Criminal Practice

  • January 14, 2026

    Jury Seated In Goldstein Trial, Arguments To Start Thursday

    A federal jury was seated in Thomas Goldstein's felony tax and mortgage fraud case Wednesday, but the government will wait until Thursday to begin making its case.

  • January 14, 2026

    Judicial Misconduct Prompts New Assault Trial In New York

    A man who was convicted of assault, disorderly conduct and criminal possession of a weapon will get a new trial, a New York appeals court ruled Wednesday, finding that a judge improperly inserted himself into the proceedings, appearing to favor the prosecution.

  • January 14, 2026

    3rd Circ. Nixes Engineer's Plea For Sharing Navy Contract Info

    In a precedential opinion Wednesday, a split Third Circuit panel ruled that a lower court should not have accepted the guilty plea of a Navy engineer charged with disclosing bid information related to a contract for submarine propeller machinery, holding that prosecutors based the plea deal on shaky legal ground.

  • January 14, 2026

    Conn. Justices Reject Convicted Man's 6th Amendment Claim

    The Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled that a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights were not violated when the jury in his home invasion and assault case received an instruction about a section of state law he was not charged under.

  • January 14, 2026

    DOJ Calls On 3rd Circ. To Rethink Habba DQ Ruling

    In a request for rehearing en banc filed Wednesday, the federal government asked the Third Circuit to reconsider its decision blocking Alina Habba from serving as acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, saying the issue is "of exceptional importance."

  • January 14, 2026

    NJ High Court Says Inmate Record Ban Violates Constitution

    The New Jersey Supreme Court said in a reversal Wednesday that the state's parole board cannot bar the disclosure to inmates of medical, psychiatric and psychological records used to determine their parole eligibility, finding that withholding this information from them is unconstitutional and against state law.

  • January 14, 2026

    Wholesaler Admits To $2.5M Opioid Diversion Scheme

    A Miami-based pharmaceutical wholesaler has signed on to a two-year deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors over a charge that it knowingly diverted opioids to "pill mill" pharmacies, bringing in more than $2.5 million.

  • January 14, 2026

    Justices Decline To Double-Punish Gun Defendant

    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that subjecting defendants to separate sentences stemming from a single deadly federal firearm offense is a constitutional violation, settling a seven-circuit split and clarifying the scope of the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy clause.

  • January 14, 2026

    Justices Unanimously Uphold Warrantless Entry Standard

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously upheld the objective reasonableness standard police must meet to enter a home without a warrant during a potential emergency, declining a petitioner's request to raise the bar.

  • January 13, 2026

    Ex-CIA Analyst Says FARA Case Is Flawed, Unconstitutional

    A former CIA analyst, White House official and foreign policy expert on Tuesday urged a Manhattan federal judge to throw out the criminal case accusing her of secretly acting as an agent of South Korea while in the United States, calling the charges defective and unconstitutional.

  • January 13, 2026

    Ex-Duane Morris Tax Partner Charged With Murdering Wife

    A former tax partner at Duane Morris LLP's Chicago office has been charged with killing his wife a little more than a year ago, according to an announcement made Tuesday by Illinois prosecutors.

  • January 13, 2026

    No Jury Yet In Goldstein Trial, But Celeb Witnesses Possible

    Day two of jury selection in Tom Goldstein's tax and mortgage fraud case wrapped without a jury being seated Tuesday, but did reveal that the government could call celebrities Tobey Maguire and Kevin Hart to the stand.

  • January 13, 2026

    BofA Again Moves To Ax Epstein-Related Trafficking Claims

    Bank of America urged a New York federal judge to dismiss an amended proposed class action alleging it enabled Jeffrey Epstein's sex-trafficking operation, arguing Monday that the plaintiff's "second bite at the apple" still fails to state a claim under the Trafficking Victim Protection Act and "adds nothing of substance."

  • January 13, 2026

    NC Tech Exec Urges 4th Circ. To Delay Sentence Amid Appeal

    A North Carolina software executive convicted of failing to pay employment taxes has asked the Fourth Circuit to delay the start of his 366-day prison sentence while his appeal is pending before the court.

  • January 13, 2026

    9th Circ. Limits Unpreserved Challenge Reviews To Plain Error

    The en banc Ninth Circuit on Tuesday said it would no longer review unpreserved claims of legal error under a decades-old "pure question of law" exception to criminal rules of procedure, narrowing the court's purview to only plain error.

  • January 13, 2026

    10th Circ. OKs Murder Conviction Despite Gender Bias At Trial

    The Tenth Circuit ruled Tuesday that the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals correctly concluded that a woman sentenced to death for killing her husband received a fair trial, rejecting arguments that prosecutors' use of sexualized and gender-stereotyped evidence violated her constitutional rights.

  • January 13, 2026

    Accused Gilgo Beach Killer Tries To Sink First Murder Charge

    Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann has filed a sprawling motion in New York state court urging the toss of the earliest of seven murder charges against him and seeking information on a similar Long Island murder case, among other requests.

  • January 13, 2026

    4th Circ. Combines DOJ Appeals Of Comey, James Dismissals

    The Fourth Circuit has granted the Trump administration's request to combine its previously separate appeals of the dismissals of prosecutions against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

  • January 12, 2026

    7th Circ. Finds DEA, State Officials Immune In Pill Mill 'Mess'

    The Seventh Circuit Monday overturned rulings that would have let a doctor's Fourth and Fifth amendments claims over a pill mill investigation go to trial, concluding federal and state officials are entitled to immunity in proceedings the court described as a "tangled mess."

  • January 12, 2026

    Dentist Doesn't Get High Court Review Of Murder, Fraud Case

    The U.S. Supreme Court Monday declined to hear an appeal from a dentist convicted of killing his wife in Zambia after he sought review by arguing that federal prosecutors violated a forum shopping law that dates back to the nation's founding.

  • January 12, 2026

    The Issues That Could Decide The Tom Goldstein Tax Case

    Federal prosecutors are set to begin making their case against famed U.S. Supreme Court lawyer and SCOTUSblog founder Tom Goldstein at trial Wednesday, alleging that he deliberately hid millions of dollars in high-stakes poker winnings from the Internal Revenue Service between 2016 and 2021 and lied on mortgage applications.

  • January 12, 2026

    Justices Won't Review Exonerees' Mass. Forfeiture Case

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider reviving a lawsuit that sought to return money and property seized through forfeiture to thousands of Massachusetts residents whose drug convictions were thrown out because of falsified chemical tests.

  • January 12, 2026

    10th Circ. Vacates Sex Rap Over Native American Status

    A New Mexico man sentenced to 30 years in prison for sexually abusing an American Indian girl had his conviction vacated Monday by a Tenth Circuit panel that determined prosecutors failed to prove the man was not himself Native American, a key element under the statute invoked in his case.

  • January 12, 2026

    NJ Gov. Extends Jury Service To 350K Formerly Incarcerated

    New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has signed an executive order that restores the right to serve on state juries to more than 350,000 state residents with criminal convictions who have completed their sentences.

  • January 12, 2026

    Gov't Defends IRS, SSA Handing Taxpayer Data To ICE

    The Trump administration has asked a Massachusetts federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to block the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration from sharing taxpayer addresses with immigration enforcement officials, saying the data sharing pacts are legal.

Expert Analysis

  • Fleeing Or Just Leaving Quickly? 2nd Circ. Says It Depends

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    The Second Circuit’s recent U.S. v. Bardakova decision adopted a new approach for determining whether a defendant who commits a crime in the U.S., and then leaves and remains abroad, intends to avoid prosecution — making it more difficult to argue against the fugitive disentitlement doctrine in most cases, say attorneys at MoloLamken.

  • What 2 Profs Noticed As Transactional Law Students Used AI

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    After a semester using generative artificial intelligence tools with students in an entrepreneurship law clinic, we came away with numerous observations about the opportunities and challenges such tools present to new transactional lawyers, say professors at Cornell Law School.

  • Reel Justice: 'Eddington' Spotlights Social Media Evidence

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    In the neo-Western black comedy “Eddington” released last month, social media is a character unto itself, highlighting how the boundaries between digital and real-world conduct can become blurred, thereby posing evidentiary challenges in criminal prosecutions, says Veronica Finkelstein at Wilmington University School of Law.

  • Rebuttal

    BigLaw Settlements Should Not Spur Ethics Deregulation

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    A recent Law360 op-ed argued that loosening law firm funding restrictions would make BigLaw firms less inclined to settle with the Trump administration, but deregulating legal financing ethics may well prove to be not merely ineffective, but counterproductive, says Laurel Kilgour at the American Economic Liberties Project.

  • 5 Ways Lawyers Can Earn Back The Public's Trust

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    Amid salacious headlines about lawyers behaving badly and recent polls showing the public’s increasingly unfavorable view of attorneys, we must make meaningful changes to our culture to rebuild trust in the legal system, says Carl Taylor at Carl Taylor Law.

  • How To Successfully Challenge Jurors For Cause In 5 Steps

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    To effectively challenge a potential juror for cause, attorneys should follow a multistep framework rather than skipping straight to the final qualification question, says Ken Broda-Bahm at Persuasion Strategies.

  • Series

    Hiking Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    On the trail, I have thought often about the parallels between hiking and high-stakes patent litigation, and why strategizing, preparation, perseverance and joy are important skills for success in both endeavors, says Barbara Fiacco at Foley Hoag.

  • DC Circ. Ruling Augurs More Scrutiny Of Blanket Gag Orders

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    The D.C. Circuit’s recent ruling in In re: Sealed Case, finding that an omnibus nondisclosure order was too sweeping, should serve as a wake-up call to prosecutors and provide a road map for private parties to push back on overbroad secrecy demands, says Gregory Rosen at Rogers Joseph.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Negotiation Skills

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    I took one negotiation course in law school, but most of the techniques I rely on today I learned in practice, where I've discovered that the process is less about tricks or tactics, and more about clarity, preparation and communication, says Grant Schrantz at Haug Barron.

  • What Justices Left Unsaid About The Federal Tort Claims Act

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Martin v. U.S. rejected the Eleventh Circuit's interpretation of the Federal Tort Claims Act in the case of a botched police raid — but left unresolved many questions about plaintiffs' ability to hold the government accountable for officers' misdeeds, says Scott Brooks at Levy Firestone.

  • Opinion

    Bar Exam Reform Must Expand Beyond A Single Updated Test

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    Recently released information about the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ new NextGen Uniform Bar Exam highlights why a single test is not ideal for measuring newly licensed lawyers’ competency, demonstrating the need for collaborative development, implementation and reform processes, says Gregory Bordelon at Suffolk University.

  • A Simple Way Courts Can Help Attys Avoid AI Hallucinations

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    As attorneys increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence for legal research, courts should consider expanding online quality control programs to flag potential hallucinations — permitting counsel to correct mistakes and sparing judges the burden of imposing sanctions, say attorneys at Lankler Siffert & Wohl and Connors.

  • Strategies For ICE Agent Misconduct Suits In The 11th Circ.

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    Attorneys have numerous pathways to pursue misconduct claims against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the Eleventh Circuit, and they need not wait for the court to correct its misinterpretation of a Federal Tort Claims Act exception, says Lauren Bonds at the National Police Accountability Project.

  • DOJ Consumer Branch's End Leaves FDA Litigation Questions

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    With the dissolution of the U.S. Department of Justice's Consumer Protection Branch set to occur by Sept. 30, companies must carefully monitor how responsibility is reallocated for civil and criminal enforcement cases related to products regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, say attorneys at Foley & Lardner.

  • Cos. Must Tailor Due Diligence As Trafficking Risks Increase

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    As legislators, prosecutors and plaintiffs attorneys increasingly focus on labor and sex trafficking throughout the U.S., companies must tailor their due diligence strategies to protect against forced labor trafficking risks in their supply chains, say attorneys at Steptoe.

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