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Supremely Improbable
FEATURED
July 30, 2024
Supremely Improbable
By: James Trusty
President Biden’s pronounced objectives for Supreme Court “reform” are improbable, politically lifeless under a particularly lame duck presidency, and motivated by transparently November-driven calculations. But even if the proposed changes are doomed from the start, they push public discourse on a couple of issues that are red meat for the democrats. The stated reforms are superficially simple ones: 1) to “clarify” that “there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office,” 2) to limit SCOTUS appointments to 18-year terms, and 3) to create a mandatory/enforceable ethics code on the high court. Some context for this agenda is in order. The “clarification” push flows directly, albeit inaccurately, from the recent immunity decision in Trump v. United States….
Presidential Immunity Ruling Stirs Sound and Fury
July 5, 2024
Presidential Immunity Ruling Stirs Sound and Fury
By: James Trusty
The immediate and eventual impact of the Supreme Court’s immunity decision in Trump v. United States is both considerable and dramatically misrepresented. The initial consequences include likely delay to the January 6 prosecution out of D.C. and the setting of hearings—in D.C., Georgia and south Florida—where the judges will be required to make factual findings as to whether the evidence supporting the indictments reflect “official…
The Challenging Terrain of White-Collar Sentencing
June 3, 2024
The Challenging Terrain of White-Collar Sentencing
By: James Trusty
Federal judges are required to balance a number of factors whenever imposing sentence, including specifically enumerated areas that largely stem from the broader philosophical categories of General Deterrence, Specific Deterrence, Retribution/Punishment, Restitution and Victim Impact, and Rehabilitation. In determining the presumptively reasonable range of potential sentences, federal practitioners consult their always-handy U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, which create a sentencing range grid based upon the offense characteristics…
The World Wide Tax Web: FATCA Data Sharing Goes Online
January 20, 2015
The World Wide Tax Web: FATCA Data Sharing Goes Online
By: Nicole Kardell
The IRS has unveiled a secure web application, the International Data Exchange Service (IDES), for cross-border data sharing. IDES will allow Foreign Financial Institutions (FFIs) and tax authorities from other countries to transmit financial data on U.S. taxpayers’ accounts, via an encrypted pathway, to the IRS. The tool is part of the IRS’s effort to track U.S. taxpayer income globally. It is intended to assist…
Even Governors Go To Jail
January 6, 2015
Even Governors Go To Jail
By: Ifrah Law
Photo Credit: Steve Helber, AP This afternoon, the long-running saga of Robert McDonnell came to what may be the end (not counting appeals) when the former Virginia Governor was sentenced to serve two years in prison after a jury convicted him of bribery while in office. As with many cases, this one has lessons to teach for those of us who carefully follow sentencing advocacy…
Remote Search Warrants and the Continued Threat to Privacy Rights
December 1, 2014
Remote Search Warrants and the Continued Threat to Privacy Rights
By: Nicole Kardell
What were you doing Wednesday, November 5, 2014? If you are a staunch Republican, you might have been toasting the election results from the day before, dreamy-eyed and dancing. If you are a staunch Democrat, you might have been scratching your head profusely, thunderstruck and quiet. People across the country were talking politics and policy in a very public way that day. How would the…
The Crisis of New Jersey Courts and the Challenge to Judicial Recall
November 25, 2014
The Crisis of New Jersey Courts and the Challenge to Judicial Recall
By: Ifrah Law
At the very core of judicial independence is the notion that courts and judges decide matters in accordance with the evidence and legal precedent, independent from political power or outside controls. The question of whether a bipartisan and independent judiciary is still alive and well in New Jersey has been called into question recently, as Governor Christie has been accused of packing the state supreme…
Smart is the New Tough: A Changing Approach in America’s War on Drugs, Crime?
November 24, 2014
Smart is the New Tough: A Changing Approach in America’s War on Drugs, Crime?
By: Ifrah Law
Fact: the United States incarcerates its citizens at the highest rate in the developed world. Indeed—save one small chain of islands, whose entire population is just a fraction of our prison population—the United States’ incarceration rate is the highest on the planet. And nearly half of our approximately 1.75 million inmates are serving time for nonviolent and/or drug-related offenses. That is not OK. It is…
