United States v. Zhang, No. 22-1761 (2d Cir. 2022)
Annotate this Case
Defendant, indicted for participating in a successful murder-for-hire scheme, was ordered detained pending trial. Defendant appealed the district court’s decision not to reopen his detention hearing under 18 U.S.C. Section 3142(f) after the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed that it would not seek the death penalty against him.
The Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision not to reopen Defendant’s detention hearing and denied Defendant’s motion for bail. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to revisit its detention ruling. In its initial detention determination, the district court had assumed that the death penalty would not be sought, and so the government’s later confirmation of that point did not materially change the detention calculus. Moreover, the district court’s consideration of the strength of the evidence that Defendant committed the charged offense, as part of its assessment of whether Defendant posed a danger to the community or a risk of flight, was consistent with the Bail Reform Act and did not undermine the presumption of innocence, which is a trial right.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.