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White-Collar Sentencing Under the Amended Guidelines: Fewer Steps, Same Dance
FEATURED
November 12, 2025
White-Collar Sentencing Under the Amended Guidelines: Fewer Steps, Same Dance
By: Robert Ward
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 court would consider the Sentencing Commission’s policy statements or commentary relating to “departures” from the guidelines as well as the defendant’s specific personal characteristics. Third, and finally, the court would consider the statutory factors set out in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) in determining the sentence to be imposed (whether within the guideline range or varying in either direction). As of November 1, 2025, this three-step…
Personal Information Flo-wing out of Control
October 20, 2025
Personal Information Flo-wing out of Control
By: Lauren Scribner
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, invaded the privacy of its users by sharing personal and…
New Laws for AI Developers: California’s Fork in the AI Regulatory Road
October 16, 2025
New Laws for AI Developers: California’s Fork in the AI Regulatory Road
By: Steven Hess
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 hundreds of billions of dollars of growth in sectors from…
DC Bans the Box
August 14, 2014
DC Bans the Box
By: Ifrah Law
MLive.com Graphic Criminal defendants face a wide range of consequences for their alleged actions. The high emotional and financial cost of defending a case may pale in comparison to the personal toll resulting from a conviction and the associated direct consequences including fines, penalties, remuneration, and incarceration. For most offenders, however, the longest-lasting consequence of all is the criminal record which they carry…
Bitcoin Equal to Money According to District Court Ruling
August 12, 2014
Bitcoin Equal to Money According to District Court Ruling
By: Jeffrey Hamlin
Is it possible to commit money laundering with virtual currency? At least one federal judge thinks so. Last month, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest refused to dismiss a money laundering charge premised on the use of a Bitcoin-based payment system. She is the first federal judge to hold that the federal money laundering statute is broad enough to encompass the use of Bitcoin in financial…
NY Legalizing Medical Marijuana with the Compassionate Care Act
July 11, 2014
NY Legalizing Medical Marijuana with the Compassionate Care Act
By: Steven Eichorn
Severely ill patients in New York State are celebrating Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s signature of a bill that legalized medical marijuana in New York for many severely ill patients[1]. As noted by Assembly Speaker Silver in his remarks, “With this agreement, we are assuring access to that much-needed relief while ensuring the tightest possible regulation and state supervision.” Indeed, the New York bill does contain many…
The Right to Remain Silent Does Not Extend to Computer/Phone Passwords
July 8, 2014
The Right to Remain Silent Does Not Extend to Computer/Phone Passwords
By: Ifrah Law
Recently the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that under certain circumstances, a court may compel a criminal defendant to provide the password to encrypted digital evidence without violating the defendant’s constitutional rights. This is an increasingly prevalent issue that has divided courts across the country and may be presented to the United States Supreme Court for review soon. Leon Gelfgatt was indicted in 2010 for…
U.S. Court of Appeals Decision: Cell Location Data is Protected Under Individual’s Expectation of Privacy
July 2, 2014
U.S. Court of Appeals Decision: Cell Location Data is Protected Under Individual’s Expectation of Privacy
By: Jeffrey Hamlin
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently considered whether cell site location data is protected by the Fourth Amendment. On June 11, 2014, the court issued its decision in favor of privacy rights: the court held that cell site location information is within the cell phone subscriber’s reasonable expectation of privacy. If officers want the data, they must obtain the subscriber’s consent…
