United States v. McFarland

In United States v. McFarland, 311 F.3d 376 (5th Cir. 2002), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held, by reason of an equally divided en banc court, that it would continue to allow application of the Hobbs Act to a local robbery despite decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court casting doubt on whether federalism permitted this result.

This was the second time that the Fifth Circuit agonized over the propriety of the gambit of prosecuting criminal conduct which had historically and traditionally been prosecuted under the state system as a federal crime in order to maximize punishment.

The dissents from this denial of denial of rehearing en banc by an equally divided court were passionate.