September, 2017 | McLane Bednarski & Litt, LLP

26 Sep

Supreme Court Approval of “50 State Surveys”

September 26, 2017

BLOG BULLETS: A recent Supreme Court opinion holds the “generic” version of “sexual abuse of a minor” for purposes of the categorical approach requires that the victim be less than 16 years old, at least in the absence of a relationship of trust. The opinion’s analysis illustrates the use and potential importance of “50 state […]

Read/Write Comments

19 Sep

No Icing Our Clients in the Second Circuit Either; That’s Hockey Country, and You Only Get to Ice in Hockey When You’re Playing Short-Handed.

September 19, 2017

By Carl GunnPress

BLOG BULLETS: A New York district court has joined the flood holding ICE detainers can’t be used to defeat an order setting bond in a criminal case. The court’s memorandum order cites both the Ninth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Santos-Flores, 794 F.3d 1088 (9th Cir. 2015), and the in-depth district court opinion in United States […]

Read/Write Comments

11 Sep

An Update on Mandamusing Them If They Won’t Throw Off the Chains.

September 11, 2017

By Carl GunnPress

This post is just a short update on enforcement of the Ninth Circuit’s opinion strictly limiting shackling in United States v. Sanchez-Gomez, 859 F.3d 649 (9th Cir. 2017) (en banc). You may recall a post a couple of months ago on a petition for writ of mandamus our Federal Public Defender friends in Arizona […]

Read/Write Comments

About the Blog

Shortly before I moved on after 28 years of work as a Federal Public Defender, one of the younger attorneys I had the honor to mentor forwarded me an e-mail he’d received from an Assistant United States Attorney. The e-mail complained that my younger colleague was being extremely frustrating, that my colleague was making far too much of a “simple little case,” that the client in the case was going to be deported no matter what, and that my colleague was forcing the prosecutor to “expend a tremendous amount of effort” on what the prosecutor characterized as a “silly issue.” He ended his e-mail by asking, “Have you been hanging out with Carl Gunn?”

Some people would have been insulted by this, but I felt rather proud. Making as much as we can out of what the government sees as “simple little cases,” litigating issues despite the government’s view that they might be “silly,” and “expend[ing] a tremendous amount of effort” on behalf of clients who have the full weight of the government thrown up against them – often with the government’s view that the case is open and shut, or “simple” – is our calling as public defenders and defense attorneys. We all have our different reasons for doing it, but it’s a crucial task – for our clients, our system, and ourselves. As Sir Thomas More was said to say in “A Man for All Seasons” in response to his future son-in- law’s exclamation that he’d “cut down every law in England” to get at the devil: “Oh, and when the last law in England was down and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, all the laws being flat?”

I’m proud if “hanging out with Carl Gunn” means not just accepting the government’s view that cases are “simple” and “little,” that issues are “silly,” and that we shouldn’t expend resources on our clients. Hence the name of this blog: “Hanging out with Carl Gunn.” I hope to offer some thoughts and ideas that the government may think are “silly,” but I respectfully don’t; that you can use in cases that the government may think are “simple,” but aren’t so simple when looked at more critically; and that are an entirely appropriate way to expend our resources. And in the spirit of this being a “hanging out” together, there might be guest bloggers from time to time with their “silly” ideas to offer. I hope you find some of the ideas on this blog helpful and offer whatever comments you might have to add to them.

Month: September 2017

Supreme Court Approval of “50 State Surveys”

No Icing Our Clients in the Second Circuit Either; That’s Hockey Country, and You Only Get to Ice in Hockey When You’re Playing Short-Handed.

An Update on Mandamusing Them If They Won’t Throw Off the Chains.

Partners

Civil Rights

Significant Cases

List of Crimes

Results