Lawyers
Litigation of counsel Martin Flumenbaum and firm Chairman Brad Karp’s latest Second Circuit Review column, “United States v. Sterkaj: Sentencing and the Lack of Cooperation,” appeared in the June 24 issue of the New York Law Journal. The authors discuss the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit’s recent decision in United States v. Sterkaj that a district court may not increase a defendant’s sentence due to that defendant’s failure to cooperate with the government, reaffirming the Second Circuit’s earlier holding in United States v. Stratton. In a unanimous opinion, the court held that the imposition of an increased sentence because of Sterkaj’s refusal to cooperate was procedurally unreasonable, even under the abuse of discretion standard of review. In upholding Stratton as good law, the court underscored the strict standards for overturning binding precedents, regardless of the underlying reasoning. Summer associate Sabrina Slagowitz assisted in the preparation of this column.
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