A divided Second Circuit panel (Katzmann, Pooler (dissenting), Chin) on Wednesday upheld the insider trading conviction of former SAC Capital portfolio manager Mathew Martoma. Confronting its precedent in United States v....more
3/12/2018
/ Confidential Information ,
Criminal Conspiracy ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Hedge Funds ,
Insider Trading ,
Martoma ,
Personal Benefit ,
SAC Capital ,
Securities Fraud ,
Special Relationship ,
Tippees ,
US v Newman
In United States v. Holcombe, 16-1429-cr, the Second Circuit (Jacobs, Leval, Lohier) resolved three open issues involving a conviction for failing to register pursuant to the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act...more
In a recent nonprecedential summary order, the Second Circuit (Winter, Lynch, Chin) vacated and remanded a sentence due to a condition of supervised release that prohibited the defendant from having unsupervised contact with...more
In United States v. Carosella, 17-896-cr, the Second Circuit clarified an open issue relating to Amendment 782 to the Sentencing Guidelines. Amendment 782 is sometimes called the “drugs minus two” amendment because it...more
In a short opinion in United States v. Ohle, 16-601-cr, the Second Circuit (Leval, Calabresi, Cabranes) resolved two open questions about the application of Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4, both in the context of a...more
In United States v. Gomez, 16-181-cr (Parker, Wesley, and Droney), the Second Circuit found that the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated during a five-minute traffic stop because the police officers extended the...more
2/22/2018
/ Criminal Convictions ,
De Minimis Claims ,
Evidence ,
Evidence Suppression ,
Exclusionary Authority ,
Fourth Amendment ,
Good Faith ,
Guilty Pleas ,
Illegal Drugs ,
Law Enforcement ,
Traffic Stops
In United States v. Zukerman, No. 17-948 (2d Cir. Feb. 6, 2018) (ALK, RAK, RSP) (summary order), the appellant, Morris Zukerman, challenged the substantive and procedural reasonableness of his sentence, which was imposed...more
On February 9, 2018, the Second Circuit issued a summary order vacating a sentence imposed for a violation of supervised release. United States v. Kalaba, 17-328, involved a defendant who had been convicted for credit card...more
In a 12-page summary order issued on February 9, 2018, the Second Circuit affirmed an order of restitution in United States v. Quatrella, 17-1786. The order is interesting primarily because it addresses the question of when...more
In a short summary order issued on February 9, 2018, in the case of United States v. Muir, 17-150, the Second Circuit affirmed a sentence and reminded everyone that nothing about Apprendi, Booker and their progeny changes the...more
In United States v. Zukerman, No. 17-948 (2d Cir. Feb. 6, 2018) (ALK, RAK, RSP) (summary order), the appellant, Morris Zuckerman, challenged the substantive and procedural reasonableness of his sentence, which was imposed...more
In United States v. Betts (No. 17-231), the Court (Leval, Calabresi, Cabranes) vacated by summary order the imposition of a special condition of supervised release prohibiting the consumption of alcohol by a defendant whose...more
On November 15, 2017, the Second Circuit reversed by summary order the conviction of Joseph Tigano III on drug charges, determining that he had been deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial and indicating that...more
On January 9, 2018, the Second Circuit (Kearse, Cabranes, Wesley) rejected a request by ex-AOL Inc. employee Jason Smathers to junk the restitution component of his sentence, which requires him to recompense the online...more
1/16/2018
/ Advertising ,
AOL ,
Criminal Conspiracy ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Data Breach ,
Email ,
Fraud ,
Internet ,
Misappropriation ,
Pro Se Litigants ,
Restitution ,
Spam ,
Theft ,
User Names
In a summary order on January 2, 2018 in United States v. Reyes, the Court (Winter, Lynch, Droney) vacated and remanded a life sentence as procedurally unreasonable on the ground that the district court failed to properly...more
In United States v. Scully, 16-3073-cr (Pooler, Lynch, Cogan[1]), the Second Circuit vacated the defendant’s conviction for various offenses, including mail and wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, the sale of...more
12/28/2017
/ Advice-of-Counsel Defense ,
Criminal Conspiracy ,
Criminal Convictions ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Drug Distribution ,
Evidence ,
Evidentiary Rulings ,
Mail Fraud ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Prescription Drugs ,
Remand ,
Reversal ,
Wire Fraud
In United States v. Singh, 16-1111-cr (Kearse, Hall, Chin), the Second Circuit vacated the defendant’s 60-month prison sentence—which was nearly three times the top of his Guidelines range—for illegally reentering the United...more
Golb v. Attorney General, No. 16-0452-pr (Jacobs, Leval, Raggi), arises out of unusual facts—forged emails by a proponent of one side of an academic dispute—and reaches an unusual result. On habeas review, the Second Circuit...more
On Tuesday in Washington v. Griffin, 15-3831-pr (Katzmann, Kearse, Livingston), the Second Circuit affirmed the denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on a Confrontation Clause challenge. At issue was whether it...more
In United States v. Tigano, No. 15-3073 (Winter, Walker, Pooler), the Second Circuit issued a short order reversing the conviction of Joseph Tigano, III and dismissing the indictment with prejudice. The Court noted that a...more
The Second Circuit has denied the government’s request for rehearing en banc in United States v. Allen, et al. (16-cr-98). In July, a panel of the Court (Cabranes, Pooler, Lynch) vacated the convictions of Anthony Allen and...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
On Monday, September 11, the Second Circuit issued a published opinion in United States v. Jones, No. 15-1518 (Walker, Calabresi, Hall), a case with a complicated procedural history in which the Court affirmed a defendant’s...more
On October 5, 2017 the Circuit published an amended opinion in United States v. Jones, No. 15-1518 (Walker, Calabresi, Hall), which supplanted a decision issued on September 11 that we covered in an earlier blog post. The...more