Sentencing/Post Conviction

Judge to Review 1,100 Crime Lab Docs; PD: ‘This Could Be Pandora’s Box’

A California judge has ordered the San Francisco police crime lab to turn over for a relevance review some 1,100 pages of documents related to an investigation of a veteran technician suspected of stealing cocaine evidence during her 29-year career there. Depending on what Judge Anne-Christine Massullo sees, the review…

Mar 24, 2010 8:50 PM CDT

Tax Attorney Likely to Lose Law License After Guilty Plea in Strip Club Case

A 53-year-old tax attorney has pleaded guilty to a felony concerning the unlicensed New York City strip club he allegedly operated in Manhattan. Although Louis Posner will serve no jail time, the Associated Press says he will be sentenced to 60 days of community service. His guilty plea to promoting…

Mar 24, 2010 7:07 PM CDT

Scheduled to Die Today, Inmate Seeks DNA Tests Shunned by His Trial Lawyer

A Texas death row inmate is seeking an 11th-hour reprieve from the governor or the U.S. Supreme Court so he can get DNA tests that had been shunned by his original lawyer. Hank Skinner is scheduled to be executed today, the Associated Press reports. He admits he was in the…

Mar 24, 2010 12:49 PM CDT

Stepkids Sue Lawyer’s Widow Over Alleged $1.4M Trust Investment with Bernard Madoff

The widow of a prominent New York City lawyer has been sued by two of his children over the way she allegedly invested the $1.4 million trust fund Howard Squadron established for his family under his estate plan. Anne Squadron put all of the money into a single account—with Bernard…

Mar 23, 2010 11:30 PM CDT

4th Circuit Hears ‘Fatal Vision’ Appeal

A federal appeals court is considering today whether to grant a new trial to a former Army doctor who claims drug-crazed hippies killed his wife and two daughters 40 years ago. The Fatal Vision book and miniseries were based on the case of Jeffrey MacDonald, who cites new evidence in…

Mar 23, 2010 4:11 PM CDT

Litigant’s Situation Goes from Bad to Worse as E-Mail to Judge Results in New Conviction

Apparently angry over what he perceived as a federal judge’s delay in ruling on his civil suit over an alleged unlawful arrest and incarceration, a Virginia man sent the South Carolina jurist a number of e-mails expressing his negative view of the situation. Now Stephen Rosenberg is awaiting sentencing in…

Mar 22, 2010 6:10 PM CDT

Ex-Employee Gets Probation in Law Firm Theft

A Texas woman who was accused of stealing more than $30,000 from the law firm for which she worked has pleaded guilty to theft. However, 24-year-old Christina Coronado won’t have to serve any time. She was sentenced to 10 years of probation for stealing from the Zimmerman Law Firm in…

Mar 22, 2010 5:24 PM CDT

Movie Script Revision Needed? High Court Accepts Case of Exonerated Inmate

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the New Orleans District Attorney’s office may be liable for failing to turn over a crime lab report that could have helped an inmate avoid the death penalty. Touchstone Pictures has signed a deal to produce a movie on the case…

Mar 22, 2010 4:04 PM CDT

Drug Court ‘Ladies Day’ Features Oprah-Like Judge

One day a week, the drug court in Pinellas County, Florida, focuses exclusively on women. Funded by a $900,000 federal grant, the “Ladies Day” program encourages women, who officials say are more open to talking about themselves and accepting guidance when men aren’t around, to make needed changes in their…

Mar 19, 2010 10:48 PM CDT

Juvenile Judge Orders 4 Sex-Assault Victims to Take Polygraph Test

Baffling prosecutors and upsetting victims, an Ohio judge has ordered four teenage victims of sexual assaults to take polygraph tests—after their alleged attackers have already been found delinquent, reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Cuyahoga Juvenile Court Judge Alison Floyd has also called for the delinquent teens, who are accused of…

Mar 19, 2010 5:35 PM CDT

Freed from Prison, Ex-Milberg Partners Play Golf, Go Skiing and Reflect

Updated: Four former partners at the law firm once known as Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach are out of prison and pondering their next move. Business Week contacted all four and learned that two former name partners, Melvyn Weiss and William Lerach, are reflecting on their prison time and…

Mar 19, 2010 12:45 PM CDT

Fighting Extradition in Child-Sex Case, Polanski Claims More Long-Ago Judicial Misconduct

Fighting to keep famed film director Roman Polanski from being extradited from Switzerland to face sentencing in a decades-old California child-sex case from which he fled following conviction, his lawyers are now making new allegations of long-ago judicial misconduct. Among them: That the now-deceased judge in the case met in…

Mar 18, 2010 11:14 PM CDT

Madoff Reportedly Treated for Broken Nose and Ribs After Prison Beating

Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff was reportedly treated for a broken nose, fractured ribs and facial cuts after a beating in December at a North Carolina federal prison. A Wall Street Journal story on the incident relies on accounts by a former inmate, a current inmate and “a third person familiar…

Mar 18, 2010 11:32 AM CDT

Judges Cite Wartime Stress in Granting Leniency to Veterans

Federal sentencing guidelines provide that “good works” such as military service are not ordinarily relevant when a judge weighs whether to impose a penalty lower than the recommended range. But that hasn’t stopped federal judges from citing the psychological trauma experienced by veterans when imposing more lenient sentences, the New…

Mar 17, 2010 10:30 AM CDT

First Supreme Court Appearance Nets Win on Career Criminal Issue

A lawyer who made her first U.S. Supreme Court appearance on behalf of a man sentenced as an armed career criminal ended up with a win and a new view of oral arguments. Assistant Federal Defender Lisa Call told the Jacksonville News that interacting with Supreme Court justices was a…

Mar 16, 2010 11:00 AM CDT