District Court Nominees Stalled: Jonathan Adler and Matthew Franck each have a post on Bench Memos reporting on stalled district court nominations. Adler reports the Senate Judiciary Committee was supposed to approve five nominees last Thursday, but because Senator Jon Kyl objected to committee subpoenas of confidential memoranda from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy postponed consideration of the judges. The National Law Journal reported Monday, that the week long delay will leave just one day for the Senate to vote on the nominees before senators recess. Franck's post criticizes Senator Biden for "unaccountably holding up a nomination to his own state's district court that was made by the president in February." The nomination of U.S. Attorney Colm Connolly is not one of five nominations discussed in Adler's post. But, because of delay, Delaware's federal District Court is likely to go without a fourth judge until July.

Ninth Circuit Ruling on Identity Theft: Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy posted on a split decision from the Ninth Circuit addressing the application of sentencing guidelines to identity theft convictions. The decision, US v. Pham addressed Pham's claim that "it was error for the district court to apply a four-level enhancement to his sentence for a property crime involving fifty or more victims where the shortfalls in the accounts of the ninety-five individuals whose identities were stolen were fully reimbursed by their banks." Even though Pham pleaded guilty to the offense, and his crime resulted in more than $1.6 million in loss, the Ninth Circuit vacated Pham's sentence and remanded for resentencing on an open record.