The California First District Court of Appeal last week struck down a state law that required the collection of DNA from anyone arrested on suspicion of committing a felony. The Court concluded that the state Constitution’s ban on unreasonable search and seizure...
September 24, 2014 Holder Memo on § 851 Enhancements in Plea Negotiations. Notable lines: "An § 851 enhancement should not be used in plea negotiations for the sole or predominant purpose of inducing a defendant to plead guilty." Holder is making sure his message on...
In United States v. Edwards, 2014 WL 3747130 (9th Cir. July 31, 2014) the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit addressed two issues: the first one was whether the stop of Edwards was only an investigatory stop or a de facto arrest and the second was...
The Supreme Court of the United States in Abramski v. U.S., 134 S.Ct. 2259 (2014) held that misrepresenting oneself as an actual firearms purchaser versus a “straw purchaser” was a material misrepresentation. Abramski was convicted of making a false statement that was...
Federal drug sentencing has been given a long-awaited makeover by the issuance of Eric Holder’s Memorandum and Guidelines to Federal Prosecutors in August of this year. The new policy should help certain drug offenders avoid mandatory minimum sentences in federal drug...
An arrest, even where there is no conviction, can have devastating effects on a person's life. For non-citizens, it can result in random detentions at immigration outposts and obstacles to obtaining citizenship. For those seeking employment, an arrest can be...
This week the California Court of Appeal concluded that a driver who deliberately races through a red light at a busy intersection and collides with another vehicle, causing injury to another, can be convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. “Assault with a deadly...
On July 16, 2012, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in United States v. Pariseau that possession with intent to distribute qualifies as a substantial step towards the commission of a crime; therefore, it established federal venue in the district where the...
The United States Supreme Court, led by Judge Scalia, ruled that a federal district court had the discretion to order that defendant's federal sentence run concurrently to the anticipated, but not yet imposed, state court sentence. This was Sester v. United States,...
Federal Court proceedings indicted Richard Aguirre for racketeering and conspiracy to distribute narcotics after he pleaded guilty in state court to one count of maintaining a residence for purposes of selling cocaine in People v. Aguirre. Unaware that his guilty plea...