Due Process Violation

By: Derek Hawkins//March 4, 2019//

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Josue Vargas

Case No.: 18-1250

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Due Process Violation

Convicted of two cocaine offenses, 21 U.S.C. §841(a)(1), Josue Vargas has been sentenced to 72 months’ imprisonment. His principal appellate argument is that the district judge should have suppressed packages of that drug seized from his truck. None of Vargas’s other arguments requires discussion. We agree with him that the district judge should have been more even-handed (at least when the jury could overhear his admonitions to defense counsel), but neither on that subject nor any other did the judge violate the Due Process Clause, which in criminal cases deals with only egregious transgressions of trial rules and decorum. Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637 (1974).

Affirmed

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Derek A Hawkins is trademark corporate counsel for Harley-Davidson. Hawkins oversees the prosecution and maintenance of the Harley-Davidson’s international trademark portfolio in emerging markets.