BLOG BULLETS: Remember that it’s you doing the government a favor when you offer a conditional plea, not them doing you a favor by accepting the offer. A new guidelines amendment overrules a bad Ninth Circuit case and states that the government can’t withhold the third acceptance of responsibility point simply because a defendant won’t […]

BLOG BULLETS:   Instructions on affirmative defenses aren’t given automatically; you do need some evidence to get one. The way the cases have phrased it is that you need “more than a scintilla” of evidence for a theory of defense instruction, but that threshold is “slight indeed.” The court can’t weigh the evidence but must […]

BLOG BULLETS:   The Ninth Circuit has long held that what is called “sentencing entrapment” – meaning inducement of a defendant into selling a type and/or larger quantity of drugs than he was predisposed to sell – allows a sentence below the statutory mandatory minimum for that drug type and/or quantity. The Ninth Circuit has […]

BLOG BULLETS:   There’s more district court opinions out there holding the existence of an ICE detainer doesn’t preclude a court from granting bond to a defendant who’s in the country illegally. Two of these opinions also consider the issue of whether ICE can then hold the person in immigration custody without removing him and […]

BLOG BULLETS:   There’s a government “watch list” for citizens crossing the border whose property (including laptop computers) they want to search. The few cases that exist tend to suggest this pretextual targeting probably doesn’t by itself prevent a suspicionless, warrantless search under the border search exception. But there may be a claim that the […]