Tuesday, March 01, 2011

U.S. v. Watson (9th Cir. - Feb. 23, 2011)

I'm not going to complain about Judge Milan Smith's opinion in this case. which holds that you're still a fugitive (for purposes of the period of federal supervised release) even if you're arrested on state charges.

But I would like to say that I'm not all that impressed with federal supervised release if federal authorities fail to supervise -- or catch -- you when, as here, you're arrested eleven different times during this period.

Sure, these arrests were by state (rather than federal) authorities.  Still.  The federal government's incapable of running the record of a guy who's on supervised release to see if he's been arrested anywhere?  Really?  Wow.

Impressive.