Richard D. Cooke worked for the U.S. Department of Justice for 23 years, first at the Antitrust Division for 5 years and then as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia for 18 years. For over a decade he served as chief of appeals in the criminal division of the United States Attorney’s Office.
After completing a term of imprisonment, federal criminal defendants often serve terms of supervised release that usually last between one to five years, depending on the offense for which they were convicted.
The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Tuesday in Hunter v. United States about what exceptions exist to federal defendants’ waivers of their right to appeal.
In Hunter v. United States, to be argued on Tuesday, March 3, the Supreme Court will address how broad federal defendants’ waivers of their right to appeal can be and the effect of a district court’s statement at sentencing that the defendant may appeal when he previously agreed to an appellate waiver.
In Barrett v. United States, the court held in an opinion by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that the Constitution’s double jeopardy clause prohibits a defendant from receiving two convictions for a single act that violates two closely related federal firearm offenses, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i) and 18 U.S.C. § 924(j).
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court on Friday decided in Bowe v. United States two complicated questions concerning federal habeas review.
In Fernandez v. United States and Rutherford v. United States, argued on Wednesday, the Supreme Court considered what constitutes permissible grounds for a federal inmate to claim to have “extraordinary and compelling” reasons for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i).
The Supreme Court will hear oral argument on Wednesday, Nov. 12, in two back-to-back cases posing basic questions about the breadth of the compassionate-release statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), that governs a type of sentence reduction for federal prisoners.
The Supreme Court heard argument on Monday in Rico v. United States about whether defendants who flee from their probation officers’ supervision during their term of supervised release (the conditions one must follow after being released from incarceration) can claim that the term of supervision continued and then expired when they were a fugitive.
In Rico v. United States, the Supreme Court will consider whether the fugitive-tolling doctrine – the legal principle that a criminal defendant should not receive credit toward his sentence for time spent as a fugitive – applies when a defendant absconds from (that is, flees from or evades) supervised release, thereby preventing the term of supervision from expiring while the defendant is on the lam.
On Tuesday, the justices heard argument in Bowe v. United States, involving a complex (and confusing) area of law: habeas, which allows people confined by the government to challenge the grounds for their detention.
The court will re-enter the complex world of habeas on Tuesday, Oct. 14, in the case of Bowe v. United States. In 2008, Michael Bowe conspired with three other men to rob an armored car in Palm Beach County, Florida.
In Barrett v. United States, the Supreme Court is considering whether the double jeopardy clause prohibits a defendant from receiving a separate firearm conviction and sentence under 18 U.S.C. §§ 924(c) and 924(j) for the same criminal conduct.