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Monday, August 28th, 2017

Second Circuit Vacates Sentence Based on Erroneous PSR

Today, in United States v. Genao, the Second Circuit vacated an illegal reentry sentence as procedurally unreasonable where the sentencing court relied on a factually erroneous presentence investigation report (PSR) to calculate the defendant’s Guidelines range. The opinion is notable both for its analysis of whether an offense under the New York burglary statute is a “crime of violence” and its determination that the district court failed to satisfy § 3553(c)’s requirement that it provide reasons for its sentence in open court.

You can access the opinion here.

Roman Bartolo Genao was convicted of illegal reentry, and had previously been convicted in New York state of first-degree robbery and first-degree burglary. At the time of Genao’s sentencing, the Guidelines imposed a 16-level enhancement for illegal reentry sentences where the defendant had previously been convicted of a “crime of violence.” (This Guideline has since been revised to impose enhancements based …


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Categories: 3553(c), Johnson, plain error, procedural reasonableness, sentencing

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Friday, August 25th, 2017

Second Circuit Relaxes “Personal Benefit” Requirement for Insider Trading Offenses

This week, in United States v. Martoma, the Circuit held that a “meaningfully close personal relationship” does not need to exist between an insider and a tippee in order to establish an insider trading violation under a “gift theory” of liability. The Circuit reached this conclusion on the ground that the Supreme Court abrogated the holding of United States v. Newman, 773 F.3d 438 (2d Cir. 2014), and thereby relaxed the “personal benefit” requirement necessary to support an insider trading conviction. You can access the Martoma opinion here.

Martoma was convicted of insider trading in violation of 15 U.S.C. §§ 78(b) & 78ff for trading on material, nonpublic information that he received from a neurologist concerning the results of a clinical drug trial. To establish an insider trading violation in this context, the government must prove that the insider stood to personally benefit, “directly or indirectly, from his …


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Categories: insider trading, jury instructions, securities law

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Monday, April 17th, 2017

“How to Become a State or Federal Defender,” NYC Bar Association Panel, Monday, April 17

The New York City Bar Association will be hosting a panel on “How to Become a State or Federal Defender” on Monday, April 17, 6pm – 8pm. Register here.

Description:
This panel will discuss the qualifications for and application process to become a public criminal State or Federal Defender in New York. Panelists will consist of State and Federal defenders from the regions encompassing the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.

Panelists:
Shannon Cumberbatch, Recruiting and Hiring Manager, Bronx Defenders
Amanda David, Assistant Federal Defender, Federal Defenders of New York, Eastern District of New York
Jennifer Brown, Attorney-in-Charge of the SDNY Trial Unit, Federal Defenders of New York, Southern District of New York
Timothy B. Rountree, Attorney-in-Charge of the Criminal Defense Practice, Queens County, The Legal Aid Society

Moderator:
Vincent Southerland, Executive Director, NYU Law School’s Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law…

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Thursday, December 8th, 2016

60-year Sentence in Child Pornography Case Is Found Substantively Reasonable

On Tuesday, the Second Circuit issued a decision in United States v. Brown. The opinion presents an interesting debate about how the federal system punishes defendants accused of child pornography charges. I encourage defense attorneys to check out both the concurrence and dissent, for some powerful arguments about the risks of unreasonable sentences in child pornography cases.

The opinion examines defendant Nathan Brown’s 60-year sentence for procedural and substantive reasonableness. The defendant pleaded guilty to 3 counts of production of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) and 2 counts of possession of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B).

The majority (J. Droney) begins with a recitation of some of the more egregious facts, which you can find on pp. 3-11. The basics: The defendant took sexually-explicit photos of girls, ranging in ages from 8 -12, who were in his care and then uploaded …

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Categories: child pornography, sentencing

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Categories: child pornography, sentencing

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Tuesday, December 6th, 2016

“Exigent Circumstances” Includes Potential Sexual Exploitation of a Minor; Allows for GPS Cellphone Tracking

On 12/1/16, the Second Circuit (Newman, Winter & Cabranes) handed down a decision finding that exigent circumstances justified the warrantless GPS tracking of a suspected sex trafficker. In United States v. Gilliam, the defendant, who was suspected of prostituting an underage girl, was located thanks to GPS coordinates on his cellphone provided to the police by Sprint. The girl had been reported missing and her involvement in prostitution was confirmed through credible sources.  During the course of the investigation, the police obtained the GPS location for the defendant’s cellphone from Sprint by informing them that there were “exigent circumstances” and a “missing child.”  GPS tracking led police to the defendant and the girl on a street in the Bronx.

The defendant challenged the use of the GPS information that lead to his location and arrest. The Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision that the Stored Communications Act (18 …


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Categories: Fourth Amendment, sex offenses

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Supreme Court Upholds “Friends and Family” Insider-Trading Conviction

From SCOTUSblog:

“Bassam Salman, a Chicago grocery wholesaler, received stock tips from a friend, who had in turn received inside information from Salman’s brother-in-law, an investment banker at Citigroup. Salman made hundreds of thousands of dollars from the tips, but he was also charged with insider trading and sentenced to three years in prison. Today the Supreme Court upheld Salman’s conviction, rejecting his argument that he could not be held liable because his brother-in-law had not received any financial benefits in exchange for the inside information that he disclosed. The unanimous ruling – which came just over two months after the oral argument – was a big victory for the federal government, which had warned the justices that a ruling for Salman would lead to even more disclosures of confidential information by corporate insiders.”…

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Categories: insider trading

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Wednesday, November 23rd, 2016

Engelmayer (SDNY) Finds Juvenile Should Not be Prosecuted as an Adult

No Second Circuit decisions today.

But yesterday there was a decision out of the SDNY on the issue of whether a juvenile should be transferred for prosecution as an adult.

Judge Paul Engelmayer decided that a juvenile who was almost 18 years old at the time he was indicted for committing a number of violent offenses should not be prosecuted as an adult. The decision, United States v. C.F., Male Juvenile (15 Cr 445), can be found here. In it, Engelmayer gives a thorough break-down of the six factors that courts consider in the balancing test laid out under The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), 18 U.S.C. §§ 5031-504.

Under JJDPA, the court must find that the transfer of a juvenile to adult status is in the “interest of justice.” This “interest of justice” standard is determined by balancing six factors : 1.) “the age and social …

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Categories: evidence, juvenile facility, Y.O.

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Categories: evidence, juvenile facility, Y.O.

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Friday, October 14th, 2016

Second Circuit rejects Sixth Circuit’s Interpretation of 26 U.S. C. § 7212(a)’s “Omnibus Clause”

The Second Circuit decided the case of United States v. Marinello (Docket No. 15-2224) on Friday. You can see the 44-page decision here.  The case involved small businessman, Carlo Marinello, who did not keep corporate records or file personal or corporate income tax returns for nearly two decades. Marinello was convicted by a jury in 2014 in the Western District of New York on nine counts of tax-related offenses. In his appeal, he raised three grounds. I’ll review two of them here.  First, he challenged his conviction under the “omnibus clause” of 18 U.S.C. § 7212(a), which imposes criminal liability on one who “in any other way corruptly . . . obstructs or impedes, or endeavors to obstruct or impede, the due administration of this title.” In making his argument, Marinello relied on the Sixth Circuit case, United States v. Kassouf, 144 F.3d 952 (6th Cir. 1998), which …


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Categories: knowledge, overbreadth, statutory construction, statutory interpretation, tax evasion

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Tuesday, October 11th, 2016

No Second Circuit decisions today.

In EDNY news: On Friday, Jeffrey Hurant, the CEO of Rentboy.com, pleaded guilty to promoting prostitution. He will be sentenced on February 2. Rentboy.com allowed escorts to advertise their services online. The case made headlines last year when Hurant and others were arrested and the files of Rentboy.com seized. The site, which ran for nearly 20 years, was shut down. The particularly detailed affidavit in support of the warrant drew censure by many for describing gay sex acts, as one pundit put, “ with shuddering relish.” As the popular blogger, Dan Savage, and others noted, Rentboy cut out the middleman – namely pimps – in connecting escorts to clients, which actually made the process safer. After a massive amount of criticism of the prosecution, charges were dropped against all of the defendants, save Mr. Hurant.…

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Categories: prostitution, travel act

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Categories: prostitution, travel act

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Friday, June 17th, 2016

Second Circuit Updates – June 17, 2016

One major decision out of the Second Circuit today, United States v. Rowland (Docket 15-985). It’s a good read for those interested in statutory construction and interpretation. A brief overview of the facts: The defendant, John Rowland was once governor of Connecticut. After being released from federal custody following a 2004 conviction for corruption and a kickback scandal, Rowland attempted to get back in the political game by offering his consulting services to Connecticut politicians running for federal office. When the politicians, wanting his advice, but not an association with him, raised their concerns about the optics, Rowland suggested that their respective companies and non-profits hire him as a consultant. As the government alleged, though, in reality he would offer advice to their campaigns.

One politician declined his offered, going so far as to rip up the proposed contract Rowland provided that would have him work for the politician’s non-profit. …


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Categories: fraud, statutory construction, statutory interpretation

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Tuesday, June 14th, 2016

How Severe is Too Severe (for Production of Child Porn)?

“Serious nonhomicide crimes may be devastating in their harm[,] but in terms of moral depravity and of the injury to the person and to the public, they cannot be compared to murder in their severity and irreovocability.”  So said the Second Circuit today in United States v. Brown, No. 13-1706-cr (June 14, 2016)  (quoting the Supreme Court decision in Graham v. Flordia, 560 U.S. 48, 69 (2010)), in remanding a 60-year sentence for production of child pornography on procedural grounds that look awfully substantive.  The opinion contains must-use language for advocates at sentencing for a less-than-extreme sentence in any non-homicide case.

The majority opinion (written by J. Pooler with J. Sack signing on) found that the District Court (J. Sharpe, NDNY) may have misunderstood certain facts in imposing a virtual life sentence for photographing and disseminating sexual images of three young girls and possessing thousands of other images of …


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Categories: child pornography, procedural reasonableness, sentencing, substantive reasonableness, Uncategorized

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