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Motion to Withdraw as Counsel – Revocation

By: Derek Hawkins//February 22, 2017//

Motion to Withdraw as Counsel – Revocation

By: Derek Hawkins//February 22, 2017//

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Michael Peterson

Case No.: 16-2493; 16-2494

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and POSNER and KANNE, Circuit Judges

In 2006 Michael Peterson was convicted of distributing crack cocaine, see 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), for which he served eight years in prison. In January 2014, fewer than two weeks after his release and the start of his term of supervised release, Peterson was arrested for drunk driving while outside the judicial district without permission. His probation officer did not seek revocation at that time, and for nearly two years afterward Peterson took positive steps toward reestablishing his life: He started a business, got married, and began caring for his new stepson. But in November 2015 Peterson encountered a long‐term adversary at a bar. According to Peterson the two men engaged in a verbal altercation (who started it or what it was about remains undetermined), but a surveillance video shows Peterson pursuing his adversary as he left the bar armed with a pistol lent him by a friend “as a means of defense.” (Why Peterson pursued him is another undetermined feature of the case.) Out on the street the other man attacked Peterson with a knife, seriously wounding him. Though his borrowed gun was in his waistband, Peterson didn’t attempt to use it but instead hid it under a garbage can after fleeing two police officers who had observed the attack. Arrested and later charged with being a felon in possession of a gun in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), Peterson pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 48 months’ imprisonment, 9 months below the guidelines imprisonment range calculated by the district judge. The judge revoked Peterson’s supervised release, the terms of which he’d violated by having been armed, and replaced it with a 6‐month term of imprisonment to run consecutively to the 48‐month term for the illegal possession. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). Peterson filed notices of appeal from both the revocation of supervised release and his new conviction, but his appointed counsel advises us that both appeals are frivolous, and therefore seeks to withdraw from representing his client, citing Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967).

Motion to Withdraw Granted

Appeals Dismissed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.

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