Criminal Appeal May Change 99-Year Prison Sentence In 2003, a 10 out of 12 jury decision in a New Orleans court voted to send a defendant to the Louisiana State Penitentiary for 99 years. This decision was made because Louisiana is one of just two states that allows a non-unanimous jury verdict to be used… Read More
In March of 2016 the United States Sentencing Commission detailed that more than half (56.8%) of offenders in the federal prison population were convicted of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum penalty. What are Mandatory Minimums? Mandatory minimums are sentencing laws that require a specific minimum prison term to be imposed on offenders who are… Read More
You are the defendant in a federal criminal case awaiting your sentencing, having already been found guilty. The jury delivers the maximum sentence available and your body goes completely numb. Is this decision final? Is there any way that the sentence can be reduced? Yes. One possibility is through Rule 35. What is Rule 35?… Read More
A death penalty case from the state of Washington that had been appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States was recently rejected by the Court. However, despite the fact that it was rejected, the case still offers valuable insight into how difficult it is to overcome cases that involved ineffective assistance of counsel… Read More
The Supreme Court of the United States recently issued a list of the cases that it will hear in the upcoming term. Among the cases that it will hear are two death penalty cases coming out of Texas. Not only does it look like Texas is about to take a beating by the Supreme Court,… Read More
In their recent listing of cases that they will be hearing in the upcoming term, the Supreme Court of the United States showed that they were taking on a pair of death penalty cases from the state of Texas. The choice of these cases shows an increasing focus on the death penalty by the Supreme… Read More