by Dale Chappell
In a rare case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit granted habeas corpus relief to a state prisoner after finding that the State’s evidence was lacking and the state court was “not just wrong, but unreasonable, in holding otherwise.”
In 2001, two individuals rushed ...
by Dale Chappell
Finding that the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada applied the incorrect standard in denying a state prisoner’s request to stay his federal habeas petition while he returned to state court to exhaust his state post-conviction remedies, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth ...
by Dale Chappell
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a prosecutor’s closing comments about the State’s own witness were so harmful to the defendant that it affirmed the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois’s grant of habeas corpus relief in a murder ...
by Dale Chappell
In a case where a defendant admitted to selling drugs that previously led to an overdose-death but was only convicted of selling drugs that did not result in a death, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia held in a published sentencing decision ...
by Dale Chappell
In a case where a defendant’s lawyer was present at sentencing but did “absolutely nothing” to help him, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit granted habeas corpus relief to an Indiana state prisoner, ruling that attorney abandonment does not always mean that the attorney ...
by Dale Chappell
Two former Baltimore police officers sentenced to a combined 454 years in federal prison had their sentences reduced to just 20 years each in May after their sentencing judge agreed that the First Step Act authorized a reduced sentence in light of their stacked gun sentences.
William ...
by Dale Chappell
After working hard to set out the claims in your federal habeas corpus petition, along comes the person having custody over you and files a response in court that recharacterizes your claims and makes you look like someone who needs to spend the rest of his life ...
by Dale Chappell
In yet another case, the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) whittles away at the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), this time narrowing what qualifies as a “violent felony” to impose the harsh 15-year minimum penalty for possessing a firearm as a felon.
On June 10, ...
by Dale Chappell
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) recently subpoenaed USA Today seeking information on readers of a story about a botched FBI raid in Florida that killed two agents and wounded three other agents. It asked the news outlet to keep the subpoena quiet, but instead, the newspaper ...
by Dale Chappell
A Stafford County, Virginia, ordinance requiring someone to show their ID to a police officer if requested did not allow an arrest if the person refused to show his ID. That was the court's conclusion in a federal lawsuit filed after a Stafford County Sheriff's Deputy ...
