The issue in Edwards v. Vannoy, decided May 17, 2021, was whether the Supreme Court’s decision in Ramos v. Louisiana, 140 S. Ct. 1390 (2020), will apply retroactively to cases on federal collateral review. Ramos is the case which decided that unanimous jury verdicts are required in state felony cases, thus outlawing the non-unanimous jury … Read more
In Caniglia v. Strom, decided May 17, 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that there is no such thing as a “community caretaking” exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment. This case began when Mr. Caniglia had an argument with his wife at their Rhode Island home. He then retrieved a pistol from the … Read more
In United States v. Joseph Williams, No. 20-1021 (2d Cir. May 26, 2021), a Panel of the Court (Pooler, Sullivan, and Park) ruled in a per curiam opinion that Williams’s 20-year term of supervised release, to follow a 160-month term of imprisonment, was neither procedurally nor substantively unreasonable on plain-error review. Williams argued principally that … Read more
In United States v. Patrick W. Carlineo, 2d Cir. No. 20-1020 (May 25, 2021), a Panel of the Court (Parker, Lohier, and Menashi) invalidated a special condition of supervised release requiring the defendant to “participate in a program known as the Partners in Restorative Initiatives” as too vague and as delegating too much authority to … Read more
In United States v. Palomar-Santiago, No. 20-437 (May 24, 2021), Justice Sotomayor ruled for a unanimous Court that as a matter of statutory interpretation (1) each of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(d)’s three requirements must be satisfied; and that (2) a showing by the defendant that the deportation proceeding was “fundamentally unfair” under § 1326(d)(3) — … Read more
In United States v. Gilliam, the Second Circuit (Nardini, joined by Katzmann and Wesley), held that drug-related murder, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 848(e)(1)(A), is not a “covered offense” for purposes of First Step Act resentencing. Gilliam killed a rival drug dealer and pleaded guilty to § 848(e)(1)(A), which punishes “any person engaging in … Read more
The Circuit ruled today in United States v. McCoy, No. 17‑1315(L) (Kearse, Parker, and Sullivan, JJ.), that the crime of attempting to commit a Hobbs Act robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a), remains a “crime of violence” under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), even after United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019). The Circuit … Read more
Benjamin Chow was a high ranking corporate officer at a couple of Chinese State-owned firms that, in 2016, tried to acquire Lattice Semiconductor Corporation, a manufacturer of a type of semi-conductor used in smart-phones. Op. 4, 5. Mr. Chow was alleged to have tipped off someone he knew, named Michael Yin, about the progress of … Read more
The Supreme Court granted certiorari today in Hemphill v. New York (No. 20-637), to resolve the following question: “Whether, or under what circumstances, a criminal defendant who opens the door to responsive evidence also forfeits his right to exclude evidence otherwise barred by the Confrontation Clause.” The facts are straightforward. In 2006, someone fired a … Read more
In 2007, Charles Bryant was convicted of conspiracy to distribute 50 grams or more of crack. Since he had a prior conviction for a felony drug offense, he faced a mandatory minimum term of 240 years. The district court sentenced him to 300 months. In 2018, § 404(b) of the First Step Act (“FSA”) made … Read more