Irwin Allen Schiff was an American libertarian and tax resistance advocate known for writing and promoting literature in which he argued that the income tax in the United States is illegal and unconstitutional. Judges in several civil and criminal cases ruled in favor of the federal government and against Schiff. As a result of these judicial rulings Schiff was in a hospital prison serving a sentence of 162 months at the time of his death at the age of 87. The Federal Bureau of Prisons reported that Schiff died on October 16, 2015.
Diane Schwerm Sykes is an American jurist and lawyer who serves as the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She served as a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court from 1999 to 2004.
United States v. Councilman, 373 F.3d 197, reversed en banc, 418 F.3d 67, was a criminal case involving interception of e-mail while in temporary storage en route to its final destination. Earlier rulings in the case had raised concerns about the privacy of e-mail and the effectiveness of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA).
Jed Saul Rakoff is a Senior United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Reporter's privilege in the United States, is a "reporter's protection under constitutional or statutory law, from being compelled to testify about confidential information or sources." It may be described in the US as the qualified (limited) First Amendment or statutory right many jurisdictions have given to journalists in protecting their confidential sources from discovery.
Feltner v. Columbia Pictures Television, Inc., 523 U.S. 340 (1998), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that if there is to be an award of statutory damages in a copyright infringement case, then the opposing party has the right to demand a jury trial.
The Virginia Journal of International Law is a law review that was established in 1960 at the University of Virginia School of Law. It is among the world's most influential international law journals. Pieces published in the Journal have been cited by the Supreme Court of the United States, multiple U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals, and the International Court of Justice.
Vaughn Richard Walker served as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California from 1989 to 2011. Walker presided over the original trial in Hollingsworth v. Perry, where he found California's Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional.
United States federal probation and supervised release are imposed at sentencing. The difference between probation and supervised release is that the former is imposed as a substitute for imprisonment, or in addition to home detention, while the latter is imposed in addition to imprisonment. Probation and supervised release are both administered by the U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services System. Federal probation has existed since 1909, while supervised release has only existed since 1987, when it replaced federal parole as a means for imposing supervision following release from prison.
In criminology, the reintegrative shaming theory emphasizes the importance of shame in criminal punishment. The theory holds that punishments should focus on the offender's behavior rather than characteristics of the offender. It was developed by Australian criminologist John Braithwaite at Australian National University in 1989. It is related to the emerging perspective of positive criminology, developed by the Israeli criminologist Natti Ronel and his research team.
Prosecutorial vindictiveness occurs where a prosecutor retaliates against a defendant for exercising a constitutional or statutory right by increasing the number or severity of the charges against him. The United States Supreme Court has held prosecutorial vindictiveness to constitute a violation of a defendant's right to due process.
Several statutes, mostly codified in Title 18 of the United States Code, provide for federal prosecution of public corruption in the United States. Federal prosecutions of public corruption under the Hobbs Act, the mail and wire fraud statutes, including the honest services fraud provision, the Travel Act, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) began in the 1970s. "Although none of these statutes was enacted in order to prosecute official corruption, each has been interpreted to provide a means to do so." The federal official bribery and gratuity statute, 18 U.S.C. § 201, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) 15 U.S.C. § 78dd, and the federal program bribery statute, 18 U.S.C. § 666 directly address public corruption.
Federal Aviation Administration v. Cooper, 566 U.S. 284 (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that "actual damages" under the Privacy Act of 1974 is not clear enough to allow damages for suits for mental and emotional distress. The reasoning behind this is that the United States Congress, when authorizing suit against the government, must be clear in waiving the government's sovereign immunity.
United States v. Solon, 596 F.3d 1206, was a case in which Nathaniel Solon, a resident of Casper, Wyoming, was convicted for possession of child pornography. The case became known in the media for irregularities in the process, and suspicions that the material was introduced by malware on the computer. There were other people accused of similar crimes, who were later acquitted, but Solon was never exonerated.
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.
