In a ruling favorable to defendants, the Supreme Court today narrowed the application of the crime of money laundering in an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas.

''The rulings significantly raise the bar for prosecutors to prove money laundering,'' said Jeffrey Green, who represents the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Green said the decisions also will significantly affect the white-collar world, where money laundering charges are frequently tacked onto alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the law designed to prosecute American companies that bribe foreign officials.

From an e-mail I received from the Sentencing Resource Counsel:[More...]

There are 48 happy mothers in Texas today:

A Texas appeals court ruled today that state child welfare authorities had no right to seize dozens of children living at the ranch of a polygamist religious sect, saying they were in no immediate danger of abuse.

The 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin ruled in favor of 48 mothers seeking the return of more than 130 children who had been living at a ranch near Eldorado, Tex., associated with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The ruling is here. It directs the trial court to vacate the orders granting custody of the children to Protective Services. The court should act within 10 days. If the Department of Child and Protective Services appeals, it's not clear whether the children will be returned to their parents before the appeal is decided. [More...]

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a trial court's dismissal of a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Lawsuit."

A decorated Air Force nurse who lost a challenge to the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and was fired for having a lesbian relationship will get another chance to state her case before a judge.

A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it was unclear whether the military's policy, as specifically applied to Witt, would hurt unit cohesiveness, as the Air Force had argued in winning its case in July 2006 in U.S. District Court.

"The government now has to make a showing that it can't possibly make" -- that Witt's presence causes a problem in her unit -- given that those who worked with her in the military supplied her with glowing recommendations and outrage at her ouster, said James Lobsenz, part of her ACLU legal team.

The decision means the military can't automatically discarge gay servicepersons. Maj. Margaret Witt's lawyers think she will prevail the next time around. [More...]

The Supreme Court today upheld the conviction and sentence of the LAX "Millenium Bomber" in 2000. The issue was the ten year consecutive mandatory minimum sentence if a defendant is found to have carried carries explosives during the commission of a crime. The 8-1 opinion is here(pdf). Via Scotus Blog:

Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian national identified by the government as an Al-Qaeda operative, who was foiled in an attempt to detonate explosives in the Los Angeles International Airport on the eve of the millenium in 2000 — Dec. 31, 1999.

...It was sufficient to violate that law, Stevens wrote, that explosives were found in a car the accused was driving when he committed the crime of making a false statement to a customs official. It was not necessary, the opinion said, that the explosives be directly linked to the specific felony committed.

More...

The Supreme Court has upheld a part of the PROTECT Act that provides a five year mandatory minimum sentence for possession of child pornography. The Court found the law was not vague or over-reaching. The case is U.S. v. Williams and the opinion is here (pdf).

The court, in a 7-2 decision, brushed aside concerns that the law could apply to mainstream movies that depict adolescent sex, classic literature or innocent e-mails that describe pictures of grandchildren.

The law sets a five-year mandatory prison term for promoting, or pandering, child p*rn. It does not require that someone actually possess child p*rnography. Opponents have said the law could apply to movies like "Traffic" or "Titanic" that depict adolescent sex.

The majority opinion was written by Justice Anton Scalia. Justices Ginsberg and Souter dissented. More...

Via How Appealing, a Texas Court of appeals has reversed the verdict against Merck in the Vioxx case. I found this interesting:

After the trial, a juror admitted borrowing thousands of dollars from [deceased Plainff]Garza's widow, Felicia Garza, although that does not seem to have been a factor in Wednesday's appellate court decision.

The opinion is here.

Less noteworthy but more heartening than today's Supreme Court decision affirming Kentucky's lethal injection protocol is today's 6-3 decision sensibly deciding that drunk driving is not a violent felony, akin to burglary, arson, or extortion, for the purpose of triggering a mandatory 15 year sentence for offenders who have three violent felonies on their record before being sentenced for unlawful possession of a firearm. The lower courts decided that Larry Begay should be sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act even though his only prior felony offenses were DUI crimes that caused no injury, given the potential for injury that often accompanies that crime. The Supreme Court limited the statute's scope to felonies that are purposefully violent or aggressive. (more ...)

Does anyone not hate flying anymore? Remember the plight of the passengers stranded for hours on runways due to weather who were not be allowed to deplane?

Those experiences were part of what led to the New York's passage of the Passenger's Bill of Rights Law. Today, the Second Circuit ruled the law invalid:

A federal appeals court has rejected a law requiring airlines to provide food, water, clean toilets and fresh air to passengers trapped in a plane delayed on the ground.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that New York's new state law interferes with federal law governing the price, route or service of an air carrier. It was the first law in the nation of its kind.

The Court held only the feds have the power to make these kind of rules. The case is Air Transport Association v. Cuomo, 07-5771, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (Manhattan).

At a time when the country's struggle to overcome racial divisions is deservedly making front page news, the Supreme Court overturned a Louisiana conviction after concluding that a state prosecutor deliberately excluded a black student from serving on the defendant's jury. The opinion reinforces an earlier decision that called for stronger judicial scrutiny of the bogus explanations that prosecutors often give for their decisions to remove minority group members from criminal juries.

The decision (pdf) was 7-2, with Justices Scalia and Thomas joining in an unsurprising dissent. More surprising is that Justice Alito did not join them. In fact, he wrote the majority opinion.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has tossed a law that made it illegal to sell for promote sex toys.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas law making it illegal to sell or promote obscene devices, punishable by as many as two years in jail, violated the right to privacy guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

The Court's reasoning:

In its decision Tuesday, the appeals court cited Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 opinion that struck down bans on consensual sex between same-sex couples.

"Just as in Lawrence, the state here wants to use its laws to enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct," the appeals judges wrote. "The case is not about public sex. It is not about controlling commerce in sex. It is about controlling what people do in the privacy of their own homes because the state is morally opposed to a certain type of consensual private intimate conduct. This is an insufficient justification after Lawrence."

In a significant, far-reaching, unanimous California Court of Appeals decision Friday, the Court of Appeals in San Francisco held that police officers cannot enter a person's home without a warrant, even if they personally observe people smoking marijuana in the house and smell the marijuana being smoked. The decision was ordered to be published. The case is People v. Hua and you can read the decision here (pdf).

Exigent circumstances to make a warrantless entry to seize the marijuana before it is smoked does not trump the Fourth Amendment, where the officers have no knowledge that any crime is taking place other than possession of 28.5 grams or less of marijuana, which is a nonjailable offense. The opinion cites the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Welsh v. Wisconsin.

This is the best and the strongest California appellate decision upholding the legislative intent of George Moscone's landmark marijuana decriminalization bill enacted in 1975, with NORML as the chief sponsor of that legislation. It is the first such decision which protects the rights of marijuana smokers not to have their homes invaded by the police without a warrant, merely because the officers know -- not suspect, but know -- that the occupants of the home are smoking marijuana inside.

Congrats to defense lawyer Gordon Brownell who argued the case.

CREW won a battle in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia today when Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the White House to turn over visitor logs of 9 religious commentators, including James Dobson, Gary Bauer and Jerry Falwell.

Visitor records are created by the Secret Service, which is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. But the Bush administration has ordered the data turned over to the White House, where they are treated as presidential records outside the scope of the public records law.

But U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled logs from the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's residence remain Secret Service documents and are subject to public records requests.

Lamberth refused a second request by CREW pertaining to the Jack Abramoff investigation. CREW wanted the judge to prevent the Secret Service from destroying its copies of visitor logs after tendering them to the White House. Lamberth said he lacked jurisdiction over the request. However,

Because the logs were declared Secret Service records, however, they cannot be destroyed without approval from the National Archives.