Public Defense

In United States v. Madarikan, No. 08-5589-cr (2d Cir. December 16, 2009), the court found a Confrontation Clause violation in the admission into evidence of a Certificate of Nonexistence of Record at an illegal reentry trial. Here, however, the error was harmless because there was other evidence that the defendant kacjed the requisite advance permission - her own testimony conceded the point.

In United States v. Venkataram, No. 08-3637-cr (2d Cir. December 16, 2009), the district court erroneously imposed five-year terms of supervised release on Class C and D felony convictions. The court modified the Judgment by reducing the terms to three years.

In United States v. Ramos-Soto, No. 08-2381-cr (2d Cir. December 1, 2009), the court remanded for clarification, where the sentencing record was ambiguous as to whether the district court believed that it lacked the authority to impose a non-Guideline sentence in an illegal reentry case based on the disparity with ?fast-track? districts.

Full post as published by Second Circuit Blog on December 16, 2009 (boomark / email).