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Sentencing Posts
The Truth Will Out – Even About Mar-a-Lago
Dec 27, 2025
The Truth Will Out – Even About Mar-a-Lago
The Truth Will Out is a fairly obscure phrase that was popularized in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice.” It suggests that even against the most active obstruction and obfuscation, the Truth seemingly has an invisible hand behind it that relentlessly—if slowly—pushes it into plain view. Nearly 2 ½ years after the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago,…
White-Collar Sentencing Under the Amended Guidelines: Fewer Steps, Same Dance
Nov 12, 2025
White-Collar Sentencing Under the Amended Guidelines: Fewer Steps, Same Dance
For years, the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s Guidelines Manual has guided courts through a three-step process to determine the sentence to be imposed. At a high level, that process looked like this: First, the court would calculate the guideline range based on relevant offense conduct and related factors, along with the defendant’s criminal history. Second, the…
Personal Information Flo-wing out of Control
Oct 20, 2025
Personal Information Flo-wing out of Control
In September, a nearly $60 million settlement was reached in Frasco, et al v. Flo Health, Inc., Meta Platforms, Inc., Google, LLC, and Flurry, Inc. The case,[1] a class action filed in 2021, alleged inter alia that Flo Health Inc. (“Flo”), a popular women’s health tracking application estimated to have over 38 million monthly users,…
New Laws for AI Developers: California’s Fork in the AI Regulatory Road
Oct 16, 2025
New Laws for AI Developers: California’s Fork in the AI Regulatory Road
AI Regulation and The Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act Artificial intelligence (“AI”) products have become an increasingly significant aspect of U.S. innovation, growth, and development. Generative AI is being used to predict the structure of proteins and other biomolecules in pharmaceutical research,[1] to simulate wargames for the U.S. military,[2] and to drive an estimated…
Flirting with Disaster: Kid Glove Treatment of an Assassination Attempt Sets Damaging Example
Oct 6, 2025
Flirting with Disaster: Kid Glove Treatment of an Assassination Attempt Sets Damaging Example
On a crisp October afternoon while the media focused on P Diddy’s high-profile New York sentencing, a less conspicuous—but more consequential—hearing took place in another federal courthouse, not far from the nation’s capital. Nichola Roske was sentenced for the attempted assassination of at least one Supreme Court associate justice. On June 8, 2022, Roske flew…
It is Time for a “Second Look” at Legislative Efforts to Combat Mass Incarceration & Recidivism
May 19, 2025
It is Time for a “Second Look” at Legislative Efforts to Combat Mass Incarceration & Recidivism
Government efficiency and spending is a hot topic of controversy in the United States. But even in the context of heated “DOGE” fights, there are proven examples of government efficiency and reduced spending that are clearly working—the passing of measures like the Second Chance and First Step Acts in an effort for mass incarceration and…
A Luigi Mangione Death Penalty Trial
Apr 15, 2025
A Luigi Mangione Death Penalty Trial
The Attorney General’s recent announcement that DOJ will seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione raises a host of interesting legal and philosophical issues, and it almost certainly reflects a dramatic about-face from the Biden administration’s approach towards federal prosecutions for death-eligible offenses. Aside from having personally prosecuted three death penalty trials while I was…
DOJ Memo Sneaks In Seismic Changes
Jan 31, 2025
DOJ Memo Sneaks In Seismic Changes
Amidst the tidal wave of Executive Orders, presidential appointments, and policy announcements, it is easy to treat last week’s Interim Policy Memo from the Acting Deputy Attorney General[1] as just another ripple of nominal change that occurs when democrats replace republicans or republicans replace democrats. And, indeed, although there are portions of it that reflect…
How Thick is the Blanket? – Preemptive Pardons as a Presidential Power
Dec 6, 2024
How Thick is the Blanket? – Preemptive Pardons as a Presidential Power
As the presiding judge scolded Hunter Biden’s attorneys this week, “The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 1, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history.”[1] But what exactly is that…
The Challenging Terrain of White-Collar Sentencing
Jun 3, 2024
The Challenging Terrain of White-Collar Sentencing
Federal judges are required to balance a number of factors whenever imposing sentence, including specifically enumerated areas that largely stem from the broader philosophical categories of General Deterrence, Specific Deterrence, Retribution/Punishment, Restitution and Victim Impact, and Rehabilitation. In determining the presumptively reasonable range of potential sentences, federal practitioners consult their always-handy U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, which…
