United States Sentencing Commission Proposes Amendment to Acceptance of Responsibility Guideline
The United States Sentencing Commission recently released proposed amendments to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Among the proposed changes, including changes relating to [insert list here], is a proposed change to the guidelines regarding acceptance of responsibility. The Commission, through this proposed amendment, seeks to reconcile to conflicting circuit opinions regarding the interpretation of the existing […]
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Courts Face Growing Challenges Over Jurors’ Increasing Use of Internet, Computers, Cellphones, Etc.
In this age of universal access to information through computers, cellphones and other devices, there is one group the courts are increasingly opposed to having access—the jury. A March 18 article in the New York Times relates how jurors in a large criminal case in South Florida were discovered to have done research on the […]
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Queens Man Arrested for Firing a Realistic Toy Gun in Queens Park
A Queens man by the name of Jack Pawlowski was arrested on Wednesday, May 8, 2013 for firing a toy gun that resembled a real weapon and then handed it to his three year old son and other family members to play with. Apparently some people at Ditmar’s Park thought the gun was real. Maria Smilios […]
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Felony Cases in Bronx Have Longest Delays
One of the central ideas of our criminal justice system is the promise of a speedy trial. Felony cases in the Bronx have seen the longest delays in New York City. Seven in 10 cases have surpassed the state’s guidelines, which require that most felony crimes be tried within 180 days. Cases are piling up […]
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Insurance Fraud Scandal in New York’s Russian Foreign Ministry
For the past six months, New York prosecutors and the FBI have collected evidence concerning health insurance fraud, perpetrated by Russian diplomats. They are now confident that they have enough evidence to mount a solid case. According to Prosecutor Preet Bharara, the diplomats falsified income statements and other information regarding marital status and nationality to […]
READ MORETo Testify or Not to Testify…That is the Question.
Few topics are discussed among lawyers more. Should you put your client on the stand or not? Sometimes it’s just not an option for any number of reasons. Maybe your client has a criminal history that has too much to impeach with. Maybe your client told so many inconsistent versions of a story to the […]
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UST Complaint Against Countrywide
The US Trustee filed a complaint against Countrywide on February 28, 2008 alleging various abusive and improper conduct in a particular chapter 13 case in Atlanta. The complaint alleges that Countrywide filed two motions for relief that it ultimately withdrew because the debtor was not in fact late, it added unsubstantiated charges to its claim, […]
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Inside Traders Beware: Sentencing Commission Pushing for Much Harsher Penalties
In the wake of recent Wall Street scandals and the growing perception of corruption within the financial industry, the federal government is taking dead aim at insider trading. Within the last few years, we have seen the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act and a series of highly publicized insider trading prosecutions, including the one resulting […]
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Predicting Dangerousness and Flipping Coins
On April 20, NPR’s Morning Edition broadcast an interview with Phillip Merideth, “a forensic psychiatrist and the chief medical office for Brentwood Behavioral Healthcare in Mississippi [and] a lawyer who teaches about mental health and the law.” According to Dr. Merideth, “[p]sychiatric literature in the past has shown that efforts to predict — and I’m […]
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Arrests Rise, Prisons Empty?
The biggest observation over the last few years is that the crime rate in New York City has fallen. Unbelievably, the New York Post reports that aggressive policing can also lower prison population. This certainly does not seem obvious, but studies have shown that New York State’s prison population has fallen and yet we’ve all […]
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