The Gun Trace Task Force was an elite unit within the Baltimore City Police Department tasked with getting illegal guns off the streets. But as a blockbuster federal investigation revealed, GTTF members were themselves criminals of the worst kind: crooked cops who conspired to terrorize the very same citizens they…
Companies and attorneys should be wary when turning documents over to a governmental entity while in an adversarial relationship, even when a signed confidentiality agreement is in place. The risks associated with doing so took center stage last summer in a civil defamation case, Gruss v. Zwirn, when United States…
Former top officials of the prominent global law firm, Dewey & LeBoeuf, were indicted last week for deceiving banks and hiding the firm’s true financial condition from creditors, investors, auditors, and even its own partners. The lengthy indictment paints an elaborate accounting fraud where executives and financial professionals desperately tried…
https://www.silvermanthompson.com/lawyer-attorney-1300820.htmlAs a Maryland Federal Criminal Attorney I know that nothing in the federal sentencing guidelines strikes more fear into the hearts of defendants and defense attorneys than the Career Offender provisions, found at section 4B1.1. This section is the most overused and perhaps least understood of all components of the…
I recently wrote a blog about the recent and dramatic change in the federal DOJ policy regarding the disparity between federal sentencing guidelines for crack and powder cocaine. https://www.marylandcriminalattorneyblog.com/2009/06/the_disparity_between_federal.html On May 1, 2009, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) released a Memorandum to all U.S. Attorney’s Offices instructing all…
The tremendous and unfair disparity between crack and powder cocaine in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines is no more! For many years, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for offenses involving the possession or sale of crack cocaine were exponentially more severe than the guidelines for offenses involving only powder cocaine. For example,…
Aggressive Maryland criminal defense attorneys know that the best way to attack a search warrant is by attacking the affidavit in support of the warrant. This is commonly referred to as a Franks Hearing. In Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978), the Supreme…
Although our federal criminal defense attorneys practice nationally, the majority of our cases are in the mid-Atlantic which falls into the Federal Fourth Circuit. Historically known as a conservative Circuit, the Court, which sits in Richmond, Virginia has directed the District Judges on a specific procedure they want followed in…
The federal criminal sentencing has changed dramatically since the landmark case of United States v. Booker in 2005. Federal criminal defense attorneys have significantly more room for creativity and advocacy. Federal Judges are no longer handcuffed by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. For decades decades the power in sentencing, and most…
The United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines are not mandatory on sentencing courts. The Guidelines are also not presumed to be reasonable. That was the very clear and very recent message sent by the United States Supreme Court in Nelson v. United States, 129 S.Ct. 890 (2009). In so ruling ,…