Federal criminal defense and white collar crime lawyer, NiaLena Caravasos, was recently interviewed by Super Lawyers, for their article entitled “LEGAL TIPS FOR SAFE INJECTION FACILITIES IN PHILADELPHIA – Medical professionals and opioid users need to know the dangers.” With hundreds of thousands of people dying in this country from opioid addiction, President Trump has […]
Court-imposed internet restrictions and their application to criminal defendants used to be a non-issue. In the past few months, though, the U.S. Supreme Court in Packingham v. North Carolina unanimously invalidated a state law banning registered sex offenders from accessing websites that could facilitate direct communications with minors. Although the majority opinion and concurrence appears […]
As the population ages, more and more of our elderly and infirm who have been convicted of federal crimes are finding themselves behind bars. While there does exist a vehicle by which to secure the early “compassionate release” of elderly and terminally ill offenders, defendants’ requests for sentence reduction under this provision has traditionally fallen […]
Under the Obama administration, the U.S. Department of Justice had decided to gradually end its use of private federal prisons due to the fact that inmates being housed there while serving sentences following federal criminal convictions were being physically abused, denied medical care, and forced to endure inhumane living conditions while corporations such as Corrections […]
NiaLena has been honored for the second year in a row as part of the top 1% by her inclusion among America’s Most Honored Professionals, a distinction which is a cross-industry and cross-profession honor based on quantitative analysis of authenticated public recognitions and is awarded only to successful individuals who have been publicly recognized for […]
In light of the current public discussions regarding whether judges should strictly interpret the law or not, it seems as though it is only fitting to highlight the philosophy of this extraordinary U.S. District Court judge from the Western District of Washington. The story of “One Judge Makes the Case for Judgment: John Coughenour says […]
A unanimous three-judge panel of the Pennsylvania Superior Court recently held in Commonwealth v. Smith that a man who used a “voice memo” app on his smartphone to record a conversation with his boss should be charged with the interception of oral communications, which is a violation of the Wiretap Act. Section 5703 of the […]
The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) has made available a paper entitled “Legislating Forgiveness: A Study of Post-Conviction Certificates as Policy to Address the Employment Consequences of a Conviction” and written by Heather Garretson, which addresses the fact that mass incarceration in America is creating an employment paradox that is the result of three facts […]
A blog recently posted via the Washington Post highlights notable data on racial and gender dynamics regarding recent changes in the rates of incarceration. Following decades of growth, the U.S. imprisonment rate has been declining for the past several years and hidden within this overall trend is the sizable and surprising racial disparity that African-Americans […]
“Former federal judge to President Obama: Free the man I sentenced to 55 years in prison” headlines an article in the Washington Post. Former U.S. District Court Judge Paul Cassell (previously appointed to the bench in 2002 by former President George W. Bush and now a professor at the University of Utah’s law school) has […]