Criminal defense attorneys often represent their clients when they are at their most vulnerable, facing an extremely stressful and often overwhelming investigation or prosecution.  As lawyers, we focus on facts and the law, but as defense counsel, we must also focus on the mental and physical well-being of our clients.  Our partner Stephanie Benecchi recently addressed the ethical issues arising out of representing clients at risk for self-harm in an article, “Ethical Considerations in Representing Clients at Risk of Suicide,” published in the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal De ..read more

A drug bust does not ordinarily fit as a subject of a White Collar Alert, but when law enforcement seizes 16 tons of cocaine from a container ship, the enforcement action raises some critical issues for the maritime industry.  Yesterday, our partner Nicole Phillips, who recently joined our White Collar and Government Investigations Practice Group from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and colleagues Wook Chung and Eric Chang from our Maritime and Transportation Practice Group examined some of the legal issues facing owners and operators of ship ..read more

Earlier today, hundreds of federal agents effected arrests and announced indictments relating to an alleged massive college admissions bribery scheme involving some of the country’s top universities. The investigation, Operation Varsity Blues, has ensnared two Hollywood actresses, Felicity Huffman and Lori Laughlin, and scores of prominent executives and individuals. The charging documents allege a conspiracy among a for-profit college counseling and preparation consulting business, college exam administrators, college coaches and athletics administrators, college applicants, and their parent ..read more

This guest post was authored by Daniel Baker, a summer associate with Montgomery McCracken. On June 21, 2018, the United States Supreme Court answered a seemingly straightforward question in Lucia v. SEC: whether the SEC’s in-house administrative law judges are “officers,” or “employees.” Distinguishing between the two categories is important because “officers” must be appointed through specific procedures set forth under the Constitution’s Article II Appointment Clause.  Under this clause, individuals who are deemed to be “officers” must be appointed by the President, the courts, o ..read more

This guest post was authored by Joseph Samuel, a summer associate with Montgomery McCracken. In a 9-0 decision handed down earlier today in Lagos v. United States, 584 U.S. __ (May 29, 2018), the Supreme Court held that the terms “investigation” and “proceedings” found in the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3663A(b)(4), refer only to government investigations and criminal proceedings, not to private investigations and civil or bankruptcy proceedings. The ruling limits the extent to which a defendant must compensate a victim when convicted of certain offenses, including cri ..read more

This post was co-authored by Michael C. Witsch and Robert H. Bender, associates in the firm’s Business Litigation and Products Liability practice group. On March 15, 2018, as a matter of first impression, a unanimous panel of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania looked largely to other decisions of that court and to the Pennsylvania Rules of Evidence to adopt a standard for authenticating social media posts for use as evidence.  In Commonwealth v. Mangel, 2018 PA Super 57, ___ A.3d ___ (2018), the three-judge panel affirmed an Erie County trial court’s decision to bar the introduction of F ..read more

Today, the Supreme Court delivered a welcome decision narrowing the obstruction “Omnibus Clause” within the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C. § 7212(a).  The Court held in Marinello v. United States that in order to sustain a tax obstruction conviction, there must be a nexus between the defendant’s conduct and a particular administrative proceeding.  The Court rejected the Second Circuit’s interpretation below, which would have permitted a conviction for obstructing “routine administrative procedures that are near-universally applied to all taxpayers, such as the ordinary proces ..read more

In a surprising development, the Department of Justice announced yesterday that it would drop corruption charges against Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ). The move comes just weeks after the Government declared its intent to retry the case, after the Senator’s first trial concluded in a November 2017 mistrial. Shortly after that announcement, the federal district court presiding over the proceedings issued a ruling dismissing seven of the eighteen counts in the superseding indictment. The published opinion repeatedly employed the famous words of Gertrude Stein, noting with respect to several of ..read more

This guest post was authored by Molly Dolinger, a summer associate with Montgomery McCracken. There are currently more cell phones in the U.S. than there are people. Given the increasingly mobile-dependent state of our society, it should come as no surprise that law enforcement in recent years has zeroed in on cell site location information (“CSLI”) as a crucial source of potential evidence in criminal investigations. In 2016, AT&T alone received 70,528 law enforcement requests for CSLI, many without a warrant. That works out to nearly 200 CSLI requests per day. In fact, these reques ..read more

This guest post was authored by Bianca Valcarce, a summer associate with Montgomery McCracken. The Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to review the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Digital Realty Trust, Inc. v. Somers and address the apparent tension between two provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act relating to whistleblowers.  Specifically, the Court will decide whether Dodd-Frank protects whistleblowers who report alleged wrongdoing to their supervisors but not to the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). While a finding against protection for internal reporters may appear ..read more