Sentencing/Post Conviction

Clemency Project 2014 has submitted more than 1,000 petitions to the White House

Clemency Project 2014 has submitted more than 1,000 petitions for sentence commutations to the federal government, the project announced today. The ABA-backed project is using nearly 4,000 volunteer attorneys to prepare and submit petitions for clemency from federal prisoners serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. The project arose out of…

May 16, 2016 12:46 PM CDT

‘Grim Sleeper’ killed 5 more women, jury is told by prosecutor in penalty phase of his trial

A Los Angeles jury convicted Lonnie David Franklin Jr. of 10 first-degree murder counts last week. When the same jury began hearing testimony Thursday in the penalty phase of his trial, a prosecutor told them that the so-called “Grim Sleeper” had killed five additional women. Although the defendant was not…

May 13, 2016 12:15 PM CDT

Former New York Senate leader Dean Skelos gets 5 years in corruption case

For the second time in little more than week, a former New York legislative leader and attorney has been sentenced to prison time in a corruption case. On Thursday, a federal judge in Manhattan sentenced former New York Senate majority leader Dean Skelos, 68, to five years behind bars and…

May 12, 2016 4:15 PM CDT

Ex-Bryan Cave associate gets probation in partner death threat

A former associate at Bryan Cave has been sentenced to probation for leaving a death threat on a partner’s voice mail. Ryan Walsh was sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty in February to transmitting a threat via interstate commerce, report the Am Law Daily and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He…

May 12, 2016 10:36 AM CDT

Former federal prosecutor gets 30-day sentence for $600K client theft

A former top federal prosecutor in Connecticut had faced a sentence of up to 41 months in prison for embezzling more than $600,000 from the trust fund of an imprisoned former client. But U.S. District Judge Victor Bolden departed from the federal sentencing guidelines in sentencing H. James Pickerstein on…

May 11, 2016 7:26 AM CDT

Juror asks judge to reduce his six-month sentence for misconduct

A Florida juror who conducted a vodka-drinking experiment during a trial is seeking a reduction of his nearly six-month-long contempt sentence for the misconduct to 37 days of time already served in jail. The juror, Dennis DeMartin, said he lost his condo during his jail stint and is now living…

May 10, 2016 11:22 AM CDT

Rebuked after muttered remarks at federal sentencing, defense lawyer says cursing is commonplace

Admonished by a federal judge for remarks he made under his breath while a prosecutor was arguing at a November sentencing hearing, and again while leaving in an elevator, a prominent Cleveland defense lawyer says he has apologized. However, attorney Craig Weintraub also says that such curse words are commonplace,…

May 10, 2016 10:05 AM CDT

Lawyer who fraudulently inserted client names in asbestos cases gets two years in federal prison

A former New Jersey lawyer who, while still in practice, added to his Haddonfield firm’s bottom line by deleting the names of actual plaintiffs and inserting the names of its clients in already-filed New York asbestos lawsuits has been sentenced to two years in federal prison. Arobert C. Tonagbanua, now…

May 6, 2016 11:20 AM CDT

White House announces another 58 sentence commutations

Another 58 prison sentences, a number of them life terms, have been commuted by President Barack Obama, the White House announced Thursday. The president has now commuted a total of 306 sentences and intends to grant relief to more prisoners while he remains in office, according to Reuters and the…

May 6, 2016 7:45 AM CDT

Top Florida court OKs new murder trial for lawyer’s ex-wife

A Florida woman convicted of first-degree murder in the 2011 slaying of her attorney ex-husband at the luxury home they shared will get a new trial. That’s because prosecutors violated both state constitutional and evidentiary law by encouraging the jury to consider her silence as a sign of consciousness of…

May 5, 2016 1:45 PM CDT

Immigration lawyer admits breaking law to help client, gets 2 years of probation

An award-winning Georgia immigration lawyer who was facing felony charges for allegedly facilitating a client’s visa fraud has taken a misdemeanor plea. Attorney Bonnie Youn, 46, was sentenced Tuesday to two years of probation and a $5,245 fine. She also will not practice law during that period, the Daily Report…

May 5, 2016 12:10 PM CDT

Angry over drug sentence, inmate filed false $5.8M debt claim against federal judge, feds say

Unhappy with his 11-year sentence over two drug cases, a convicted marijuana smuggler found a way to get back at the judge who imposed it, authorities say. While still imprisoned, Leandro Cardenas Luna, now 58, managed to file an involuntary bankruptcy petition in 2014 against U.S. District Judge Alia Moses,…

May 5, 2016 11:05 AM CDT

Crime lab chemist was high almost daily, cooked crack cocaine at work, state AG says

A state chemist responsible for testing drug evidence in Massachusetts criminal cases was high at work and while testifying in court almost daily between 2005 and 2013, says an investigative report by the state attorney general. Released Tuesday, the report by AG Maura Healey says Sonja Farak, who worked at…

May 5, 2016 6:30 AM CDT

DOJ office that funds re-entry programs finds new ways to refer to people with criminal records

Terms like “felon” and “offender” are demeaning when used to describe people who have been released from prison, and the Office of Justice Programs within the U.S. Department of Justice will no longer use the words to characterize individuals who finished their sentences, the office announced today. “The labels we…

May 4, 2016 4:05 PM CDT

Hundreds of Florida death-row inmates should get life following SCOTUS decision, amicus brief says

Hundreds of death row inmates in Florida should have their capital sentences commuted to life terms, says an amicus brief filed Tuesday by leaders in the legal community. Following a U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this year that found the state’s advisory death-penalty scheme unconstitutional in the case of Timothy…

May 4, 2016 10:45 AM CDT