Atlanta Federal Criminal Defense Attorney Blog

In 2011, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta considered the case of a man accused of a federal crime, namely, using his employer's database to obtain information about his former spouse and girlfriend. The defendant was charged under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The court upheld the one-year prison term the man had received at trial.

Critics of that result will readily note a number of instances in other courts across the country where dissimilar results issued. In an appellate ruling from California last year, for example, a judge's panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that a worker could not be prosecuted under the CFAA for downloading a confidential source list, an act that violated company policy prohibiting use of work computers for purposes not connected to business. The court stated that workers across the country routinely use company computers for a variety of personal reasons and that prosecuting the man would be an act of selective enforcement.

A search warrant is, in effect, a document that is supposed to balance the needs of law enforcement and the individual. The government wants something -- whether drugs, documents, evidence of foul play or myriad other things it states are illegal or promote illegality -- and the individual wants the comfort of knowing that he or she will not be illegally harassed or abused by the actions requested under the warrant.

A recent warrant request by the FBI in a case of suspected bank fraud sufficiently troubled a federal magistrate to the point where he ensured that his order denying the request was made public in a 13-page document excoriating the government.

As the above post title implies, federal investigators were less than certain regarding their initial suspicions that led them to the wrong man in the recent poisonous letters incident regarding the deadly powder ricin.

They say they got it right the second time, with a Mississippi man currently under arrest for sending ricin-laced letters to President Obama, a Mississippi senator and another public official.

What stands out for some commentators on the matter is the active role played by the first man's criminal defense attorney, who told reporters after a hearing last week that "not one single shred of evidence was found to indicate [her client] could have done this."

As this blog has noted in prior posts, Georgia has comparatively harsh laws in place addressing drug crimes, even drug charges involving first-time non-violent offenders caught with small amounts of marijuana intended for personal use.

According to the Georgia Campaign for Access, Reform and Education (CARE), state law enforcement officials arrested as many as 40,000 persons on marijuana-related charges in the state in 2011. That advocacy groups says that the state's hard-line response strains prison resources, costs millions of unnecessary dollars and hurts rather than helps offenders, given its punitive thrust.

A growing number of people and advocacy organizations in other states are voicing similar views, the result being that material changes in marijuana laws have been made in a number of jurisdictions.