Selected criminal-law, sentencing, habeas and prisoner-rights decisions, grouped by court. Read the ruling and its limits here, or follow the link to the official opinion.
Last updated: November 1, 2026. Circuit coverage: October 1–31, 2026. Supreme Court selection: June 18–29, 2026.
No suitable new Supreme Court criminal-law merits decision was identified for October. We widened the period to the five most recent suitable decisions in the criminal-law and prisoner-rights focus used here. Immigration-only and unrelated civil decisions are excluded. These five selections are newly covered here; none was in the earlier preview.
History check through November 1, 2026: the current official opinions and public court listings were reviewed, with searches for superseding rulings. No later reversal or vacatur of the selected opinions was identified in those sources. This is not a certification that rehearing or Supreme Court review is unavailable or that every mandate has issued. Circuit precedent generally binds courts within that circuit; Supreme Court holdings apply nationally. No new § 2241 merits decision is represented by this selection.
Fourth Amendment · Geofence location data
Obtaining Chatrie’s Google Location History was a Fourth Amendment search. The Court vacated the Fourth Circuit’s judgment and remanded.
Location data can receive constitutional protection even when held by a technology company. The Court left the warrant’s probable cause and particularity questions for the lower court; this ruling alone does not require suppression.
Second Amendment · Public carry restrictions
Hawaii could not prohibit licensed concealed-carry permit holders from carrying handguns on private property open to the public solely because the owner had not expressly authorized it.
The ruling limits a state’s default criminal prohibition. Property owners retain their ability to exclude firearms, and the decision does not invalidate every permit requirement or sensitive-place restriction.
Prisoner rights · Religious exercise · RLUIPA
Landor’s RLUIPA damages claim could not proceed against individual state prison officers who had not knowingly and voluntarily consented to personal liability under the federal funding arrangement.
The choice of defendant and remedy matters in prison religious-exercise litigation. The decision concerns personal liability under this Spending Clause statute; it does not eliminate all religious-exercise claims or decide every available constitutional remedy.
Second Amendment · Drug use and firearm possession
The prosecution under § 922(g)(3), based solely on Hemani’s admitted regular marijuana use, violated the Second Amendment as applied to him.
Regular drug use alone did not establish the historical justification advanced for disarming him. This is a narrow, fact-dependent ruling; the Court left open restrictions involving present intoxication or individualized proof of dangerousness. It does not erase every § 922(g)(3) conviction.
Plea agreements · Appeal waivers
A sentencing appeal waiver cannot be enforced when doing so would produce a miscarriage of justice involving an obvious, exceptionally serious error undermining the judiciary’s integrity.
The exception is demanding and does not cover ordinary sentencing disagreements. A judge’s mistaken statement that a defendant can appeal, and the prosecutor’s silence, do not by themselves modify a knowing and voluntary waiver.
Self-representation · Search evidence · Fraud sentencing
The court affirmed Newton’s health-care-fraud and money-laundering convictions and sentence, rejecting her challenges to self-representation, airport phone-search evidence, loss calculation, and sophisticated means.
The decision illustrates the record-specific review of a waiver of counsel and fraud sentencing objections. It does not authorize every border phone search or establish that all medical services have zero value in every fraud case.
Supervised release · Pronouncement and reasons
The court affirmed supervised-release conditions. An oral reference to the district’s general order satisfied pronouncement requirements under circuit precedent; standard conditions did not each require separate explanations.
The search condition’s reasons were apparent from this record, and McClain had requested the special treatment conditions she later challenged. The ruling does not excuse every unexplained condition or every condition appearing only in a written judgment.
Second Amendment · Felon firearm prohibition
Sitting en banc, the court affirmed Bost’s § 922(g)(1) conviction. His terroristic-threats conviction supplied a presumptive basis for finding a risk of physical violence from firearm misuse.
The court distinguished convictions demonstrating such a risk from a rule that every convicted person is necessarily dangerous. The opinion includes divided reasoning; its result does not resolve every as-applied challenge by someone with a nonviolent conviction.
Sentencing · Assault on correctional officer
The court affirmed a six-level official-victim enhancement and Vick’s consecutive 102-month sentence after an assault during a prison-cell investigation created a substantial risk of serious bodily injury.
The relevant enhancement can turn on the risk created rather than whether the officer actually needed medical treatment. Its application still requires supported findings about the assault and degree of risk.
Fraud sentencing · Loss calculation
The court affirmed the finding of pervasive health-care fraud and the resulting loss calculation. Once separating legitimate benefits from fraudulent benefits was not reasonably practicable, Tekippe had to identify particular legitimate amounts.
Evidence that patients received some treatment did not establish that the insurance claims complied with reimbursement requirements. The ruling rests on the pervasive-fraud record and deferential review of factual findings.
Second Amendment · Mental-health commitment · Sentencing
The court rejected a facial challenge to § 922(g)(4) and affirmed the sentence. The firearm restriction was constitutionally valid at least as applied to Laykovich after a commitment based on a serious public-safety risk.
A facial challenge fails when a valid application exists. This decision does not decide that every commitment, regardless of its basis or the person’s current circumstances, justifies a permanent firearm prohibition.
Criminal trial · Sufficiency · Evidence · Jury
The court affirmed convictions involving obscene material and sexual exploitation of a minor, rejecting the challenged sufficiency findings, evidentiary ruling, and replacement of a juror during deliberations.
Appellate review depends on the trial record, the elements of each charge, and how the trial judge handled the jury issue. The result does not create unrestricted authority to replace deliberating jurors.
Fourth Amendment · Traffic stops · Dog sniff
The court affirmed denial of suppression. The registration investigation remained unresolved, and the challenged questioning and dog sniff did not unlawfully prolong the traffic stop on this record.
A registration card did not resolve conflicting database information. Officers still cannot extend a completed traffic investigation for unrelated purposes without a lawful basis; one separate objection had been waived below.
§ 2255 · Requested appeal · Evidentiary hearing
The court vacated denial of a § 2255 motion and ordered an evidentiary hearing because Anderson and trial counsel gave conflicting sworn accounts about whether Anderson directed counsel to appeal.
An appeal waiver did not eliminate the need to resolve this credibility dispute. A hearing is not automatic for every allegation, and the remand did not itself establish ineffective assistance or vacate the conviction.
Sentencing · Appeal waiver · Hunter application
Applying Hunter, the court enforced an appeal waiver and dismissed an appeal alleging that an incorrect methamphetamine-purity finding inflated the Guidelines range. The alleged ordinary sentencing error did not satisfy the miscarriage-of-justice exception.
This shows the high threshold for escaping a valid appeal waiver. The court did not decide that the disputed purity finding was correct. The disposition is persuasive rather than binding precedent.
Compassionate release · § 924(c) stacking
The court reversed a sentence reduction based on the First Step Act’s nonretroactive change to § 924(c) stacking penalties, applying the Supreme Court’s Rutherford decision. It also upheld jurisdiction over the United States’ appeal.
A disparity from this nonretroactive amendment cannot supply the extraordinary-and-compelling reason used here. The ruling does not decide that a prisoner can never obtain compassionate release on a different legally sufficient ground.
State-prisoner habeas · AEDPA deadline · Restitution
The court affirmed dismissal of a federal habeas petition as untimely. A state motion challenging only restitution did not toll the limitations period for challenging the judgment authorizing custody.
Not every state post-conviction filing stops the federal habeas clock. This decision concerns § 2244(d) and a restitution-only challenge; equitable tolling and actual innocence were outside the certificate of appealability.
Fraud trial · Hearsay · Sufficiency · Sentencing
The court affirmed Trankle’s fraud-related convictions and sentence, rejecting challenges to exclusion of hearsay, evidentiary sufficiency, and the length and conditions of the sentence.
The ruling illustrates the importance of an evidentiary basis for a defense and the deferential standards governing verdict and sentencing review. It does not remove the need for individualized review of supervised-release conditions.
No suitable new October 2026 decision was identified for this edition after checking the Federal Circuit’s official opinions and orders listing and subject searches. Its specialized docket does not ordinarily include direct federal criminal appeals or general § 2241/§ 2255 review.
Official Federal Circuit opinions and orders ↗Preserved from the original design preview. These are previously covered 2025 decisions, not new November decisions. This sample predates the monthly editions and has no assigned publication date.
Sentencing · First Step Act
The Supreme Court held that the First Step Act’s reduced § 924(c) stacking penalties apply at a post-Act resentencing when the earlier sentence has been vacated, even if it was vacated after the Act took effect.
Relevant to people facing resentencing after a sentence is vacated. This decision does not automatically reopen every final § 924(c) sentence.
Supervised release
The Supreme Court held that a court deciding whether to revoke supervised release may not consider § 3553(a)(2)(A), the sentencing factor addressing retribution for the underlying criminal offense.
Relevant when reviewing the reasons given for a revocation decision. The opinion does not prevent revocation or imprisonment based on the considerations the statute permits.
Prison litigation · Grievances
The Supreme Court held that parties are entitled to a jury trial on a disputed Prison Litigation Reform Act exhaustion issue when it is intertwined with the merits of a claim requiring a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment.
Relevant to certain disputes involving grievances and alleged interference with the grievance process. The requirement to exhaust available administrative remedies remains in place.
General information only. Application depends on the facts, preservation of issues, procedural posture, deadlines, and later legal developments. Use the original opinion when evaluating a case.
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