Sentencing/Post Conviction

Once-convicted lawyer turns tables on feds, seeks $215K for defense fees in $52M mortgage-fraud case

Convicted two years ago in a $52 million mortgage-fraud scheme, a New Orleans lawyer won a reversal of his conviction in July from a federal appeals court. Now David Mark hopes to get reimbursement from the government of some $215,000 in attorney’s fees and costs, due to alleged wrongdoing by…

Sep 14, 2015 2:30 PM CDT

Protesters say bench conviction in fiery attack on teen should include attempted murder

Updated: A Michigan judge is facing protest over her verdict last month concerning a 17-year-old attacked last year by an ex-boyfriend in her own home. Judge Pamela Lightvoet convicted Adam Shigwadja of home invasion, arson and assault in the Kalamazoo County Circuit Court case. But critics are upset that the…

Sep 14, 2015 12:50 PM CDT

Lawyer gets 48 months for defrauding estate of $2.3M

A suburban Philadelphia lawyer who diverted more than $2.3 million from a $6 million estate into his law firm accounts was sentenced Thursday to 48 months in federal prison. Randall Scott, 72, pleaded guilty earlier this year to mail fraud and tax charges. Between December 2005 and October 2011 he…

Sep 11, 2015 9:20 AM CDT

Judge who refused sobriety test admits drinking more than she initially told investigators she had

A Florida judge who lost a legal battle to avoid a drunken-driving conviction last year is now fighting for her career on the bench. Broward Circuit Judge Cynthia Imperato had been willing to settle her related legal ethics case and take a 20-day unpaid suspension from her job, at the…

Sep 10, 2015 1:50 PM CDT

Federal judge who gave up his blog is posting again, offering his thoughts on sentence reform

Two months ago, U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf said he was giving up his pull-no-punches blog, Hercules and the Umpire. But that apparently doesn’t mean that he has given up blogging entirely. In a Wednesday post at Fault Lines, the judge offers his thoughts on federal sentencing reform. “My personal…

Sep 10, 2015 12:19 PM CDT

Capital juror used slur to describe defendant in post-conviction affidavit, cert petition says

A U.S. Supreme Court cert petition is citing a former juror’s N-word assertion in an affidavit obtained eight years after the juror voted to sentence a black Georgia defendant to death. In the affidavit, the 79-year-old former juror says: “I don’t know if he ever killed anybody, but that n—–…

Sep 10, 2015 9:10 AM CDT

Arthur Hunter Jr.: From cop to judge to fighting recidivism

If you send people to prison and do nothing to rehabilitate them, it’s not surprising that they often commit more crimes when released, says Judge Arthur L. Hunter Jr. of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court in New Orleans. Five years ago he and fellow jurist Laurie A. White founded…

Sep 10, 2015 8:20 AM CDT

Botched investigation, lack of evidence required acquittal of Amanda Knox, top Italian court says

A botched investigation by Italian authorities made it impossible to answer certain questions about exactly what happened when the 21-year-old roommate of Amanda Knox was murdered in 2007, the country’s top court said Monday. But, in the absence of any evidence putting Knox, now 28, and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito,…

Sep 9, 2015 1:25 PM CDT

Defrocked bishop takes plea in DUI case over fatal bicycle accident

The day before she was to go to trial, a defrocked bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland has taken a plea in a criminal case over a fatal bicycle accident. Heather Cook admitted initially leaving the scene of the Dec. 27 crash and pleaded guilty Tuesday to driving under…

Sep 9, 2015 12:55 PM CDT

Laurie White: Using lifers to help other inmates re-enter society

Inmates serving life sentences at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly referred to as the fearsome Angola prison, may be seen as hardened criminals who don’t have much to offer society. But Judge Laurie A. White of the Criminal District Court of Orleans Parish, knows that some inmates have spent their…

Sep 9, 2015 8:23 AM CDT

How a program at an infamous prison helps inmates re-enter society (podcast with transcript)

What good can some men serving life sentence do for other inmates? A great deal, says Judge Laurie A. White, who co-founded a re-entry program for inmates of the infamous Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana. In this episode of Asked and Answered, she tells the ABA Journal’s Stephanie Francis Ward…

Sep 8, 2015 8:38 AM CDT

Inmate offers to be a bone marrow donor for judge who put him in jail while a prosecutor

A North Carolina inmate says he has no ill will toward the district attorney who helped put him in jail. The inmate, Charles Alston, is serving a 25-year sentence for armed robbery. In a letter to the former prosecutor, who is now a judge in Chapel Hill, Alston says he…

Sep 4, 2015 6:15 AM CDT

School district blasted for saying teen consented to sex with teacher makes same claim in appeal

A California school district yanked 14 cases away from its legal counsel last year after a firestorm arose over a legal argument he made to win a civil case. But now, on appeal of that same case, the district is making much the same argument, saying that a 14-year-old student…

Sep 3, 2015 11:30 AM CDT

Lawyer convicted in wife-murder said to inspire ‘Fargo’ movie plot dies at home at 88

A Minnesota lawyer convicted of first-degree murder in one of the state’s most notorious crimes died at his home last month. T. Eugene Thompson was 88 years old. He served nearly 20 years for the 1963 slaying of his wife, Carol Thompson, who was fatally beaten and stabbed by a…

Sep 2, 2015 11:40 AM CDT

California agrees to limit solitary confinement to settle Pelican Bay lawsuit

California has agreed to limit its use of solitary confinement to inmates who commit serious offenses in prison. The proposed lawsuit settlement would end the practice of putting inmates in solitary confinement for indefinite periods because of gang affiliation, report the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog…

Sep 2, 2015 8:56 AM CDT