Latest Case: United States v. Dailey (Criminal Law)

Department of Justice Once Again Proves Its Loyalty to the President, Not the Rule of Law

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat—Associate Provost, Associate Dean of the Faculty, and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College—comments on the recent news that the Justice Department will seek dismissal of charges against Michael Flynn. Sarat suggests that because the decision does not seem to advance the fair administration of justice in this case, the court should take the unusual step of refusing to grant the prosecutor’s motion to dismiss.

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United States v. Dailey

Docket: 19-2353

Opinion Date: May 8, 2020

Judge: Grasz

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Eighth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to submitting false reimbursement claims for services and creating a materially false patient progress note. The court held that the district court did not clearly err by declining to depart downward under USSG 5H1.4 based on defendant's extraordinary physical impairment where he was diagnosed with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma mycosis fungoides, a rare, chronic, and incurable cancer. The court explained that defendant's diagnosis no doubt confirms a very serious condition, but the government convinced the district court of the Bureau of Prison's ability to accommodate defendant's condition and provide appropriate medical care. The court was not left with a definite and firm conviction that the district court was mistaken. The court also held that the district court did not commit any other procedural errors where the district court referenced the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors and discussed several of them. Furthermore, defendant's 27 month sentence was substantively reasonable and the district court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing defendant at the very bottom of the applicable guideline range. The court agreed with the district court that the guidelines recommended a longer sentence for defendant because of his higher criminal history category, since he had previously committed another similar crime.