Closing the Back Door to Federal Prison

The Honorable Stefan Underhill argues that the federal supervised release system violates constitutional protections guaranteed in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. How? When defendants violate a condition of supervised release, they can face a felony-term of imprisonment and not be accorded the right to indictment, the right to jury trial, the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and the right to confront adverse witnesses. He urges defense lawyers to raise this issue in the district court and preserve it for appeal.