By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Our client Felipe Rodriguez is about to go home after almost 27 years in prison. Felipe needs clothes, food, a job, and a place to live. We are working (with the Innocence Project) on all that, but you can help. The Innocence Project has set up a GoFundMe page to collect cash donations, …
Prisoners' Rights
A Gift of Freedom for the New Year
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma In the best spirit of the holiday season, Governor Cuomo announced today that he granted executive clemency to Felipe Rodriguez based on a petition filed by the ZMO Law PLLC and the Innocence Project. Felipe is a remarkable client. The end to his incarceration brings joy not only to his lawyers — Nina …
Play Pen, the NIT Warrant, and Malware
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma For about two weeks last year, the FBI took over a website called the Play Pen that hosted and made available huge amounts of child pornography. It delivered illegal porn to as many as 100,000 computers around the world, along with malware – the so-called “NIT,” or Network Investigative Technique – that …
A Child Sex Crime Sting that Did Not Work
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma A judge in Syracuse earlier this summer ruled that a defendant charged with a federal sex crime should be acquitted because even though the defendant went to meet the phony “minor” (an undercover state trooper) at a mall, there was not enough evidence to show that he intended to try to have illegal sexual contact …
Sixth Circuit: Okay to Consider Jury’s Belief that Child Pornography Sentence Too Harsh
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Does the jury’s opinion matter at sentencing? Almost never. But last week, a Sixth Circuit panel said that a trial judge did not go too far by polling the jury about their opinion on sentencing in a child pornography case and considering their answer under 18 USC 3553(a). The below-Guidelines sentence was …
Can you get a life sentence for making child pornography?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Finding a possibility that the sentencing judge had a “clearly erroneous understanding of the facts,” the Second Circuit Court of Appeals last week sent back a sixty-year child pornography sentence for another look by the district court. In United States v. Brown, the defendant had pled guilty to three counts of producing and two counts …
Rule of Construction: If a Statute is Ambiguous, the Sex Offender Loses
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Last month, the Supreme Court ruled against a defendant’s appeal of his child pornography sentence in the Eastern District of New York, upholding a ten-year mandatory minimum based on an obliquely-worded statutory enhancement found in 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2252(b)(2). The mandatory minimum applies only if the defendant has previously been convicted of a crime related …
A Word about the Jury, the Press, and the Death of Mauricio Jaquez
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Seven years ago next Tuesday, NYPD police officers shot and killed Mauricio Jaquez in his Bronx apartment. They claimed he was holding a knife. Last week, a civil jury came back finding that the last shot was reasonable, even though it was fired into the back of Mauricio’s head after he had …
Trial Begins Monday in Police Shooting Case
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma On April 12, 2009, New York City police officers shot and killed Mauricio Jaquez, an emotionally disturbed man, in his apartment in the Bronx. On Monday, seven years later, one of the officers, Sgt. William Flores, will stand trial before a Southern District of New York jury for depriving Mr. Jaquez of …
Is it Time to Come Off the Sex Offender Registry?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma New York passed the Sex Offender Registration Act to be retroactive to people who still were on probation or parole as of January 21, 1996. In the months that followed, all probationers and parolees previously convicted of an enumerated offense, as well as people newly convicted, started registering. At that time, registration for low-risk offenders …
Sentencing Commission Video Now Available
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Video, transcripts and other information about principal attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma’s testimony at the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s public hearing on November 5 is now available. The testimony, on behalf of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, endorsed a proposed amendment to the Sentencing Guidelines to eliminate the “residual clause” portion of the …
Risk Reduced to Level One After Almost Twenty Years
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Said Abdullah was just about to finish probation in 1996 when the New York Legislature passed the Sex Offender Registration Act. He was forced to register as a sex offender and, after a federal lawsuit put the brakes on SORA for several years, was adjudicated a Level Three offender by Westchester County …
ZMO to Testify at U.S. Sentencing Commission Hearing on Crimes of Violence
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma The United States Sentencing Commission writes the Sentencing Guidelines which are the starting point for all federal sentences. The Guidelines define the term “crime of violence” in part through a “residual clause” that embraces any conviction involving a “serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” If you have two or more of these as prior crimes, you …
Does New York City Have A Policy of Coercive Interrogation?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma On June 18, 1992, five New York City detectives forced Sharrif Wilson, 15, to “confess” to a crime he did not commit, leading to his wrongful conviction in a gruesome triple homicide. The same detectives also got Antonio Yarbough to sign a false statement they wrote out for him. To get the boys to confess, …
“The Pointless Banishment of Sex Offenders”
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma As a law firm advocating for people accused or convicted of sex offenses, we focus on how sex offender registration sweeps in too many people and labels them as far higher risks than they actually are. The biggest problem with landing on a sex offender registry is the stigma associated with being …
Watch What You Plea To
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma In a rare reversal of a guilty plea, the Third Department recently vacated a child abuse conviction because the wrong crime was charged in the felony complaint, the document that starts a case against a defendant. On January 31, 2012, defendant Paul O’Neill pled guilty to a superior court information charging him with two very …
This is News? Prison Sex Abuse Violates the Constitution
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma It should seem obvious, but some federal courts (a lot, actually) have missed the fact that intentional sexual touching of an inmate by a guard for the purpose of sexual gratification or humiliation violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The ZMO Law PLLC and Perlmutter & McGuinness, P.C., …
Does a Tragic Case Merit a Fifteen Year Mandatory Minimum Prison Sentence?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma In a decision that “should be written with tears,” Judge Jack Weinstein has scheduled a remarkable hearing for August 3 to explore how to handle a gut-wrenching case of a child-abuse survivor who apparently went on to use and produce child pornography himself. Last month, 26-year-old Darnell Washington pled guilty to charges …
The High Cost of Being a Sex Offender
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma A fascinating recent episode of Freakonomics Radio covers in depth the economics of sex offenses, sex offender registries, and the special restrictions placed on people convicted of sex offenses. One commentator calculates how much sex offenses cost their victims — in both out-of-pocket expenses and based on jury awards for psychological damages — …
Zach Margulis-Ohnuma to Address False Confessions at Free CLE
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Why do innocent people confess? Principal attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma will join Prof. Saul Kassin and Ron Russo, Esq. for a lecture and discussion at the New York City Bar Association to explore the phenomenon of false confessions. Prof. Kassin is a leading social scientist who has written extensively on false confessions, helping form …
Do You Need a Sentencing Video?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma As the New York Times reported yesterday, criminal lawyers are increasingly offering short biographical videos at sentencing to help judges understand their clients better. While we almost always submit detailed sentencing packages for our clients, in some cases a sentencing video can help humanize a client in a way that a letter or …
No Sex Offender Treatment in Prison? No Problem!
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma New York state’s highest court recently reversed a defendant’s level three sex offender designation because, even though he did not complete treatment in prison, he was prevented from doing so by his poor prison disciplinary record. Under risk factor 12, ten points are assessed for failure to accept responsibility, and 15 are assessed …
A Word about Baltimore, Charges, and Grand Juries
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma To the great relief of anyone who believes in the rule of law, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby — thirty-five years old and four months on the job — filed charges on Friday against six police officers who caused the death of Freddie Gray last month. The officers were arrested and released …
Judge: Cops Who Shot Barricaded EDP in the Back of the Head Won’t Stand Trial
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma In a series of quick orders, Judge Katherine Forrest of the Southern District of New York granted summary judgment this week to New York City police officers who shot Mauricio Jaquez at least five times, including in the back of the head, at his apartment in the Bronx. They said he came …
Police Shooting Case Headed for Trial
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma A federal jury in Manhattan will hear the case of the Estate of Mauricio Jaquez v. City of New York beginning on April 20, 2015. The case will be tried by attorneys Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma and Sharlene Morris of the ZMO Law PLLC. The complaint, which survived the City’s motion for summary judgment …
NY Sex Offender Residency Rules Struck Down
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma In an important decision that will affect the quality of life and prospects for rehabilitation for sex offenders, the New York Court of Appeals has struck down local residency restrictions, saying they conflict with state law. Well over 100 municipalities across New York have made their own rules limiting where ex-offenders can live, often without …