Public Defense

In Mickens v. United States, No. 06-0140-pr (2d Cir. December 19, 2007), the court held that defense counsel's failure to communicate a plea offer to his client was unreasonable, satisfying the first prong of the Strickland ineffectiveness test, although second prong was not satisfied because there was no credible evidence that the defendant would have accepted the offer. In United States v. Turner, No. 06-0967-cr (2d Cir. December 17, 2007), the court remanded for resentencing where the government breached the plea agreement in four different ways; the court ordered that the case be sent back to a different judge, which it always does when the government has breached a plea agreement. In United States v. Miley, No. 06-1105-cr (2d Cir. December 13, 2007), the court affirmed an above-Guideline sentence of 48 months' imprisonment (the range was 24 to 30), finding that the district court properly based its decision on pending charges, arrests, outstanding warrants, the defendant's pattern of fraudulent activity, and the atypicality of the charged fraud.

Full post as published by Second Circuit Blog on December 19, 2007 (boomark / email).