Sentencing/Post Conviction

Former tax attorney sent to prison for tax evasion of over $2M

A former tax attorney from the Indianapolis area has been sentenced to 30 months in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion of more than $2.4 million.

Sep 6, 2019 12:49 PM CDT

Lawyer who pleaded guilty to possession of child porn gets 1-year sentence

A San Francisco lawyer accused of keeping more than 600 images of child pornography on his electronic devices, including images of young girls who appear to be as young as 3 years old, has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison after a guilty plea.

Sep 5, 2019 2:58 PM CDT

Letters from our readers

Bail system debate I would expect ABA membership to decline in the face of the ABA Journal’s constant barrage of contemporary liberal articles, of which the recitation “Change Agents: A New Wave of Reform Prosecutors Upends the Status Quo,” June, constitutes an example. The attacks on the bail system (notwithstanding…

Sep 1, 2019 3:00 AM CDT

Gina Clayton-Johnson helps women who know what it’s like to have a family member locked up

“I realized that there’s a big problem with mass incarceration that we’re not seeing as much research on—that one in four women have a family member in prison,” says Legal Rebel Gina Clayton-Johnson, founder of the Essie Justice Group.

Sep 1, 2019 1:20 AM CDT

Afternoon Briefs: Ex-law dean Norman Lefstein dies; inmate who got life for stealing $50 is released

Former law dean Norman Lefstein dies at age 82 Norman Lefstein, a former dean of Indiana University’s McKinney School of Law, died Thursday at age 82. Lefstein has been described as one of the giants in the legal profession and the architect of the modern indigent defense reform movement. He…

Aug 30, 2019 2:32 PM CDT

Afternoon Briefs: Alleged unlicensed PD failed ethics exam; is puppy-mill law unconstitutional?

Public defender accused of working without a license failed ethics part of bar exam A public defender in New Orleans accused of working without a law license twice failed the ethics portion of the bar exam. The attorney general’s office last week obtained a warrant to arrest the would-be lawyer,…

Aug 28, 2019 4:25 PM CDT

ABA urges Supreme Court to follow Miller standard for juvenile punishments

In an amicus brief filed Tuesday, the ABA urged the U.S. Supreme Court to recognize that juveniles’ “diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform” separate them from adults and that those whose crimes “reflect transient immaturity, rather than irreparable corruption” should not face life in prison.

Aug 28, 2019 12:55 PM CDT

Afternoon Briefs: Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers speak; judge gives assignment for veteran lies

Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers speak at unusual hearing For more than an hour on Tuesday, women who accused financier Jeffrey Epstein of sexually abusing them when they were young spoke about the impact in an unusual federal court hearing. Many of the women urged prosecutors to continue investigating Epstein’s associates after…

Aug 27, 2019 4:06 PM CDT

Sotomayor calls Florida procedural rule ‘Kafkaesque’ in statement on cert denial in serial killer’s case

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed concern last week about a Florida procedural rule that makes it difficult for death-row inmates to assert claims that their mental disability is a constitutional bar to execution. Sotomayor called the rule “Kafkaesque” in a statement on cert denial for Gary Ray Bowles,…

Aug 26, 2019 10:37 AM CDT

Afternoon Briefs: Suit claims hijacking of state AG’s office; proposed rule called license to discriminate

• Is the Minnesota attorney general’s office being hijacked by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg? That’s the question being raised by the conservative-leaning Upper Midwest Law Center. It has sued for more information about a fellow working in the office. The fellow comes from a law school environmental…

Aug 16, 2019 4:38 PM CDT

Study finds decline in racial gap in federal criminal sentences; ethnicity gap varies with citizenship

Disparities in sentencing based on race are on the decline, according to a new study. “These results show we have a reason for optimism,” said Ryan King, one of the study authors and a sociology professor at the Ohio State University.

Aug 16, 2019 12:27 PM CDT

Federal judge holds US attorney’s office in contempt in probe of recorded attorney-client calls

A federal judge has held the Kansas U.S. Attorney’s Office in contempt of court for failing to cooperate and preserve evidence in a special master’s investigation into recordings of attorney-client phone calls. U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson of Kansas City, Kansas, said the government employed a “wholesale strategy to delay,…

Aug 15, 2019 3:53 PM CDT

Afternoon Briefs: Suit allowed over website’s bankruptcy-lawyer ban; judge resigns and ends case

• The California Supreme Court has revived bankruptcy lawyer Robert White’s civil rights suit against the online payment service Square. White contended that he was wrongly denied service by the company because of a user agreement that banned bankruptcy attorneys or debt collectors from using its services. The court said…

Aug 13, 2019 5:21 PM CDT

House of Delegates urges Congress to fully fund, make retroactive First Step Act

Annual meeting

Aug 12, 2019 5:48 PM CDT

Blagojevich faces new ethics complaint amid Trump’s talk of possible clemency

President Donald Trump has suggested that he might commute Rod Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence for political corruption, but that wouldn’t put an end to all the former Illinois governor’s legal troubles. Illinois legal ethics regulators filed a new ethics complaint against Blagojevich on Aug. 1 that cites his federal conviction, the…

Aug 12, 2019 4:54 PM CDT