Latest Case: United States v. Diaz-Lugo (Criminal Law)

Trump’s Upcoming Refusal to Leave Office: The Very Bad News

NEIL H. BUCHANAN

In this second of a two-part series of columns considering the likelihood that President Trump will refuse to leave the White House even if he loses the election, UF Levin College of Law professor and economist Neil H. Buchanan describes the bad news that Trump and his supporters seem likely to use violence to keep him in office.

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Latest Twist in the Flynn Case Highlights the Danger of Judicial Deference to Trump’s Administration

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 a decision by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit holding that U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan exceeded his power by refusing to grant the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the case against Michael Flynn, President Trump’s former national security advisor. Sarat explains the relationship between the judiciary and prosecutors and points out that that judicial deference toward prosecutorial decisions can only be reconciled with constitutional governance if prosecutors respect, and are guided by, canons of integrity and professionalism. Sarat argues that the current leadership of the Justice Department shows utter disdain for such canons.

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United States v. Diaz-Lugo

Docket: 19-1284

Opinion Date: June 24, 2020

Judge: Selya

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The First Circuit affirmed Defendant's upwardly variant sixty-month sentence imposed in connection with Defendant's plea of guilty to being a prohibited person in possession of firearms and ammunition and being in possession of a machine gun, holding that the sentence was both procedurally and substantively unreasonable. Specifically, the First Circuit held (1) as to Defendant's claims of procedural error, the sentencing court did not abuse its discretion by failing to vary downward on account of Defendant's cooperation, the court's passing reference to Defendant's past arrest for a drug charge played no role in the sentencing calculus, and the court did not err by imposing an above-the-range sentence even where Defendant accepted responsibility; and (2) the sixty-month sentence was substantively reasonable.