by Dale Chappell
In April, the Department of Justice announced it was investigating several police departments for civil rights violations, showing signs that the DOJ under President Biden is revving up its efforts to crack down on police misconduct. It’s a stark contrast to the single civil rights investigation launched ...
by Dale Chappell
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit joined seven other circuits and held that a compassionate release motion filed by a prisoner under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) is not subject to the policy statement in U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual (“USSG”) § 1B1.13, after the First ...
by Dale Chappell
In a case that expands the retroactive application of new, more lenient laws passed by the Legislature after a defendant is convicted but is placed on probation with execution of the prison sentence suspended is not yet final where the defendant is still entitled to timely obtain ...
by Dale Chappell
The Supreme Court of Colorado held that mandatory lifetime sex offender registration for multiple sex offenses committed as a juvenile constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
T.B. was a juvenile when he committed two state sex offenses—one in 2001 at age 11 ...
by Dale Chappell
The Supreme Court of California held that a conviction by itself for furnishing a controlled substance to someone who subsequently suffers injury from its use is insufficient, as a matter of law, to establish personal infliction of great bodily injury under Pen. Code, § 12022.7. Rather, the ...
by Dale Chappell
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois must consider relevant changes in the law that may impact a prisoner’s sentence, even if those changes are not retroactive, when considering a motion for compassionate ...
by Dale Chappell
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado erred in relying on the defendant’s underlying conduct, rather than his offense of conviction, to deny his motion for sentence reduction under the First Step Act § ...
by Dale Chappell
The Supreme Court of the United States held that its landmark decision issued on April 20, 2020, in Ramos v. Louisiana, 140 S. Ct. 1390 (2020), which requires that all jury verdicts must be unanimous to convict a criminal defendant of a serious offense, is a ...
by Dale Chappell
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the grant of habeas corpus relief to a New York state prisoner, finding that his Sixth Amendment right of confrontation was violated when evidence against him in an autopsy report was introduced at trial through an expert ...
by Dale Chappell
In a case of first impression under the First Step Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the word “and” in the three exclusion provisions of the so-called “safety valve” relief provided for in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f) that permits district courts ...
