By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma The ZMO Law PLLC is delighted to announce that Sharlene Morris, Esq. has joined the firm as an associate attorney. Ms. Morris is a graduate of the George Washington University School of Law, where she was a member of the The George Washington Journal of Energy and Environmental Law, and a leader …
Sex Crimes
Proving “Knowing Distribution” of Child Pornography
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Child pornography is typically distributed in some of the shadier parts of the Internet. One common way to get child pornography is through peer-to-peer file sharing programs like Limewire and Gigatribe. These programs allow users to share their material with each other directly rather than through a central public server. But using …
Do I Really Need a Lawyer?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma The story of Zachary Warren in yesterday’s New York Times is a cautionary tale of modern complex investigations. Mr. Warren is a 29-year-old former federal appellate law clerk and graduate of Georgetown Law School. After graduating from Stanford he knew he wanted to go to law school. But first he took a …
The Other “Great Writ”: The Second Circuit Revives Coram Nobis
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Earlier this month, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals breathed new life into the “ancient” and “arcane” writ of error coram nobis. The ultimate remedy-of-last-resort, a writ of error of coram nobis is warranted only when the petitioner is not in custody, rendering the more-familiar writ of habeas corpus unavailable as a remedy. As expounded by …
Sex Crimes Advocacy Website Re-Designed
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Please check out the re-design of our Sex Crimes Advocacy website. The site contains detailed information on federal and New York State sex crimes including child pornography, sex offender registration and other important issues. Please let us know what you think of the new design and what additional information you might find …
Antonio Yarbough and Zach Margulis-Ohnuma Appear on WPIX Morning News
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Antonio Yarbough discussed his exoneration after 22 years in prison on WPIX Channel 11’s morning news program. He was accompanied by attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma who talked about the five-year legal battle to prove that he did not kill his mother, sister and sister’s twelve-year-old friend. For more information on the case, click …
Tony Yarbough Freed!
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Twenty one years, seven months and nineteen days after Tony Yarbough and Sharrif Wilson were taken into custody for a brutal triple homicide, they walked out of a Brooklyn courtroom today, cleared of the murders of Tony’s family. Justice Raymond Guzman granted our unopposed motion to vacate the verdicts under Criminal Procedure …
Tony Yarbough: Is this the Endgame?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma On June 18, 1992, 18-year-old Tony Yarbough came home to find his family murdered. Through a series of systemic failures, he was wrongly convicted of this horrible crime. The real murderer, according to DNA evidence, went on to kill again seven years later. He has never been caught. A polygraph of Tony’s only accuser, …
Easy-to-use Statistics from the Bureau of Prisons
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma It is now easy to find out population, race, gender and other statistics for the Bureau of Prisons at a glance by visiting BOP’s new “By the Numbers” webpage. The page also provides a snapshot of what federal crimes inmates are incarcerated for. There are no big surprises there: drug offenses make …
Free Tony Yarbough Page Updated
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Please see our updated page about the case of Antonio Yarbough, falsely imprisoned for 22 years for the murders of his family. The medical examiner’s DNA report is in, the Daily News has called for his release and his co-defendant — the only real witness against him — passed a lie detector …
A Discussion of the Reingold, Corsey and Kaplan Cases
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma A video from the Association of Federal Defense Lawyers in which Zach Margulis-Ohnuma and two other attorneys, Sean Nuttall of Morvillo Abramowitz and Trisha LaFache, discuss interesting Second Circuit cases is now available. Zach talks about three cases: the first is U.S. v. Reingold, in which the circuit overturned a decision by …
When Can Police Lie to Get a Confession?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma For centuries, confessions have been considered a reliable form of proof against the accused — who would confess to a crime they did not commit? But DNA evidence has begun to demonstrate that false confessions in the United States are more common than previously believed. One reason is that the courts have …
Lower Sentences for Federal Drug Offenders?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma People convicted of non-violent federal drug crimes face staggering penalties in the form of “bone-crushing” mandatory minimums and draconian federal sentencing guidelines. But the U.S. Sentencing Commission just announced that it has voted to accept comments on a proposed amendment to the drug guidelines that would lower them by two levels across …
Ryan Ferguson: “incredibly easy” to get wrongly convicted
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Ryan Ferguson was released yesterday after spending ten years in a Missouri prison based on false testimony by two witnesses. No physical evidence tied him to the murder. One of the witnesses claimed to be his accomplice in the murder, and recanted in a videotaped statement in 2005. Witness statements and testimony …
Updated Info on Tony Yarbough Now Available
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Please check out the Free Tony Yarbough page which has been updated with new information about the case, the DNA results, the related murder of Migdalia Ruiz in Sunset Park in 1999, and documents not previously available. Tony and Sharrif will be in court in Brooklyn on Monday, October 7, 2013. Please …
Case Against Driving School Operator Represented by Margulis-Ohnuma Tossed on Federalism Grounds
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Does the federal mail fraud statute criminalize cheating on a state driving test, where the “mailing” is incidental to the cheating and a state law specifically addresses cheating on a DMV test? No, writes Judge Glasser of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. In United States v. …
Judge Weinstein: “We continue using the criminal law to unnecessarily crush the lives of our young.”
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Shooting back at the Second Circuit, Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York writes passionately and eloquently that enforcing the five-year mandatory minimum sentence for distribution of child pornography over file-sharing programs like Gigatribe is an unnecessary cruelty. The Court of Appeals yesterday overturned Judge Weinstein’s below-minimum sentence …
DNA Evidence Exonerates Margulis-Ohnuma Client Tony Yarbough
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Tony Yarbough is waiting to be freed. DNA evidence revealed in Brooklyn Supreme Court last week shows that an unknown third person murdered Antonio Yarbough’s family, as reported in the New York Daily News today. The evidence comes in the form of a “hit report” issued by the Office of the Chief …