Criminal Practice

  • October 09, 2025

    ADA Doesn't Stop At Prison Gates, 3rd Circ. Says In Reversal

    The Third Circuit ordered a lower court to accept an incarcerated man's amended Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit against a Pennsylvania prison that he says denied him proper medical treatment when a spinal cord injury left him paralyzed in his cell.

  • October 09, 2025

    Conn. Official Pushed Firm That Hired Family, Witnesses Say

    Two local Connecticut officials on Thursday testified that Kosta Diamantis, a former state budget official accused of corruption, pushed them to hire a construction management firm they considered expensive and unnecessary without disclosing that the firm had hired his daughter and was allegedly paying him kickbacks.

  • October 09, 2025

    San Antonio Abandons Out-Of-State Abortion Travel Appeal

    The city of San Antonio on Thursday conceded defeat in its request for court approval to go forward with a program that included funding for out-of-state travel for abortions, handing a victory to the state's attorney general.

  • October 09, 2025

    Ineffective Counsel Claim Could Afford Immigrant Legal Status

    A Guatemalan man who lost his path to U.S. citizenship after being convicted of breaking into a car has been offered another chance at a new trial if he can show his attorney failed to inform him of his right to appeal, Massachusetts' intermediate appeals court said Thursday.

  • October 09, 2025

    Pa. Panel Revives Challenge To 17-Year-Old Restitution Order

    A 17-year-old restitution order still falls within the jurisdiction of the court that originally imposed the sentence, even if it had been converted to a "judgment" years ago, a Pennsylvania appellate court found.

  • October 09, 2025

    Florida Says Its Immigration Law Doesn't Preempt Federal Law

    Florida asked the Eleventh Circuit on Thursday to overturn a block on a state law that criminalizes the entry of unauthorized immigrants into the state, arguing that there is no preemption of federal immigration law.

  • October 09, 2025

    Top Texas Court Halts Execution In Shaken Baby Case

    Texas' top criminal court on Thursday paused the execution of a man convicted of killing his daughter under the discredited "shaken baby syndrome" theory, ordering a trial court to consider whether a recent ruling in another capital case involving the same theory could justify granting a new trial.

  • October 09, 2025

    Mich. Justices Urged To Restore Diminished Capacity Defense

    A lawyer for a man awaiting trial for murder told the Michigan Supreme Court on Thursday that a jury deserves to hear that his client was mentally ill and possibly suffering from delusions, urging the court to lift a decades-old bar on so-called diminished capacity evidence.

  • October 09, 2025

    False-Statement Case Puts Comey In Rare Company

    Former FBI director James Comey is the latest addition to the relatively short list of government officials who have been criminally charged over the past several decades with making false statements to Congress.

  • October 09, 2025

    Fintech Exec May Claim Double Jeopardy Amid Judge Shuffle

    A former executive of payment processor Allied Wallet has filed a double jeopardy motion after the initial Massachusetts federal judge overseeing the fraud case recused himself, a second declared a mistrial and exited due to a family emergency, and a third flagged a potential conflict with a prosecutor.

  • October 08, 2025

    4th Circ. OKs Verdict In Gang Case Despite Bad Translations

    The Fourth Circuit said Wednesday that a court translator's errors during trial don't merit overturning the convictions of three men on gang-related racketeering conspiracy and other charges.

  • October 08, 2025

    Pa. Court Says New Murder Trial Can't Rely On Witness Video

    The Pennsylvania Superior Court has asked a lower court to revisit its grant of a new trial for a man convicted of a 1976 murder, saying it wrongly relied on video testimony from a witness who claimed police bribed him with sexual liaisons while in custody in order to frame an innocent man.

  • October 08, 2025

    Firm Owner Benefited From Ex-Official's Help, Jury Hears

    A construction management firm owner who claimed she felt pressured to pay Kosta Diamantis and to hire the Connecticut budget official's daughter also accepted business advice and landed government contracts with Diamantis' assistance, helping the fledgling company she launched without much experience, the official's attorney argued Wednesday.

  • October 08, 2025

    Uber Driver Charged In Deadly Pacific Palisades Wildfire

    Federal authorities announced on Wednesday the arrest of an Uber driver for starting the deadly Palisades Fire that caused severe damage to several Los Angeles County communities in January. 

  • October 08, 2025

    ICE Violating Settlement With Warrantless Arrests, Judge Says

    A federal judge in Illinois has ruled that the use of informal administrative warrants by agents from ICE's Chicago field office in recent immigration enforcement actions violates a 2022 settlement with unauthorized immigrants that requires the agency to use warrants signed by a judge when making most arrests.

  • October 08, 2025

    Texas Atty Indicted On 5 Counts Of Cyberstalking

    A Texas attorney was indicted on five counts of cyberstalking Tuesday along with two charges of transmitting communications in interstate commerce, accused in federal court of harassing five people including attorneys via various forms of digital media.

  • October 08, 2025

    Mass. Atty Gets 9 Years For $3.5M Theft Schemes

    A Massachusetts attorney was sentenced on Wednesday by a federal judge to nine years in prison for stealing nearly $3.5 million from friends and two vulnerable relatives, including one who ended up in subsidized housing struggling to afford food.

  • October 08, 2025

    3rd Circ. Clarifies Good Conduct Credits For Prison Terms

    In a precedential ruling Wednesday, the Third Circuit clarified how good conduct credits for inmates serving time can be applied, finding that the credit of 54 days per year can be prorated to 28 days for the last six months of a man's 17-and-a-half-year sentence.

  • October 08, 2025

    NJ US Atty Appointment Was 'Shell Game,' 3rd Circ. Told

    Two New Jersey criminal defendants this week blasted the Trump administration's attempt to name Alina Habba as U.S. attorney for the state after her interim term ended, telling the Third Circuit that the government's plan was a "shell game."

  • October 08, 2025

    Panel Wants 3-Month Suspension For Ex-DC Prosecutor

    An attorney disciplinary committee in the nation's capital has recommended a three-month suspension for a former federal prosecutor accused of withholding key evidence in criminal cases against hundreds of people arrested at protests of President Donald Trump's first inauguration in 2017.

  • October 08, 2025

    Conn. High Court OKs DNA Taken From Trash Sans Warrant

    In a decision setting standards for privacy, Connecticut's highest court upheld the conviction of a man sentenced to 72 years in prison for a series of 1984 home invasion sexual assaults, finding that police were allowed to take his trash to obtain DNA without a warrant.

  • October 08, 2025

    Feds Drop Charges Against Ill. Couple Arrested At ICE Protest

    Federal prosecutors on Wednesday moved to dismiss assault charges against a married couple who were recently arrested while protesting in front of a Chicago-area ICE detention center, following a grand jury's refusal to prosecute them, according to the protesters' attorneys and court filings.

  • October 08, 2025

    DOJ Asks For Stay In PVC Antitrust Case Amid Criminal Probe

    The U.S. Department of Justice is asking an Illinois federal court to pause discovery in a case accusing polyvinyl chloride pipe manufacturers of using a commodity pricing service to exchange information and fix prices while a grand jury investigates the alleged activity.

  • October 08, 2025

    Comey Pleads Not Guilty, Will Contest US Atty's Appointment

    Former FBI Director James Comey pled not guilty Wednesday to one count of false statements and another count of obstructing a congressional hearing, appearing in a Virginia federal courthouse for the first time after a shake-up at the U.S. attorney's office netted a grand jury indictment last month.

  • October 07, 2025

    Attys Urge Mass. Courts To Protect Immigrants' Court Access

    Civil rights lawyers urged the Massachusetts trial court system to better protect migrants' due process rights amid increasing arrests by federal immigration officers inside and outside courthouses, saying Tuesday the court is "well within its right" to do so.

Expert Analysis

  • 'Pig Butchering' Seizure Is A Milestone In Crypto Crime Fight

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    The U.S.' recent seizure of $225 million in crypto funds in a massive "pig butchering" scheme highlights the transformative impact of blockchain analysis in law enforcement, and the increasing necessity of collaboration between law enforcement agencies, cryptocurrency exchanges and stablecoin issuers, says David Zaslowsky at Baker McKenzie.

  • E-Discovery Quarterly: Rulings On Relevance Redactions

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    In recent cases addressing redactions that parties sought to apply based on the relevance of information — as opposed to considerations of privilege — courts have generally limited a party’s ability to withhold nonresponsive or irrelevant material, providing a few lessons for discovery strategy, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • How DOJ's New Data Security Rules Leave HIPAA In The Dust

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    The U.S. Department of Justice's recently effective data security requirements carry profound implications for how healthcare providers collect, store, share and use data — and approach vendor oversight — that go far beyond the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, say attorneys at Nelson Mullins.

  • Opinion

    Section 1983 Has Promise After End Of Nationwide Injunctions

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    After the U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down the practice of nationwide injunctions in Trump v. Casa, Section 1983 civil rights suits can provide a better pathway to hold the government accountable — but this will require reforms to qualified immunity, says Marc Levin at the Council on Criminal Justice.

  • Reel Justice: 'Oh, Hi!' Teaches Attys To Return To The Statute

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    The new dark comedy film “Oh, Hi!” — depicting a romantic vacation that turns into an inadvertent kidnapping — should remind criminal practitioners to always reread the statute to avoid assumptions, meet their ethical duties and finesse their trial strategy, says Veronica Finkelstein at Wilmington University School of Law.

  • DOJ-HHS Collab Crystallizes Focus On Health Enforcement

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    The recently announced partnership between the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to combat False Claims Act violations, following a multiyear trend of high-dollar DOJ recoveries, signals a long-term enforcement horizon with major implications for healthcare entities and whistleblowers, say attorneys at RJO.

  • How Courts Are Addressing The Use Of AI In Discovery

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    In recent months, several courts have issued opinions on handling discovery issues involving artificial intelligence, which collectively offer useful insights on integrating AI into discovery and protecting work product in connection with AI prompts and outputs, says Philip Favro at Favro Law.

  • Series

    Playing Baseball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing baseball in college, and now Wiffle ball in a local league, has taught me that teamwork, mental endurance and emotional intelligence are not only important to success in the sport, but also to success as a trial attorney, says Kevan Dorsey at Swift Currie.

  • APA Relief May Blunt Justices' Universal Injunction Ruling

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    The Administrative Procedure Act’s avenue for universal preliminary relief seems to hold the most promise for neutralizing the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. CASA to limit federal district courts' nationally applicable orders, say attorneys at Crowell.

  • Opinion

    Prosecutors' Duty To Justice Sometimes Demands Mea Culpa

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    Two recent cases — U.S. v. Lucas and U.S. v. Echavarria — demonstrate that prosecutors’ special ethical duty to seek justice can sometimes be in tension with other obligations and incentives, but it nonetheless requires them to concede their mistakes in the interests of justice, say Eastern District of Texas law clerk Ian Stephens and Texas A&M University law professor Jemila Lea.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Skillful Persuasion

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    In many ways, law school teaches us how to argue, but when the ultimate goal is to get your client what they want, being persuasive through preparation and humility is the more likely key to success, says Michael Friedland at Friedland Cianfrani.

  • FCA Working Group Reboot Signals EHR Compliance Risk

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    The revival of the False Claims Act working group is an aggressive expansion of enforcement efforts by the Justice Department and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services targeted toward technology-enabled fraud involving electronic health records and other data, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

  • Litigation Inspiration: How To Respond After A Loss

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    Every litigator loses a case now and then, and the sting of that loss can become a medicine that strengthens or a poison that corrodes, depending on how the attorney responds, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.

  • New Interpol Silver Notice Could Be Tool For Justice Or Abuse

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    Interpol has issued dozens of Silver Notices to trace and recover assets linked to criminal activity since January, and though the tool may disrupt organized crime and terrorist financing, attorneys must protect against the potential for corrupt misuse, say attorneys at Clark Hill and Arktouros.

  • Justices' Resentencing Ruling Fortifies First Step Act Tools

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Hewitt v. U.S. ruling clarifies that resentencing after vacatur must reflect the law in effect at the time of the new sentencing, ultimately strengthening the strategic tools available to defense attorneys under the First Step Act, says Benson Varghese at Varghese Summersett.

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