Sentencing/Post Conviction

In prison for 30 years, Belgian inmate wins OK for assisted suicide

A convicted murderer and rapist in Belgium who says he is a danger to society has won approval for an assisted suicide. Frank Van Den Bleeken will be the first detainee in Belgium who won the right to euthanasia for psychological reasons, the Associated Press reports. At least 15 other…

Sep 17, 2014 1:21 PM CDT

Imprisoned for plotting to kill federal judge, law grad wants to play the violin in supermax

Nearly a decade into his 40-year prison sentence for plotting to kill a federal judge in Chicago, law graduate Matthew Hale is finding the conditions of his solitary confinement in one of the country’s most secure prisons onerous. The would-be Illinois lawyer, who was denied bar admission over his admitted…

Sep 16, 2014 2:45 PM CDT

Bite-mark expert’s flip-flop is cited in death-row inmate’s new appeal

A Mississippi inmate on death row for two decades has filed a new appeal that claims he was convicted largely because of the kind of bite-mark evidence that has been cited in 24 wrongful convictions and indictments since 2000. The inmate, Eddie Lee Howard Jr., was convicted in the murder…

Sep 16, 2014 12:39 PM CDT

Guilty of grisly murder, Jodi Arias auctions ‘one-of-a-kind’ item—spectacles she wore at trial

Jodi Arias was found guilty last year in the grisly murder of her onetime boyfriend, Travis Alexander, with the help of two key sets of evidence: Photos she apparently took of the crime scene and then forgot in a camera found in the washing machine at his Arizona home. A…

Sep 15, 2014 2:15 PM CDT

Ex-judge once jailed for mailing live snake gets 40 years in drug case; feds say he killed witness

Imprisoned a decade ago after he and his son mailed a live poisonous snake to a man with whom they had a dispute, a former Arkansas judge on Friday was sentenced to 40 years in a new federal prosecution. Bob Sam Castleman was convicted last year in a case over…

Sep 12, 2014 5:20 PM CDT

New conviction-integrity unit in DC is said to be first created by a federal prosecutor

Joining a trend that has sparked the creation of conviction-integrity units in a number of state prosecutor’s offices, the District of Columbia is establishing what is billed as the first such unit in a federal prosecutor’s office. “As prosecutors, our goal is not to win convictions, but to do justice,”…

Sep 12, 2014 2:15 PM CDT

Ex-BigLaw partner gets 13 months in tax case, admits he owes $924K to US

A former partner at McDermott Will & Emery in Miami has been sentenced to 13 months in federal prison for failing to file multiple tax returns. Steven Siff, 56, was taken into custody immediately after his sentencing in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, reports the Sun-Sentinel. He admitted he had stopped…

Sep 12, 2014 11:35 AM CDT

Former White House lawyer gets 15-year sentence for attempted murder; wife tells of past abuse

Former White House lawyer John Michael Farren was sentenced on Thursday to 15 years in prison for the attempted murder of his then-wife, a lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Judge Richard Comerford of Stamford, Connecticut, sentenced Farren and ordered him held without bond pending appeal, report the…

Sep 12, 2014 7:38 AM CDT

Deputy arrests disbarred lawyer a decade after taking report in child-abuse case

A decade ago, a Missouri sheriff’s deputy took a report in a child-abuse case. The suspect, attorney Laura Ann Sipes, was convicted of misdemeanor assault in the beating of her two sons, but disappeared before sentencing in the Lincoln County case, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (reg. req.). Monday night,…

Sep 11, 2014 10:05 AM CDT

Padilla gets new 21-year sentence after 11th Circuit says original 17-year term was too lenient

Told by a federal appeals court that the 17-year sentence she had given a convicted terrorism plotter was too lenient, a federal judge in Miami on Tuesday resentenced Jose Padilla to a 21-year term. The Atlanta-based 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke had…

Sep 9, 2014 1:00 PM CDT

Onetime law student Mathew Martoma gets 9 years in ‘most lucrative’ $275M insider-trading case

A onetime Harvard University law student expelled for altering his transcript was sentenced Monday to nine years in prison in a case billed by federal prosecutors as “the most lucrative insider-trading scheme ever charged.” Mathew Martoma, 40, had faced as much as 20 years in the Manhattan case over his…

Sep 8, 2014 4:05 PM CDT

NCAA to end challenge of law giving state officials control of $60M Penn State fine in Sandusky case

The governing body of college sports has decided to try to bow out of litigation challenging the validity of a 2013 state law that requires state officials to oversee the expenditure of $60 million in sanctions levied by the National College Athletic Association against Pennsylvania State University. The fine concerned…

Sep 8, 2014 1:50 PM CDT

Retired prosecutor who convicted two men just exonerated after 30 years behind bars is unrepentant

Perhaps it’s not a surprise that the person who was once nicknamed America’s “Deadliest D.A.” has no regrets over his role in putting Henry McCollum and Leon Brown on death row for a 1983 rape and murder in North Carolina—convictions that were overturned last week as a result of DNA…

Sep 8, 2014 1:40 PM CDT

Federal judge takes plea in domestic battery case, will not be convicted if he completes treatment

A federal judge charged with battery in a domestic dispute with his wife that took place in an Atlanta hotel room has apologized and agreed to a plea deal. It will result in the misdemeanor charge against U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller being dropped if he successfully completes domestic violence…

Sep 5, 2014 1:10 PM CDT

NYC will pay $41M to five men who served time in Central Park jogger case, but admits no liability

A federal magistrate judge in New York has OK’d a settlement in which New York City will pay $41 million to five men who were wrongfully convicted and served time for a brutal 1989 rape and beating in Central Park. However, the city admits no liability for the conviction and…

Sep 5, 2014 12:50 PM CDT