by David M. Reutter
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that a motion judge abused his discretion by denying an evidentiary hearing on a defendant’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea based on ineffective assistance of counsel. The defendant, a lawful permanent resident facing virtually mandatory removal …
by David M. Reutter
In an en banc decision, the Supreme Court of Washington held that Anthony Lee’s two second-degree assault convictions based on his beating Amy Groff in the head with a gun and then shooting at her as she fled were part of a single unit …
by David M. Reutter
The Supreme Court of New Jersey unanimously reversed the defendant’s controlled dangerous substances (“CDS”) convictions and ordered a new trial, holding that while no individual error warranted reversal, the cumulative effect of multiple prosecutorial missteps deprived the defendant of his constitutional right to a …
by David M. Reutter
The New York Court of Appeals held that when police employ coercive tactics compelling a suspect to leave a residence, the resulting arrest violates the ban on unwarranted in-home arrests established in Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573 (1980), under a theory of …
by David M. Reutter
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated a supervised release revocation judgment and remanded for resentencing, holding that a defendant may challenge standard conditions of supervised release that were never orally pronounced at sentencing through an appeal of a subsequent …
by David M. Reutter
“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.”
– Marcel Proust
When jurors weigh evidence in a criminal trial, few types of evidence are more persuasive than a witness pointing across a courtroom and declaring with …
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated a defendant’s sentence due to the prosecutor’s breach of the parties’ plea agreement, and the Court ordered resentencing before a different judge.
Before the Court was the appeal of Hector Maldonado-Maldonado, who along with one of his …
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina committed procedural error by failing to address the defendant’s arguments for a lower sentence and failing to provide an individualized explanation for the sentence it imposed because …
by David M. Reutter
The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas held that a deferred disposition or adjudication is not a “sentence” within the meaning of an authorized appeal by the State under Tex. Crim. Code Proc. art. 44.01(b). The Court resolved a statewide split among the state’s …
by David M. Reutter
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana erred in applying an offense-level enhancement for maintaining a premises for the purposes of manufacturing or distributing a controlled substance based solely …
