Various winning decisions

US v. Shaw (09/26/06 - No. 05-6110)

In a case involving alleged child sexual abuse, denial of defendant's motion to suppress written statements made while he was held in custody for nearly twenty hours at an army base is reversed where he was arrested without probable cause and in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights, and the confessions he made were not sufficiently voluntary to eliminate the taint of the illegality of his arrest. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/6th/056110p.pdf
U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals
U.S. v. Harris (09/27/06 - No. 05-3808)

Conviction for possession with intent to distribute more than fifty grams of crack is reversed where defendant made a substantial preliminary showing that the search of his home was unlawful pursuant to the Supreme Court's decision in Franks, which entitled him to a hearing to challenge the veracity of the affidavit used to procure the search warrant. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/7th/053808p.pdf

US v. Beal (09/25/06 - No. 05-4483)

A sentence for knowingly and intentionally distributing cocaine base is reversed and remanded pursuant to the government's claim that it was unreasonable where a downward variance of 104 months from the lowest end of the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range was so great that it did not give appropriate deference to the congressional policy on career offenders, and other justifications did not support the variance either. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/8th/054483p.pdf
U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
US v. Baza-Martinez (09/26/06 - No. 05-10282)

A conviction under North Carolina General Statute (N.C.G.S.) section 14-202.1, for taking indecent liberties with a child, is not necessarily a "crime of violence," as defined by U.S.S.G. section 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii) to include "sexual abuse of a minor." Defendant's sentence, entered following his guilty plea to illegal re-entry after deportation, is remanded for resentencing pursuant to a claim that a prior felony conviction was not "sexual abuse of a minor," a "crime of violence" under United States Sentencing Guidelines. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0510282p.pdf
US v. Day (09/27/06 - No. 05-15676)

15-year sentence, including sentence as an armed career criminal, after guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm, with prior Florida convictions of breaking and entering, burglary, and burglary of a dwelling, is vacated where the district court erred in basing its finding that prior third-degree burglary conviction was for generic burglary, a violent felony, on the information, a document that charged a crime of which defendant was not convicted. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/11th/0515676p.pdf