Forfeited assertion not plain error

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted April 2, 2015 2:24 PM

Updated July 24, 2015 9:13 AM

Appealing from a two–year prison sentence for counterfeiting, Renard Butler — who argued a federal judge in Wisconsin erred when calculating his criminal–history points — had to overcome two procedural barriers. Butler scrambled over the first hurdle — the waiver/forfeiture dichotomy — by persuading the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that his attorney’s failure to present the sentencing–guidelines argument in the district court was the result of “mere forfeiture …

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