Where the government indicted a man for conspiring to commit Medicaid fraud and then dismissed the indictment, its failure to expunge his criminal record did not violate the Eighth Amendment because he was never convicted of a crime. The Eighth ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge Michael F. Urbanski U.S. District Court - Western District

An individual who was acquitted of violating a Virginia law preventing non-citizens from owning a semiautomatic weapon with a magazine which holds more than 20 rounds of ammunition failed to show the police fabricated evidence during their criminal investigation. As ...

Tagged with: Civil Rights Judge Michael F. Urbanski U.S. District Court - Western District

Where the government failed to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence of a recorded interview that was material to the defendant’s conviction for possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, that conviction was vacated. Where the interview ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge Michael F. Urbanski U.S. District Court - Western District

As the Virginia General Assembly faced competing plans for allowing low-level felony offenders to shed their state criminal records, a federal judge declined to clear a defendant’s record even though prosecutors dropped all charges in the case. The expungement request ...

Tagged with: Judge Michael F. Urbanski Medicaid Virginia General Assembly

Where the Federal Tort Claims Act’s waiver of sovereign immunity excludes negligence or wrongful acts or omissions performed by independent contractors, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development contracted with a company to maintain a property that was for ...

Tagged with: Judge Michael F. Urbanski Negligence U.S. District Court - Western District

Because the line between national origin and ethnicity is “not a bright one,” allegations that a carpenter was discriminated against because he is Latino and Puerto Rican were sufficient to support both his race and national origin discrimination claims. Background ...

Tagged with: Employment Discrimination Judge Michael F. Urbanski U.S. District Court - Western District

Even though late disclosure of favorable evidence was an inadvertent oversight by prosecutors, a federal judge says the omission constituted suppression of Brady material that required dismissal of a firearm-related charge against an accused drug kingpin. The recently disclosed video ...

Tagged with: drugs firearms guns Judge Michael F. Urbanski

A defendant attempting to challenge a significant damages award failed to escape a requirement that it post a supersedeas bond. The defendant could not demonstrate it would be irreparably harmed by posting the bond, the plaintiff would be prejudiced without ...

Tagged with: Civil Practice Judge Michael F. Urbanski U.S. District Court - Western District

Where the defendant was arrested while he was a guest in another person’s house, and the marshals did not have a warrant to search that house, briefing was ordered on whether he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge Michael F. Urbanski U.S. District Court - Western District

A company that twice filed complaints asserting patent infringement and related claims based on its beverage dispending system couldn’t dodge a motion to dismiss by arguing it needed discovery. Its complaint, meanwhile, included only conclusory allegations and was dismissed. Background ...

Tagged with: Intellectual Property Judge Michael F. Urbanski U.S. District Court - Western District