Missouri Lawyers Media Missouri legal news and public notices

Plaintiff prevailed in a tax-deficiency proceeding. The tax court granted plaintiff’s attorney fee award, but denied an enhancement to the statutory hourly fee rate and also reduced the number of compensable hours. Where plaintiff’s case was a standard tax case ...

Tagged with: Attorney Fee Award Deficiency Proceeding Taxation

Where a defendant, who repeatedly violated multiple conditions of supervised release, challenged his statutory maximum term of imprisonment, the judgment is affirmed because the defendant did not show procedural error, the sentence was substantively reasonable and the district court did ...

Tagged with: sentencing Supervised Release

Defendant pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute a compound or mixture containing methamphetamine. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court should have granted him safety-valve relief. Where the district court credited officers’ testimony that defendant changed material ...

Tagged with: Mandatory Minimum Sentence Possession with Intent to Distribute safety valve relief

Where a debtor challenged a bankruptcy court judgment determining that a claim against him was nondischargeable, the court’s finding that the creditor was the proper party holding the claim against the debtor was not clearly erroneous, so the judgment is ...

Tagged with: Dischargeability of Claim Real Party In Interest

Plaintiff appealed from the district court’s decision upholding the commissioner of Social Security’s final decision denying plaintiff’s applications for SSDI and SSI. On appeal, plaintiff argued that an administrative law judge’s findings in three steps of the statutory five-step sequential ...

Tagged with: Sequential Evaluation Process SSI and SSDI Sufficiency Of Evidence

Defendant entered a conditional guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm. On appeal, defendant challenged the denial of his motion to suppress, arguing that the search that discovered his firearm was based on police’s mistaken belief ...

Tagged with: Felon in Possession of Firearm Lack of Reasonable Suspicion Motion to Suppress Evidence

Where a defendant challenged his conviction and sentencing in a drug-conspiracy case, the defendant’s argument that the government witnesses were dishonest and self-interested failed because the determination of witness credibility was a matter for the jury, and the evidence supported ...

Tagged with: Drug Conspiracy Sentencing Enhancement Sufficiency Of Evidence

Defendant pleaded guilty to passing counterfeit securities. The district court sentenced defendant to 120 months of incarceration and ordered him to pay $55,000 in restitution. On appeal, defendant argued that the intended-loss calculation was too high and that the restitution ...

Tagged with: Intended-Loss Calculation Passing Counterfeit Securities restitution

CDefendant pleaded guilty to using a firearm in furtherance of a crime. The underlying crime of violence was aiding and abetting armed robbery of controlled substances. On appeal, defendant challenged whether the residual-clause definition of “crime of violence” was unconstitutionally ...

Tagged with: constitutionality Crime Of Violence Use of Firearm in Furtherance of Crime

While detained pretrial, plaintiff began suffering from multiple cavities and tooth pain. Plaintiff later filed a §1983 claim against defendants, alleging they deprived him of dental care in violation of his Eighth Amendment rights. The district court ultimately granted summary ...

Where a disabled man and a nonprofit organization that represented disabled individuals brought an action against a restaurant alleging ADA violations, the dismissal of the second suit was due to the plaintiffs’ decision to assert associational standing as a co-plaintiff ...

Tagged with: ADA Action Associational Standing Res Judicata