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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…
California Court OKs Warrantless Search of Cell Phone
January 19, 2011
California Court OKs Warrantless Search of Cell Phone
By: Ifrah Law
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 court approved the police’s warrantless search of the text message…
Why Is an Assault on Congress Member a Federal Crime?
January 12, 2011
Why Is an Assault on Congress Member a Federal Crime?
By: Ifrah Law
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 kill such a person. Loughner is charged under this statute…
A Tragic Result of the Stevens Case
January 3, 2011
A Tragic Result of the Stevens Case
By: Ifrah Law
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 Department of Justice attorney who was part of the prosecution…
Judges Push Back Against Prosecutorial Abuses
December 23, 2010
Judges Push Back Against Prosecutorial Abuses
By: Ifrah Law
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 be dismissed because government prosecutors and investigators improperly withheld evidence…
Federal Strike Forces Will Boost Medicare Fraud Enforcement
December 17, 2010
Federal Strike Forces Will Boost Medicare Fraud Enforcement
By: Ifrah Law
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 increase. The new strike force teams are a central feature…
