The office's summer interns offer a critique on how Supervised Release works in today's federal justice system and share their ideas on how to improve the same.
A quick discussion of the basics practitioners need to know as the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's Johnson decision approaches and, along with it, the deadline for filing 2255 motions seeking relief under it.
On this episode of In Plain Cite, Jonathan, Lex, and Rhett discuss guideline amendments adopted by the United States Sentencing Commission and then bring us some commentary on recent Fourth Amendment rulings made by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In Episode 7 of In Plain Cite, our hosts, Jonathan and Lex, take a look at amendments to the US Sentencing Guidelines that were proposed in August 2015. Those amendments would overhaul the definition "crime of violence" in the wake of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Johnson, some in ways that would benefit defendants and others in ways that would not. We also catch up on the progress (or lack thereof) of criminal justice reform in Congress as we head into 2016.
Episode 6 of In Plain Cite answers a question from our Criminal Just Act panel. Lex and Rachel review some of the more important United States Sentencing Guideline amendments that went into effect on November 1, 2015. The discussion includes changes to the guidelines dealing with Hydrocodone, the Mitigating Role Adjustment, Inflationary Adjustments, Economic Loss, and the Single Sentence Rule.
Episode 5 of In Plain Cite deals with clemency. Our hosts, Jonathan and Ann, speak with Italia Patti, Justice Franklin D. Cleckley Fellow of the WV Innocence Project, and Deidre Purdy, a solo-practitioner on the Criminal Just Act panel in the Southern District of WV.
Episode 4 of In Plain Cite revisits Johnson, ACCA, 2255, and Guidelines. We also look at the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015 and other congressional initiatives. Finally, a preview of Supreme Court cases Hurst, Montgomery, Willams, Lockhart, Molina-Martinez, Ocasio, Musaccio, Taylor, and Strief.
Jonathan and Rachel discuss cell phones, cell towers, the 4th Amendment, the Stored Communications Act, and the pending cases of Graham and Davis.
Jonathan and Rachel give some Congressional upates on federal criminal sentencing and discuss the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, the Smarter Sentencing Act, and the SAFE Act. Is Sen. Grassley coming around? How can you use these bills to your advantage now?
The US Supreme Court just declared part of the Armed Career Criminal Act unconstitutional. Where does that leave federal criminal defendants going forward? Will it impact the Sentencing Guidelines? Will defendants whose cases are final be able to get some relief?