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Although the legal system is slow to adapt to scientific advancements, Courtrooms can't stop the march of 'progress,' and slowly but surely, new modes of investigation and courtroom expertise find their way into the legal arena . Here are four you need to know about. STEGANOGRAPHY What is steganography, you ask? Well, look at the photo above, from the cable show Prison Break. Steganography is the art of hiding secret data within ordinary, non-secret files , like images, audi

Yes, Virginia, There is Interest of Justice Remand Authority in Federal Appellate Courts Conventional wisdom suggests that federal appellate courts can only order district courts to reconsider an allegedly excessive sentence if it violates substantive due process, not simply because a sentence reduction may be in the "interest of justice." Not so. 28 U.S.C. § 2106 provides: The Supreme Court or any other court of appellate jurisdiction may affirm, modify, vacate, set aside or

We recently achieved a rare and meaningful result for a longtime client : the expiration of a   federal restitution judgment more than twenty years after sentencing, following decades of litigation with the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Financial Litigation Unit (“FLU”).   The Original Case and Sentence In 2003 our client was charged in a federal HUD loan-fraud prosecution in the Eastern District of New York. In December 2005, the district judge imposed a non-custodial sentence to

At a recent trial (now on appeal) the district court interrupted my summation and required me to take a lengthy break to cleanse my PowerPoint slides and summation notes of arguments criticizing the government. The court instructed, “Do not impugn the integrity of the government as if they’re trying to pull a fast one.” Was this kosher? The Background What precipitated this prohibition? We were trying a murder case in which the defendant was accused of murdering the victim t