U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman and Professor Daniel J. Capra reflect on the impact of unification of the rules of evidence and how the Judiciary’s rule-making process ensures that the Federal Rules of Evidence keep up with the times.
Judiciary News – United States Courts… Read the rest
It’s often said that the ineffective assistance of counsel test is so tough to satisfy that even evidence that a defendant’s attorney slept during trial is insufficient to satisfy the standard. The latest example is Alvarez v. Guerrero, 2025 WL 3719047 (5th Cir. 2025).
In Alvarez, “Juan Carlos Alvarez was sentenced to death for the murders of Michael Aguirre and Jose Varela.” He later appealed, claiming that one of his two trial counsel slept during trial.
A majority … Read the rest
With two recent orders, the Milan Local Division of the Unified Patent Court (UPC), which has already been in the spotlight in Europe for its pragmatic approach to preliminary orders, has clarified some important aspects concerning the grant of provisional measures for collecting evidence provided for in the UPC system (equivalent to the Italian search orders or the saisie available in France and Belgium).
Specifically, the Local Division upheld the orders for preservation of evidence previously issued in the … Read the rest
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The Relist Watch column examines cert petitions that the Supreme Court has “relisted” for its upcoming conference. A short explanation of relists is available here.
The Supreme Court worked through two thirds of last week’s new relists, though with very different results. The court granted review in Delligatti v. United States, meaning that the court will be making yet another foray into the “categorical approach” to determining whether prior convictions are “crimes of violence” for sentencing purposes. … Read the rest