Don’t you just hate it when you walk into that initial appearance and the government hands you that piece of paper titled, “Notice of Request for Detention”? And isn’t it especially annoying that they do it in what seems like 90% of the cases? And you know how there’s two boxes for them to choose […]

It’s that time of year. And, no, I’m not talking about it being spring and love being in the air. (Though hopefully it is for some of you.) It’s the time of year when the Sentencing Commission issues the final version of the guideline amendments which will take effect in November unless Congress vetoes them […]

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Setser v. United States, 132 S. Ct. 1463 (2012) on the power of a federal judge to order consecutive sentences brought to mind a problem that we run into not infrequently in federal criminal defense practice. The problem is how to make sure a state sentence which the state […]

This week, we have a guest blogger – Deputy Federal Public Defender Sam Josephs. Sam clerked for both District Judge William Pauley in New York and Ninth Circuit Judge M. Smith. Sam had the good sense to choose California over New York and has been a deputy with the Federal Public Defender in Los Angeles […]

BLOG BULLETS: Research the federal definition and the state statute. Don’t assume words mean what you – and most everyone else – think they mean. Don’t assume the same words mean the same thing: A rose by any other name . . . NOW THE BLOG: I’ve talked in prior posts about the categorical approach […]

In my last post, I wrote about the categorical and modified categorical approaches to judging whether a prior conviction qualifies as an enhancement conviction under various federal sentencing enhancement statutes. One example of a potential argument that many might not think of can be found in two appeals I presently have pending in the Ninth […]

Enhancement provisions in various federal criminal statutes and the sentencing guidelines have become ubiquitous over the last 20 years. Among the more important examples are the Armed Career Criminal Act in 18 U.S.C. § 924(e); the career offender guideline in § 4B1.1 of the sentencing guidelines, which is also incorporated by reference into the base […]

For my first post on this blog, I thought I’d share an idea that comes out of an experience from a trial I did about 10 years ago. A Central District of California AUSA very reasonably provided me with an interpreter’s “draft” transcripts of undercover recordings of meetings between my client and an undercover agent. […]