Gregory L. Poe Aug 24th, 2010The Ex Post Facto Clause and the United States Sentencing Guidelines
The Second Circuit recently decided a case, United States v. Kumar, Nos. 06-5654-cr, 06-5482-cr (August 12, 2010), that implicates a basic principle of punishment: May a defendant’s sentence in a federal criminal case be increased based on sentencing guidelines that were created after the criminal conduct at issue? According to two members of the panel, [...]
Gregory L. Poe Sep 25th, 2009Venue, Prejudice, and Science in Criminal Trials
Any time a federal court of appeals states that a district court is not required to consider evidence, without any qualifying statement concerning the reliability of that evidence, one tends to take notice. Earlier this week, the Eighth Circuit held (in a case involving grisly and heartbreaking facts) that a district court is not required even [...]
Gregory L. Poe Aug 1st, 2009The Rule of Lenity
I considered various topics for my initial blog post and settled on the rule of lenity. The spirit of the rule of lenity – fundamental fairness – lies at the heart of a respectable criminal justice system. See McBoyle v. United States, 283 U.S. 25, 27 (1931) (the principle of “fair warning” motivates the lenity rule) [...]
