Sapone & Petrillo, LLP

Another week with little to report in the Circuit. In the State courts there were two significant decisions in NYCA—Batticks and Goldman—both going against the defendants. The split decisions follow a familiar pattern. DiFiore, Garcia, and Feinman have shown...

While CA2 released no precedential decisions this week, its summary decision in Brettschneider is worth a read, as a cautionary tale. There, CA2 affirmed the convictions of two former criminal defense attorneys who overstepped in their advocacy on behalf of their...

The most interesting decision from the Second Circuit this week was the summary order in United States v. Tapia, where CA2 recalled its prior decision affirming defendant’s conviction, finding that a previously-unchallenged jury instruction directly conflicted with...

This was a very quiet August week in the Second Circuit and the New York State appellate courts with only a single decision on a criminal matter published by the Circuit, which was on a technical point, and a single decision from each of the First and Second...

We have an interesting decision related to federal sentencing this week from CA2 in United States v. Huberfeld, where the Circuit vacated the sentence imposed by SDNY Senior U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein. CA2 found that the sentencing court improperly...

The courts slowed down for their traditional mid-summer break, and published only two opinions of note this week. In United States v. Smith, CA2 created significant new law relating to how long the police can delay when obtaining a search warrant for previously seized...

This was an unusually busy week in CA2, with six precedential opinions in criminal cases. Most interesting among them was United States v. Solano, in which the Circuit reversed as plain error an instruction that threw defendant under the bus relative to his interest...

What CA2 lacked in volume this week, it made up for in quality, issuing three significant decisions, two of which---Nolan and Bramer---resulted in reversals for defendants. New York’s appellate courts were quiet, issuing only a handful of decisions in criminal cases,...

The Circuit continued to work through its cases, releasing two precedential opinions this week. Doka  negatively, but not surprisingly, resolved an open but important issue, in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Haywood, finding that the Sixth...

The Second Circuit has extended filings and deadlines for three weeks, has conducted arguments by teleconference, and has remained busy issuing decisions. Two crime-of-violence-related decisions were particularly interesting: Nunez, which held that defendants cannot...