Almost four years after the First Step Act was enacted in December 2018, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has finally adopted a formal policy on how to implement this law passed by Congress that could potentially shorten the sentences of most BOP prisoners. In usual BOP style, the policy is long and complex — but…
Whether a nude image of a minor is considered illegal depends on whether it’s “obscene.” But what does that mean? For decades, what has amounted to obscenity has never been clearly established by the courts. The Supreme Court did set some guidelines for obscenity cases – 50 years ago – but it still left the…
Criminal cases are chock full of errors. Judges err, prosecutors err, and of course defense lawyers are far from perfect. But when it comes to federal habeas corpus, not all errors are worth raising. Perhaps the most challenging part of federal habeas corpus might be coming up with claims worthy of arguing for relief. In…
August 8, 2022: Jones v. Hendrix, No. 21-857 (S. Ct.) Even though the government has convinced some federal courts that relief under the savings clause should not even exist for prisoners under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, it has now changed its tune and argued in the Supreme Court that it was wrong and savings clause…
If you need a power of attorney form, you don’t have to pay for them. Here’s a durable power of attorney form for Florida, and a revocation form when the time comes to end the power of attorney. I also included a generic power of attorney form that may be used in other states. Florida…
(This post is a repost of an article by Prof. Sarat found here) I’ve been following Amherst Law Prof Austin Sarat’s posts on the Justia Verdict website for a while, and he always makes me stop and think with the topics he covers. While he often writes about problems with the death penalty, here’s a…
Otober 21, 2022: Doe v. Swearingen, No. 21-10644 (11th Cir.) Reviving a lawsuit against Florida’s sex offender registry, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (overseeing the federal courts in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia) held on Friday that the federal district court in the Southern District of Florida’s dismissal of the lawsuit as…
A federal judge and several other law experts argued in a recent law review journal that the way federal supervised release works is unconstitutional. The big problem, they point out, is that someone can be thrown back in prison for years without ever being charged with a crime or given the protections normally given for…
Just saw this posted today on the U.S. Courts website about changes being made to the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER). Here’s the entire text: AO Director Updates Congress on Progress in Case Management Technology Modernization In a letter to key members of Congress on Wednesday, the Director of the Administrative Office of…
Is the BOP sending people in halfway houses back to prison because of calculation error in time credits awarded to prisoner for taking certain programs? Not right now. While the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) continues to make a disastrous mess of the First Step Act enacted by Congress in 2018 to help get non-violent…
