Category: Federal Courts

Revoking Federal Supervised Release

by · Jun 20, 2025 9:10 am

There is no parole, as such, in the federal sentencing system, but a sentence can include a period of “supervised release” following the term of incarceration. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A), when imposing the original sentence, a federal judge can consider, among other factors, “the need for the sentence imposed” “to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and to provide just punishment for the offense.” Can the judge consider that factor when deciding on a revocation of supervised release?

No, the Supreme Court decided today in Esteras v. United States, No. 23-7483. Why not? The simple answer is because Congress said so. The statute on supervised release, 18 U.S.C. § 3583(c), specifies the factors. Many of the factors used to set the initial sentence are included, but that one is conspicuously absent.

So why is there any difficulty at all? Continue reading . . .

Enjoining State Prosecutions in Federal Court

by · May 15, 2025 10:32 am

After the Texas Attorney General gave Yelp, Inc. notice of intent to file a quasi-criminal enforcement suit against it, Yelp went yelping to the federal district court in San Francisco for an injunction against the enforcement.

Can they do that? No, said the district judge, and today a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed. This isn’t a new rule. It’s an old case called Younger.

Over 55 years ago, a federal district court enjoined a prosecution in California state court. The Los Angeles District Attorney (and future California Attorney General) Evelle Younger, took it all the way to the Supreme Court. In Younger v. Harris , 401 U.S. 37 (1971), the high court established a general rule that federal courts should abstain from using their injunctive powers against prosecutions in state courts. Federal-law defenses must generally be asserted in the state court. There is an exception for bad faith prosecutions.

First Amendment defenses generally are not an exception. Younger itself was such a case. Yelp did not succeed in showing bad faith here. Continue reading . . .

USCA-DC Decision in Venezuelan Gang Case

by · Mar 26, 2025 2:57 pm

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has split 2-1 in case of the deportation of Venezuelans alleged to be members of the extremely violent Tren de Aragua gang. The majority upheld the temporary restraining order issued by the District Court. The case is J.G.G. v. Trump, No. 25-5067.

The merits of the controversy aside, I believe the dissenting judge is correct on the threshold point. The D.C. federal courts have no jurisdiction here. This is, or should be, a habeas corpus case, and it must be brought in the district where the petitioners are confined, naming the head of that facility as the respondent. CJLF helped establish that rule 21 years ago, in Rumsfeld v. Padilla. Continue reading . . .

Federal Appeals Court Overturns Murderer’s Death Sentence

by · Aug 1, 2022 3:37 pm

A divided panel of the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has overturned the death sentence of a South Carolina man who murdered four people in two states.  Associated Press writer Jeffery Collins reports that in its July 26 ruling the Appeals court concluded that the judge in Quincy Allen’s 2005 sentencing hearing had excluded, ignored or overlooked the murderer’s “serious mental illness history of childhood abuse” which the court believes had a “substantial and injurious effect or influence on the outcome of the sentencing proceeding.”   The ruling came a week before a judge hears a lawsuit brought by several other condemned South Carolina murderers who argue that the electric chair and the firing squad, utilized by the state, amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.  The state has been forced to use these execution methods because anti-death penalty groups, including the European Union, have pressured drug manufacturers not to sell the state lethal injection drugs.

Continue reading . . .

Supreme Court Takes Up Case On Federal Prisoner “Safety Valve”

by · May 16, 2022 9:20 am

In 1948, Congress decided that using habeas corpus for collateral attacks on federal criminal judgments presented too many practical problems, so it created a new “motion to vacate” procedure in 28 USC § 2255. Congress provided that the new motion would be available on any ground that made the judgment vulnerable to collateral attack. Then it barred use of habeas corpus for this purpose, but added a “safety valve” that resort to habeas corpus could still be had if the motion procedure was “ineffective or inadequate” to test the validity of the prisoner’s detention.

Collateral attacks on criminal judgments (habeas corpus for state prisoners and § 2255 for federal prisoners) grew like weeds for the next five decades until Congress clamped down in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA).

Does the “safety valve” effectively negate the reforms for federal prisoners? Can they simply dance around the limits by saying the limits render the § 2255 remedy “ineffective or inadequate” and file a habeas corpus petition? The obvious answer is “no.” Congress does not enact laws with the intent that they be easily evaded. Yet, there is a circuit split, and today the Supreme Court took the question up. Continue reading . . .

Keeping USCA9 Weird

by · Mar 30, 2022 11:35 am

In some cities with oddball reputations, some residents who are proud of that reputation sport bumper stickers saying “Keep [City] Weird.”

Ninth Circuit Judge Sidney Thomas, the Chief Judge until fairly recently, yesterday announced he is taking senior status effective upon the appointment of his successor. See the court’s press release.

Not mentioned in the press release is that the timing will likely enable President Biden to appoint a like-minded successor while the Democratic Party still holds the narrowest possible majority in the Senate, a majority it is likely to lose in the November election. That is, he can appoint someone favored by the more criminal-friendly wing of his party without needing the consent of a single Republican. In other words, he can keep the Ninth weird. Continue reading . . .

CA Law Banning Private Prisons Overturned

by · Oct 11, 2021 2:28 pm

In a 2-1 decision last week a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a California law phasing out private detention facilities.  Josh Gerstein of Politico reports that the divided panel held that AB 32, signed into law by Gavin Newsom in 2019, unconstitutionally interferes with the federal government’s exclusive authority to enforce immigration law.  California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who authored AB 32 while serving in the state Assembly, vowed to continue the fight to uphold the law, presumably with an appeal of the panel’s decision to the full Ninth Circuit.

Continue reading . . .

The Riddles of Harmless Error and Habeas Corpus – Part II

by · Oct 5, 2021 7:22 pm

Today the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Brown v. Davenport, No. 20-826 (transcript here; audio here).

The issue in this case involves the standard of review federal habeas courts must apply when reviewing a state court’s determination of harmless error. Davenport was partially shackled during his trial for first-degree murder. On direct appeal, the state appellate courts found that his partial shackling was unconstitutional, but was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt under the standard announced in Chapman v. California (1968). Continue reading . . .

USCA9 “Clearly Erred” on Habeas Corpus. Again.

by · Apr 26, 2021 9:39 am

In today’s only decision from the United States Supreme Court, the court reversed a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in which that court had taken an expansive view of its own jurisdiction. The Supreme Court summarily reversed, meaning that it did not see any need to take further briefing or hear oral argument, as it does when there is some doubt of the correct result. The unsigned opinion says the Ninth Circuit “clearly erred.” No dissent is indicated.

This is not the first time the Supreme Court has rebuked the Ninth in this manner on this subject. It is not the second, third, or fourth. I stopped counting years ago.

Why is the Ninth so consistently the “gang that can’t shoot straight” on this particular topic? Continue reading . . .

Circuit Courts Divided on Trump’s Sanctuary City Grants

by · Jul 20, 2020 3:43 pm

Last Monday, the Ninth Circuit scaled back a nationwide order that blocks the Trump administration from cutting off grants to sanctuary jurisdictions after finding that the mandate should only apply in California.

Nicholas Iovino of Courthouse News reports that the new verdict comes after a 2017 lawsuit brought by San Francisco. The city sued the Justice Department after the Trump Administration announced plans to make jurisdictions ineligible for the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, unless they gave immigration agents unrestricted access to local jails, and provided 48 hours’ notice before releasing undocumented immigrants from jail. California joined the lawsuit as a plaintiff, and later passed it’s own separate set of “Sanctuary State” laws in October 2017.

Continue reading . . .