed medications unless otherwise instructed by the health care provider.” Slip op. at 6. (The condition was a stock sentence embedded … Read more
Chatrie v. United States, No. 25–112 (U.S. June 29, 2026) (Opinion by Kagan, joined by Roberts, Sotomayor, Kavanaugh, and Jackson; Gorsuch concurs in the judgment) Introduction The facts in Chatrie look daunting — a bank robbery solved through a multi-step “geofence” warrant served on Google, full of unfamiliar ideas like anonymized device lists, “Location History,” and … Read more
The Supreme Court ruled in Hunter v. United States, No. 24-1063 (U.S. June 18, 2026), that appellate courts will not enforce an appellate waiver in a plea agreement when enforcing it “would result in a miscarriage of justice — meaning, when it would leave in place the kind of egregious error that would bring the … Read more
The Supreme Court just decided Abouammo v. United States, No. 25-5146 (U.S. June 11, 2026), which significantly narrows where venue may lie in the Second Circuit. A brief summary of the case is followed by its three key rulings. Section 1519 of Title 18 makes it a crime to “knowingly… falsif[y]… any record, document, or … Read more
Last week the Supreme Court decided two companion cases (Rutherford v. United States and Fernandez v. United States) largely confining 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), colloquially known as compassionate release, to its historic core as a remedy grounded on a prisoner’s personal circumstances (such as age or infirmity), and not a vehicle for litigating the legality … Read more
United States v. Parasmo, No. 23-6555 (2d Cir. May 19, 2026) (Sullivan, joined by Kearse, Robinson dissenting) The Second Circuit affirmed Frank Parasmo’s conviction on thirty-two counts of unlawfully distributing controlled substances under 21 U.S.C. § 841, despite acknowledging — as it had to after Ruan v. United States, 597 U.S. 450 (2022) — that … Read more
United States v. Dralle, No. 24-2424 (2d Cir. May 12, 2026) (Bianco, joined by Robinson; Sullivan dissenting). On plain-error review, the Second Circuit vacated Chase Dralle’s 30-month sentence for receipt of a trafficked firearm and remanded for resentencing. Judge Bianco’s opinion identifies two procedural errors: The sentencing court erred in (1) accepting at face value … Read more
Please note that on May 12, 2026, the panel in Jimenez sua sponte amended its original opinion, issued February 25th. The amendments are significant, rendering irrelevant much of our February 27th blog post. A redline version of the amended opinion, indicating additions and deletions from the original, can be accessed here.
United States v. Fabian, No. 22-1247-cr (2d Cir. Mar. 25, 2026) (Livingston, Lynch (writing), Menashi, Circuit Judges The Second Circuit affirmed Fabian’s conviction and 15-year sentence for conspiring to distribute crack cocaine. Fabian raised a host of challenges to his conviction and sentence, but the panel placed at “the forefront of this appeal” the district … Read more