SCOTUS Okays Piling on Mandatory Minimums — In the Name of Proportionality?

Yesterday, the Supreme Court held in Abbott v. United States that the five-year mandatory minimum prescribed by 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) must be imposed consecutively to other mandatory minimums imposed pursuant to other statutes.  The 924(c) mandatory minimum targets defendants who have used, carried, or possessed a firearm in connection with a crime of violence or a drug trafficking crime.

The defendants in Abbott illustrate how the same conduct that triggers 924(c) can also trigger other mandatory minimums.  

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The New Miranda Warning

I never thought the Miranda warning was all that useful.  In fact, it actually raises more questions than it answers.  For example, the warning tells a suspect that anything he says can be used against him in court.  But asking for an attorney is saying something, isn’t it?  Could the prosecutor later use such a request against him?  (After all, television teaches us that only guilty people “lawyer-up.”)  And what if the suspect wants to remain silent?  Could his silence be used against him in court?  The Miranda warning fails to answer these and many other questions.

 Making matters even worse for the would-be defendant is Berghuis v. Thompkins, 130 S. Ct. 2250 (2010).  In a confidence inspiring 5-4 split, the Court ruled that a suspect cannot actually exercise the right to remain silent by remaining silent—even if that silence lasts through nearly three hours of interrogation.

 In response to all of this chaos, I’ve drafted a new and improved Miranda warning.

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Seventh Circuit Backs Away From Apparent Circuit Split on Three Strikes Provision of PLRA

Enacted in 1996, the Prison Litigation Reform Act raised numerous obstacles to prisoner rights lawsuits.  The “three strikes” provision of the statute, codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), is intended to bar prisoners who have a history of frivolous litigation from proceeding in forma pauperis.  IFP status results in the waiver of court filing fees that would otherwise be beyond that means of indigent litigants.  For most prisoners, in light of their limited financial resources, a denial of IFP status is the functional equivalent of a denial of access to the courts.

Last week, in Turley v. Gaetz (No. 09-3847), the Seventh Circuit backed away from dicta in earlier decisions that seemed to embrace an exceptionally and unnecessarily broad reading of the three strikes bar.  Had the court adhered to the earlier dicta, it would have opened a circuit split on a very important prisoner rights issue.

Here’s what happened. 

Continue ReadingSeventh Circuit Backs Away From Apparent Circuit Split on Three Strikes Provision of PLRA