8th Amendment: Prison Guards Force Applied Causing Injury NOT Cruel and Unusual If in the Course of Maintaining Order
EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge.
Juan Guitron maintains that a guard at the prison where Guitron was confined bent and injured his wrist. The district court dismissed the complaint after the preliminary screening required...
4th Amendment Search and Seizure: Six Day Delay by Police to Get Search Warrant for Cell Phone Is Not Unreasonable
Expecting to find evidence of child pornography, police officers seized Joshua Burgard’s cell phone without a warrant. At that point, however, they seemed to have lost their sense of urgency: they did nothing with the phone right away and...
USSG 3E1.1: One Point for Timely Acceptance MUST Be Granted By Court If Government Asks
Jaymie Mount disappeared while on release awaiting trial on a charge of possession of a gun by a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). He was captured nearly three months later and pleaded guilty two weeks...
FRE 404(b): Government Use of Defendant’s Prior Drug Conviction to Prove Intent Leads to Reversal
In April 2008, acting on a tip from a confidential informant, police obtained a search warrant and then raided a home where defendant Shariff Miller and several other people were staying. After apprehending Miller on his way out the side door, police searched...
18 USC 1341 and 1343: Mail and Wire Fraud Do Not Require Allegations of Pecuniary Harm or Economic Loss
Fenzl is part-owner of Company U, an Illinois corporation engaged in the business of refurbishment and repair of refuse disposal containers. The government alleges that Fenzl engaged in a scheme to defraud the City of Chicago (the “City”) of money and property...
USSG and Double Counting: Impermissible Only When Text of the Applicable Guideline Specifically Says So
David Vizcarra and Rogelio Aguirre committed a kidnapping for ransom to extract payment of a drug debt, abducting the victim in Indiana, taking her to Illinois, and holding her for two days before...
USSG 3B1.1 “Otherwise Extensive” Leadership Enhancement Explained
Naeil Hussein and his girlfriend, Lisa Bazian, operated what appeared to be convenience stores on the south side of Chicago. In fact they were little more than fronts where the couple rang up phony sales for food-stamp recipients looking to exchange their...
Deceptive Investigative Techniques Jury Instruction Approved
Mr. McKnight was charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, 21 U.S.C. § 846, and two counts of using a communication facility (a telephone) to distribute a controlled substance, 21 U.S.C. § 843(b). Mr....
Restitution in Title 26 Tax Cases is Allowed Only as Condition of Probation or Supervised Release
Orvil Duane Hassebrock was convicted by a jury of tax evasion, a felony offense under 26 U.S.C. § 7201, and failure to file a tax return for the 2004 tax year, a misdemeanor offense under 26 U.S.C. § 7203.
Entrapment: IMPORTANT! Court Must Consider Defendant’s Predisposition Before Government Inducement
A law enforcement operation that began with the promising interdiction of 943 kilograms of marijuana, shipped from Jalisco, Mexico, ended less than admirably.
When government agents executed a “controlled delivery” to an...