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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…
Andrew Auernheimer Appeals Hacking Conviction in This Internet Law Case
July 5, 2013
Andrew Auernheimer Appeals Hacking Conviction in This Internet Law Case
By: Ifrah Law
Earlier this week, attorneys for convicted computer hacker Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer filed their opening brief in their appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to have his conviction overturned. In 2010, Auernheimer’s co-defendant Daniel Spitler, who agreed to plead guilty in 2011, discovered a flaw in AT&T’s iPad user database, that he used to collect 114,000 email addresses. Auernheimer then disclosed…
Prosecutor Fired for Lying on Facebook to Witnesses in Murder Case
June 27, 2013
Prosecutor Fired for Lying on Facebook to Witnesses in Murder Case
By: Jeffrey Hamlin
For all its benefits, social media has posed some significant challenges for our criminal justice system. One of the more common problems – Internet-related juror misconduct – has been the subject of numerous criminal appeals lately. It has also burdened federal and state governments with added costs for misconduct hearings and retrials. It is no wonder, then, that the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s office in Ohio…
Kansas Juror Found in Contempt for Online Comments During Trial
June 10, 2013
Kansas Juror Found in Contempt for Online Comments During Trial
By: Jeffrey Hamlin
Two years ago, we anticipated a growing problem with jurors who disregard trial judges’ instructions concerning Internet use. In July 2011, we reported on the first known prosecution of a juror in Great Britain for Internet-related misconduct. Since then, a Florida judge sentenced a Sarasota County juror to three days in jail for criminal contempt. In that case, the juror contacted a civil defendant on…
What Happens When Big Data and Scientific Approach Meet Criminal Justice?
May 21, 2013
What Happens When Big Data and Scientific Approach Meet Criminal Justice?
By: Jeff Ifrah
A Houston couple is giving an estimated $4 billion in the next few years to try to solve some of the nation’s social problems by the application of careful thought and statistical analysis – and the criminal justice system is one of their targets. John and Laura Arnold have that much to give away because John, still only 39 years old, made a vast fortune…
More Enron Fallout: Skilling and DOJ Enter Agreement to Reduce Sentence
May 9, 2013
More Enron Fallout: Skilling and DOJ Enter Agreement to Reduce Sentence
By: Jeffrey Hamlin
Former Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling reportedly has negotiated a deal with federal prosecutors that is likely to result in a significant reduction of the prison sentence he will serve for his role in the collapse of Enron. Under the new agreement, Skilling faces between 14 and 17.5 years in prison — a 27 to 42 percent reduction relative to his previous sentence of 24 years….
