California Court OKs Warrantless Search of Cell Phone
The text messages in a defendant’s cell phone are in no way different, for the purposes of a police search after an arrest, from the defendant’s clothing or a cigarette package. That was the holding of the California Supreme Court on January 3, 2011, in People v. Diaz, a case in which the state’s highest…
Read MoreWhy Is an Assault on Congress Member a Federal Crime?
The charges against Jared Loughner for shooting Representative Gabrielle Giffords put into sharp focus a little-known federal statute, 18 U.S.C. 351. This law provides for a death penalty for killing a member of Congress, a presidential or vice presidential candidate, or a Supreme Court justice, as well as imprisonment up to life for attempting to…
Read MoreA Tragic Result of the Stevens Case
We have discussed the fallout from the Ted Stevens prosecution several times in this blog. See this post, this post, and this post. The Jan. 3, 2011, issue of the New Yorker magazine has a fascinating article about another, very sad result of that case – the September 26, 2010, suicide of Nicholas Marsh, a…
Read MoreJudges Push Back Against Prosecutorial Abuses
Prosecutorial overreaching is still occurring in courts across the nation, but judges are beginning to push back. In the Ted Stevens case, the former senator was prosecuted on charges that he failed to properly report gifts from a lobbyist—only for the government to later drop all charges against him, saying that his jury conviction should…
Read MoreFederal Strike Forces Will Boost Medicare Fraud Enforcement
In October 2010, federal enforcers announced a plan to nearly triple the number of its Medicare fraud strike force units around the nation. In view of the magnitude of health care fraud, this plan is understandable, but the vast majority of providers, who comply with the law, will also see their compliance and other costs…
Read MoreISPs Take Note: Court Rules E-mails Have Full 4th Amendment Protection
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit has just issued a trail-blazing opinion that is good news for anyone who has ever sent an e-mail – and that needs to be carefully read and adhered to by all Internet service providers (ISPs). We noted six months ago that ISPs have been all too…
Read MoreStacking the Deck Against Defendants in Conspiracy Cases?
Are prosecutors stacking the deck against defendants in conspiracy cases? A case now on appeal in the Second Circuit is posing that interesting question. On appeal from his conviction in a fake reinsurance deal scheme, former General Re Corporation assistant general counsel Robert Graham is arguing that the government denied him a fair trial by…
Read MoreTime to Make Brady Compliance Part of Prosecutors’ Culture
On Thursday, November 4, 2010, Rod Rosenstein, the U.S. Attorney for Maryland, defended the U.S. Department of Justice’s recent efforts to address its compliance with Brady v. Maryland, the 1963 Supreme Court case requiring prosecutors to disclose information that would tend to exculpate criminal defendants. Rosenstein, speaking before a group of defense attorneys at an…
Read MoreThe Struggle to Revive ‘Honest Services’
On November 16, 2010, the Los Angeles-based Daily Journal published an article by Jeffrey Hamlin, an associate at Ifrah PLLC, on a recent U.S. District Court ruling. The following is the full text of the article. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the much-watched case of former Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling, limited the…
Read MoreDid Drug Company Lawyer Make False Statements to FDA?
When regulatory agencies ask major corporations to hand over documents to them as part of an ongoing investigation, there’s normally a pretty clear understanding of how things work: if the agency doesn’t receive the full set of documents it is asking for, it negotiates with the company, or ratchets up the urgency of the request,…
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