In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case.
In rem jurisdiction is a legal term describing the power a court may exercise over property or a "status" against a person over whom the court does not have in personam jurisdiction. Jurisdiction in rem assumes the property or status is the primary object of the action, rather than personal liabilities not necessarily associated with the property.
Muntaqim v. Coombe, 449 F.3d 371, was a legal challenge to New York State’s law disenfranchising individuals convicted of felonies while in prison and on parole. The plaintiff, Jalil Abdul Muntaqim who was serving a life sentence at the time, argued that the law had a disproportionate impact on African Americans and therefore violated Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act as a denial of the right to vote on account of race.
Steven Michael Colloton is the chief United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He has served as judge of the court since 2003 and became chief judge in March 2024.
Asset forfeiture or asset seizure is a form of confiscation of assets by the authorities. In the United States, it is a type of criminal-justice financial obligation. It typically applies to the alleged proceeds or instruments of crime. This applies, but is not limited, to terrorist activities, drug-related crimes, and other criminal and even civil offenses. Some jurisdictions specifically use the term "confiscation" instead of forfeiture. The alleged purpose of asset forfeiture is to disrupt criminal activity by confiscating assets that potentially could have been beneficial to the individual or organization. Asset forfeiture was found to generally increase with the percentage of the assets retained depending on electoral incentives.
United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U.S. 321 (1998), is a U.S. Supreme Court case holding that asset forfeiture is unconstitutional when it is "grossly disproportional to the gravity of the defendant’s offense", citing the Excessive Fines clause of the Eighth Amendment. It was the first time the Court struck down the federal government's "aggressive use of forfeiture" and the only time it has held that an imposed fine was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.
Dennis G. Jacobs is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Donald Pomery Lay was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania, 380 U.S. 693 (1965), was a Supreme Court of the United States case handed down in 1965. The Court ruled that civil forfeiture could not apply where the evidence used to invoke the forfeiture was obtained illegally.
Chambers v. United States, 555 U.S. 122 (2009), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that failing to report for incarceration does not qualify as a "violent felony" for the purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act.
United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film, 413 U.S. 123 (1973), was an in rem case decided by the United States Supreme Court that considered the question of whether the First Amendment required that citizens be allowed to import obscene material for their personal and private use at home, which was already held to be protected several years earlier. By a 5–4 margin, the Court held that it did not.
Alvarez v. Smith, 558 U.S. 87 (2009), was a United States Supreme Court decision on seizure of property by the Chicago Police Department, however the case was declared moot by the Court as the parties agreed that there was no longer contention over the property seized.
United States v. Vampire Nation, 451 F.3d 189, is a 2006 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit regarding the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and asset forfeiture. A three-judge panel unanimously affirmed the conviction and sentence of Frederick Banks, a Pittsburgh man, on numerous felony charges resulting from fraudulent schemes carried out over the Internet. The case takes its title, which has been singled out as memorable and included among lists of amusingly titled cases, from one of Banks' aliases, an electronic music group of which he was the sole regular member. He had filed the appeal under that name while representing himself.
United States v. Article Consisting of 50,000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls, 413 F. Supp. 1281, is a 1976 United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin decision regarding a requested order from the United States government to seize and destroy a shipment of approximately 50,000 sets of clacker balls under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act because children could hit themselves with the balls.
The Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act is a United States Act of Congress that became federal law in 1983. The CCPIA implemented the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. It restricts the importation of some archaeological and ethnological materials into the United States from other State Parties to the Convention.
Julius Ness "Jay" Richardson is an American judge and lawyer who serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He was formerly an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of South Carolina.
Planned Parenthood v. Rounds, 686 F.3d 889, is an Eighth Circuit decision addressing the constitutionality of a South Dakota law which forced doctors to make certain disclosures to patients seeking abortions. The challenged statute required physicians to convey to their abortion-seeking patients a number of state-mandated disclosures, including a statement that abortions caused an "[i]ncreased risk of suicide ideation and suicide." Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, along with its medical director Dr. Carol E. Ball, challenged the South Dakota law, arguing that it violated patients' and physicians' First Amendment free speech rights and Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. After several appeals and remands, the Eighth Circuit, sitting en banc, upheld the South Dakota law, holding that the mandated suicide advisement was not "unconstitutionally misleading or irrelevant," and did "not impose an unconstitutional burden on women seeking abortions or their physicians." This supplemented the Eighth Circuit's earlier rulings in this case, where the court determined that the state was allowed to impose a restrictive emergency exception on abortion procedures and to force physicians to convey disclosures regarding the woman's relationship to the fetus and the humanity of the fetus.
Mont v. United States, No. 17-8995, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), is a United States Supreme Court case concerning the proper interpretation of "supervised release" under 18 U.S.C. §3624(e). The case involved a prisoner who was convicted on drug distribution charges and was sentenced to imprisonment and supervised release. While on supervised release, he was charged and pleaded guilty to various state-law offenses, but due to administrative delays, his sentence was not entered until after the day on which his supervised release was to end. He was nonetheless charged with violating the terms of his supervised release, and he sought to challenge the court's jurisdiction to hear the case, arguing that his pretrial detention for the later offenses. The question in the case was whether a term of supervised release for one event can be tolled (paused) by imprisonment for another offense.
Nebraska v. One 1970 2-Door Sedan Rambler (Gremlin) 191 Neb. 462, 215 N.W.2d 849 (1974) is a Nebraska Supreme Court civil forfeiture case. It was brought by the American state of Nebraska to seize a Rambler Gremlin on the sole grounds it was transporting illegal marijuana. The owner appealed against the forfeiture decision on the grounds of a claimed lack of due process. The court ruled 4–2 and sustained the confiscation as lawful.
