On August 30, 2023, in United States v. Avenatti, the Second Circuit (Walker, Raggi, Park) put another nail in the coffin of disgraced former celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti. Avenatti became well-known in 2018 due to his...more
Last week, the Second Circuit (Cabranes, Pooler, Droney) issued a non-precedential summary order remanding a case to the district court for an evidentiary hearing on a motion to suppress. ...more
In a lengthy opinion in United States v. Sampson on August 6, 2018, the Second Circuit (Cabranes, Livingston, Carney) affirmed the conviction of former New York State Senator John Sampson for obstruction of justice and false...more
In United States v. Crawford, 16-4261-cr (Kearse, Cabranes, Wesley), the Second Circuit affirmed via summary order the terrorism-related conviction and sentence of a Klansman in upstate New York. This case represented the...more
11/9/2017
/ Barack Obama ,
Criminal Investigations ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Entrapment ,
Indictments ,
Ku Klux Klan ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Muslims ,
Pre-Trial Motions ,
Terrorist Threats ,
Vagueness
In Ganek v. Leibowitz, No. 16-1463 (2d Cir. Oct. 17, 2017) (Raggi, Chin, Carney), the Second Circuit reversed and remanded a district court’s determination that federal law enforcement authorities were not entitled to...more
11/2/2017
/ Criminal Investigations ,
FBI ,
Fifth Amendment ,
Financial Markets ,
Fourth Amendment ,
Hedge Funds ,
Insider Information ,
Insider Trading ,
Investors ,
Material Misstatements ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Non-Public Information ,
Qualified Immunity ,
Search Warrant ,
Securities Fraud
The Second Circuit issued a published opinion on September 11, 2017 in United States v. Pabon, No. 16-1754 (Cabranes, Livingston, Pauley), a case arising from an interesting set of facts involving the warrantless arrest of...more
In United States v. Jiamez-Dolores, et al., 14-1840(L) (August 3, 2016) (Hall, Lynch, Chin), the Court in a per curiam order affirmed above-guidelines sentences given to two defendants who each pleaded guilty to one count of...more
In a summary order issued on July 11, 2017, United States v. Burghardt, No. 16-949(L) (Katzmann, Pooler, Lynch), the Second Circuit remanded a 322-month Guidelines sentence for distribution and receipt of child pornography...more
On July 7, 2017, the Second Circuit (Jacobs, Leval, Raggi) issued a short summary order in United States v. Stegemann. Most of the order is dedicated to affirming the defendant’s conviction at trial on several drug and...more
The Second Circuit joined its sister circuits and upheld the constitutionality Federal Rule of Evidence 413, which renders admissible propensity evidence about the defendant in sexual assault cases. In United States v....more
6/6/2017
/ Admissible Evidence ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Criminal Investigations ,
Custodial Interrogation ,
Due Process ,
Fifth Amendment ,
Interstate Commerce ,
Minor Children ,
Prejudice ,
Self-Incrimination ,
Sexual Assault
In United States v. Khalil, No. 15-3819 (2d Cir. May 16, 2017) (Calabresi, Wesley, Lohier), the Second Circuit reversed the defendant’s conviction for transporting an alien within the United States for profit in violation of...more
In United States v. Brown, 16-3468-cr (Leval, Hall, Chin) the Second Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part via summary order a ruling excluding evidence related to a firearm that had not been identified in the...more
In a split decision in United States v. Delva, No. 15-cr-683 (Kearse, Winter, Jacobs), the Second Circuit held that the Fourth Amendment allowed law enforcement officers to seize cell phones and a number of letters that were...more
In July 2016, the Second Circuit ruled that the Government could not employ a domestic search warrant, issued pursuant to the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2703 (the “SCA”), to compel disclosure of an email account...more
1/27/2017
/ Appeals ,
Criminal Investigations ,
Electronically Stored Information ,
Email ,
En Banc Review ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Ireland ,
Microsoft ,
National Security ,
Right to Privacy ,
Search Warrant ,
Stored Communications Act ,
Subpoenas
On September 9, 2015, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates of the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ” or the “Department”) issued a new policy memorandum (the “Yates Memo”) entitled “Individual Accountability for...more