If you lend your car to a family member or friend who is stopped and arrested for drug charges while driving your car in Alabama, state law permits seizure of a car “incident to an arrest” so long as the state then “promptly” initiates a forfeiture case.
Feds: Hey Second Circuit, could you issue a revised opinion in this drug sentencing case to make non-precedential a December opinion that found the federal controlled substances list was narrower than New York state's? We want you to make clear that the part that could help out future New York criminal defendants was dictum. Second Circuit: Dictum? We hardly know 'em! (Which is more substantive legal analysis than your bad-faith argument deserves.) We said what we said. And what we said is our holding.
Today, the en banc Eleventh Circuit issued an opinion that will give some drug defendant’s a big help at sentencing. See United States v. Dupree, No. 9-13776 (11th Cir. Jan.18, 2023)(en banc). In Dupree, the Eleventh held that the definition of “controlled substance offense” in USSG § 4B1.2(b) does not include inchoate offenses, such as conspiracy and attempt. This is another victory for the defense in using the sea change in administrative deference recognized by the Supreme Court in Kisor v.
Defendant: Look, sure, I was just convicted of drug trafficking, and, yes, I testified that I deposited all my legitimate income in the bank while I kept all my drug-trafficking money in cash, and, okay fine, you found a bunch of cash in my house near my drugs and my scale and my notebooks meticulously documenting my drug-trafficking transactions, but that doesn't prove the cash is the proceeds of drug trafficking. District court: You're kidding, right? Forfeiture on everything.
Professors Alison Siegler and Erica Zunkel from the University of Chicago have created at two-part podcast episode focused on stash house stings and compassionate release.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals announced Wednesday that U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez “engaged in abusive or harassing behavior” constituting a rare finding of judicial misconduct when he ordered a U.S.
AH Datalytics has launched a “Real-Time” crime index, (RTCI), online. (access index). AH Datalytics launched the real-time crime index in an effort to “aid in the need for a faster understanding and visualization of national, state, and local crime trends.” AH Datalytics acknowledges certain crime data is under-reported to police and agencies can fail to provide complete or accurate information.
Twenty years after being convicted of (vehemently denied) cocaine possession, Erma Wilson learned that the Midland County, Tex. prosecutor (Weldon "Ralph" Petty) on her case was also moonlighting as a law clerk for the presiding judge, a flagrant violation of the constitutional right to a fair trial. Yikes! Though she never served any jail time on the eight-year suspended sentence, the conviction meant she's been unable to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a nurse. Can she sue for money damages?
The United States Sentencing Commission releases new Quick Facts periodically, which give readers "basic facts about a single area of federal crime in an easy-top-read, two page format."
Quick Facts published in September include:
Texan meth and fentanyl importer pleads guilty in 2022 and receives a "career-offender enhancement" at sentencing. He objects because his prior marijuana convictions wouldn't have been "controlled substance offenses" after 2018 reforms. Fifth Circuit: We agree, and thus also agree with three other circuits.
The case is United States v. Minor, 22-51083 (5th Cir. Nov. 20, 2024).