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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…
Is Google Ready to Protect Our Legal Rights?
June 7, 2010
Is Google Ready to Protect Our Legal Rights?
By: Ifrah Law
Is the government reading your e-mail messages? A routine law enforcement technique of using subpoenas instead of search warrants to obtain e-mail from internet service providers (ISPs) means that literally anyone who uses the Internet risks intrusion from unlawful government surveillance practices. Subpoenas can be issued under a much lower standard than the probable cause standard used for search warrants. They require only a reasonable…
Heritage, NACDL Session Weighs In on Criminal Intent
June 3, 2010
Heritage, NACDL Session Weighs In on Criminal Intent
By: Ifrah Law
An unusual coalition of the conservative Heritage Foundation and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) recently issued a study entitled “Without Intent: How Congress Is Eroding the Criminal Intent Requirement in Federal Law.” See this blog’s discussion at Crime in the Suites: Has Congress Eroded the Intent Requirement in Criminal Law? and the discussions on the Letter of Apology and the Sentencing Law and…
Is Virginia Real?
May 26, 2010
Is Virginia Real?
By: Ifrah Law
U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride of the Eastern District of Virginia has been in the news of late. Last week, he announced plans to pursue prosecutions of high-profile securities-fraud cases in his district. For years, securities-fraud cases have been, with rare exception, primarily handled by the Southern District of New York. MacBride takes comfort in a December 2007 Fourth Circuit case that held that the Eastern…
Is Craigslist Eligible for Immunity?
May 22, 2010
Is Craigslist Eligible for Immunity?
By: Ifrah Law
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and a coalition of 39 attorneys general have long accused Craigslist of furthering prostitution and human trafficking. Blumenthal’s May 3, 2010, subpoena to Craigslist has reignited the debate over the online bulletin board’s responsibility for prostitution ads posted on its site. Craigslist is clearly fighting back. Its CEO, James Buckmaster, recently wrote on the official Craigslist blog, “As AG Blumenthal…
The Fate of an Iowa Butcher — Scapegoat or Cautionary Tale?
May 14, 2010
The Fate of an Iowa Butcher — Scapegoat or Cautionary Tale?
By: Ifrah Law
On June 22, 2010, Chief U.S. District Judge Linda Reade of the Northern District of Iowa will impose a sentence on Sholom Rubashkin, formerly the plant manager at Agriprocessors, Inc., the now-defunct Postville, Iowa, kosher slaughterhouse. The sentencing comes more than two years after a massive immigration raid that netted a total of 289 undocumented workers and led to Rubashkin’s arrest and conviction. Rubashkin originally…
