Video Center

This page is an index of 48 videos the firm has published on YouTube, grouped by subject so you can find the one you want. It is not where any of these subjects is explained properly — every group below links to the page on this site that covers the law in depth, with the statutes, rules and cases cited, and that is where you should go if you need an answer rather than a video.

What is on this page, and what is not

Forty-eight videos, in nine subject groups. All of them are hosted on YouTube and open there; nothing plays on this page. None of them carries a transcript or a written summary, so this page describes each group rather than each video — what the group is about and where the subject is written out. Video titles and links below are reproduced exactly as published.

The largest group is oral arguments and case commentary — eleven videos, most of them a lawyer talking through an argument or a recent decision. The most useful group for someone with a live problem is probably the five on Interpol Red Notices, because that subject has no dedicated page on this site yet. The rest map onto the four practice areas the firm works in every day: appeals, § 2255 motions, sentencing, and release from federal prison.

Subject group	What these videos cover	Where the site covers it in depth	Number of videos
Interpol and Red Notices	International police notices, what conduct they reach, their consequences, and challenging them	Not yet covered on a dedicated page — see the note in that section	5
Federal restitution	Restitution as part of a federal judgment, including collection and tax questions	Inmate restitution · asset forfeiture	4
Direct appeals	Appellate brief writing, timing, certiorari, and what happens after an appeal is lost	Federal appeals · how long a federal appeal takes	5
§ 2255 motions and habeas	Collateral attack on a federal conviction or sentence, ineffective assistance, and Brady claims	§ 2255 motions · ineffective assistance	5
Federal sentencing and mitigation	Contested sentencings, guideline amendments, career offender, mitigation specialists, cooperation	Sentence mitigation · sentencing basics	6
Compassionate release, the First Step Act and prison conditions	§ 3582(c)(1)(A) motions, First Step Act implementation, and conditions at a named federal penitentiary	Compassionate release · the First Step Act	3
Oral arguments and case commentary	Recorded appellate arguments and commentary on decisions and charged cases	What an appeal is · trial	11
South Carolina state appellate practice	State-court appellate procedure and state sentence reductions — not federal law	South Carolina	2
About the firm	Practice overview, court admissions, and a book announcement	About us · the federal courts of appeals	7

Interpol, Red Notices and international exposure

Five videos in this group, and it is the one place on this site where the subject appears at all. An Interpol Red Notice is a request circulated among Interpol’s member countries to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition; it is issued by the organization at a member country’s request, it is not a warrant issued by a United States court, and it does not by itself charge anyone with a federal offense. Because it operates outside the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, none of the protections a defendant has in a federal case — the initial appearance before a magistrate judge, the conditions-of-release regime in 18 U.S.C. § 3142, the grand jury — attaches to it.

We have deliberately not written a legal explanation of Red Notice practice into this page, because that subject needs its own page with primary sources rather than a paragraph under a list of videos. What we can say is where the subject touches federal criminal defense: a person subject to a notice may also be a target or a subject of a United States investigation, and international transfer questions on the other end of a sentence are covered at the transfer treaty program and international prisoner transfer.

• What Is Interpol?
• What is a Red Notice?
• What Crimes Will NOT Qualify for a Red Notice?
• What are the Collateral Consequences of a Red Notice?
• Challenging a Red Notice

Federal restitution and the money side of a judgment

Four videos, three of them a numbered series. Restitution is the part of a federal judgment people most often misunderstand, because it does not work like a fine and it does not go away when the prison term ends. For crimes of violence, offenses against property including any offense committed by fraud or deceit, and several other listed categories where an identifiable victim suffered physical injury or pecuniary loss, restitution is mandatory — “the court shall order … that the defendant make restitution to the victim of the offense,” 18 U.S.C. § 3663A(a)(1).

Two features of the statute account for most of the confusion. First, the amount is set “in the full amount of each victim’s losses as determined by the court and without consideration of the economic circumstances of the defendant,” 18 U.S.C. § 3664(f)(1)(A) — a defendant’s finances bear on the payment schedule, not on the total. Second, the government bears the burden of proving the loss amount while the defendant bears the burden of demonstrating his own financial resources, and a person who receives “substantial resources from any source, including inheritance, settlement, or other judgment” while incarcerated must apply them to what is owed. Restitution is also distinct from forfeiture, which is the government’s claim on property connected to the offense and must be noticed in the charging document under Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.2(a), and from the mandatory special assessment of $100 per felony count under 18 U.S.C. § 3013(a). How restitution is actually collected from a person in custody is at inmate restitution.

• Federal Restitution Part I
• Federal Restitution Part 2
• Federal Restitution Part 3
• Restitution and the IRS

Direct appeals in the federal courts of appeals

Five videos on the mechanics of a federal criminal appeal. The subject is governed by deadlines that are short and unforgiving, and one of them is the single most consequential number in a federal case after judgment: a defendant’s notice of appeal “must be filed in the district court within 14 days after the later of: (i) the entry of either the judgment or the order being appealed; or (ii) the filing of the government’s notice of appeal,” Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(1)(A). Three things about that sentence catch people out — it is 14 days and not 30, the notice goes to the district court and not the court of appeals, and the clock runs from entry of judgment, which is normally some days after the sentencing hearing. The district court may extend it by up to 30 additional days on excusable neglect or good cause, but that is discretionary and nothing to rely on.

What follows the notice is longer and slower: briefing, sometimes argument, then a panel decision. If the panel rules against you, the next steps are rehearing and certiorari — and note that the rule for en banc review moved recently, with the 2024 amendments transferring Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 35 into Rule 40, which now says plainly that “[p]anel rehearing is the ordinary means of reconsidering a panel decision; rehearing en banc is not favored.” The site covers this ground at federal appeals, how long a federal appeal takes, certiorari petitions, and rehearing and en banc.

• Importance of Direct Appeals – Federal Criminal Appeals Law
• Tips Writing Federal Appellate Brief
• How Long Until the Court Hears My Appeal?
• What are Petitions for Writ of Certiorari?
• What to Do When you Lose your Direct Appeal.

Section 2255 motions, ineffective assistance, and federal habeas

Five videos on collateral attack — the route that opens once a direct appeal is over. A § 2255 motion goes to the sentencing court, not the court of appeals, and lies where the sentence “was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States, or … the court was without jurisdiction to impose such sentence, or … the sentence was in excess of the maximum authorized by law, or is otherwise subject to collateral attack,” 28 U.S.C. § 2255(a). A one-year limitation applies, running from the latest of four dates in § 2255(f) — most commonly when the conviction becomes final, a phrase the statute does not define.

Two of the videos in this group name doctrines with hard edges. Ineffective assistance of counsel usually belongs in a § 2255 rather than on direct appeal, because the facts that prove it sit outside the trial record; at the plea stage its scope is set by Missouri v. Frye, 566 U.S. 134 (2012), which holds that “defense counsel has the duty to communicate formal offers from the prosecution to accept a plea on terms and conditions that may be favorable to the accused” (opinion). A Brady claim rests on Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963): “the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution” (opinion). And there is a reason to be careful before filing anything pro se: a second or successive § 2255 must first be certified by a panel of the court of appeals under § 2255(h), on one of two narrow grounds. Depth is at § 2255 motions, ineffective assistance of counsel, Brady violations and habeas corpus.

• 2255 Petitions – What Are They and How Do We Handle Them?
• Federal 2255 Motions – Federal Criminal Appeals Law
• Ineffective Assistance of Counsel – Federal Criminal Appeals Law
• What are Brady Claims?
• How To Represent Yourself in Federal Habeas

Federal sentencing, mitigation and cooperation

Six videos, and the group where the underlying law has moved most recently. Federal sentencing runs on 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a): the court “shall impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary,” weighing seven factors of which the Guidelines range is the fourth. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38 (2007), makes the calculation a mandatory first step — the range is “the starting point and the initial benchmark” — with abuse-of-discretion review of the result (opinion).

What changed: effective 1 November 2025, Amendment 836 deleted the Guidelines Manual’s general departure provisions — §§5K2.0–5K2.24, §§5H1.1–5H1.12 and §4A1.3 — and collapsed the application instructions at USSG §1B1.1 from three steps to two, leaving §5K1.1 substantial assistance as the principal surviving departure. Any video or article recorded before that date describes a three-step process that the 2025 Manual no longer contains. On cooperation, one point is worth stating flatly because it is the commonest misunderstanding in the group: §5K1.1, 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e) and Fed. R. Crim. P. 35(b) all begin with a motion by the government. A defendant cannot bring any of them, and cooperating does not entitle anyone to a motion. Depth is at sentence mitigation, § 5K1.1 substantial assistance, proffer agreements, Amendment 836 and sentencing basics.

• What is a Contested Federal Sentencing?
• What is a Contested Federal Sentencing and How Can you Use it to Lower Your Sentence?
• 2025 Amendments Drug Trafficking
• Understanding the Career Offender Designation
• Use of Sentencing Mitigation Specialist in Federal Cases
• Should You Cooperate with the Government?

Compassionate release, the First Step Act, and conditions of confinement

Three videos covering the post-sentencing side of the practice. Compassionate release is the narrow exception to the rule that “[t]he court may not modify a term of imprisonment once it has been imposed”: a court may reduce a sentence on the Bureau’s motion, or on the defendant’s own motion “after the defendant has fully exhausted all administrative rights to appeal a failure of the Bureau of Prisons to bring a motion on the defendant’s behalf or the lapse of 30 days from the receipt of such a request by the warden of the defendant’s facility, whichever is earlier,” where extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant it, 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A).

The First Step Act video sits alongside a different mechanism entirely. Earned time credits under 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4) accrue at 10 days for every 30 days of successful programming, plus 5 more per 30 for a prisoner the Bureau assesses at minimum or low risk across two consecutive assessments, and they are “applied toward time in prerelease custody or supervised release” — they are not good conduct time under § 3624(b), which runs at up to 54 days per year of the sentence imposed and shortens the term. The third video names a specific federal penitentiary; conditions of confinement, including safety and housing, are a Bureau matter rather than a sentencing one. See compassionate release, the First Step Act, First Step Act time credits and the facility record for USP McCreary.

• Understanding Compassionate Release
• The Brand New First Step Act Taskforce
• USP McCreary Is Run By Gangs. Inmates Are Being Murdered. BOP Is Allowing It To Happen.

Oral arguments and case commentary

Eleven videos — the largest group, and the one that functions as evidence rather than explanation. Several are recordings or partial recordings of appellate arguments; the remainder are commentary on decided cases and on charged cases that were in the news. We do not characterize what is said in any of them.

Two things are worth knowing before you watch. First, an oral argument is a small part of an appeal and rarely the decisive part: the brief is where a federal appeal is won or lost, and many appeals are decided without argument at all. Second, commentary on a charged case is commentary, not a prediction, and nothing in these videos states what will happen in any case, including the ones discussed. Note also that four of the titles below are state-court arguments — Hemingway, Cooper and the two Passio videos come from the South Carolina appellate courts, and state appellate procedure differs from federal procedure at almost every step. For the federal picture see what an appeal is, the federal courts of appeals, standards of review, and, for what happens in the district court beforehand, trial.

• An Oral Argument as an Appellate Lawyer – Full Video
• An Oral Argument as an Appellate Lawyer – Partial Video
• An Oral Argument as an Appellate Lawyer – The State v. Richard Passio Jr.
• The State v. Richard Passio Jr – Oral Argument Partial Video
• Oral Argument – State v. Isaac Hemingway
• South Carolina Court of Appeals v. Christopher P. Cooper
• United States of America v Patrick Fitzgerald Clemons
• Dubin v. United States, SCOTUS – Aggravated Identity Theft
• US v Jesse Bullock IMPORTANT BRUEN CASE
• Sean Kingston and his indictment for Conspiracy and Wire Fraud
• Matthew Perry Ketamine Prosecution

South Carolina state appellate practice

Two videos, listed separately and flagged for a reason: they are about state practice, and the rest of this library is federal. State and federal criminal procedure diverge at nearly every point a defendant cares about. State systems commonly use a cash-bail schedule and commercial sureties; the federal system does not, because 18 U.S.C. § 3142 works on conditions of release and forbids “a financial condition that results in the pretrial detention of the person.” Many states retain parole; federal parole was abolished for offenses committed on or after 1 November 1987, and what replaced it is a determinate sentence plus supervised release, 18 U.S.C. § 3551 note. State appellate deadlines are set by state rules; the federal notice of appeal is 14 days from entry of judgment under Fed. R. App. P. 4(b).

Do not read these two videos across to a federal case. If your case is federal, the equivalent material is at after sentencing and federal appeals. If your case is a South Carolina state matter, the firm’s state-side page is at South Carolina, and the differences between the two systems generally are set out at federal vs. state.

• Steps for Perfecting a Criminal Appeal in South Carolina
• Are there Sentence Reductions in SC?

About the firm

Seven videos: a practice overview, five announcements of admissions to particular federal courts, and a book announcement. They are here because a reader deciding whether to hire counsel is entitled to check who they are dealing with, and admissions are checkable facts rather than claims.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and twelve of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals — every regional circuit (1st–11th) plus the D.C. Circuit — and to seven U.S. District Courts. She founded Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. in 2019 after more than 20 years in criminal defense and appellate work, and she is the author of Reversing Your Criminal Conviction: Develop Your Winning Strategy (2023), which is what the book video announces. Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, is the firm’s Managing Director and leads its federal prison consulting work; he holds a J.D. but is not the practicing attorney, and legal representation is provided by Elizabeth Franklin-Best. Fuller detail, including honors and publications, is at about us, and the circuit-by-circuit picture is at the federal courts of appeals.

• About Us – Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C.
• Expansion to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals! – Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C.
• Expansion to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals! – Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C.
• Expansion to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals! – Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C.
• Expansion to 9th Circuit Court of Appeals! – Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C.
• Admitted to Bar of US District Court for District of Columbia – Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C.
• Our New Book – “Reversing Your Criminal Conviction: Develop Your Winning Strategy”

Where these subjects are covered in depth

The videos are an index, not a library. If you came here looking for an answer rather than a video, the four practice areas the firm works in are federal appeals, § 2255 motions, compassionate release and early release from federal prison, with sentencing work at sentence mitigation and clemency at federal clemency. If your case has not reached sentencing yet, start at the federal court process, and the vocabulary is defined at the glossary. The rest of the written library is at criminal defense resources.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a boutique federal criminal defense and appellate firm founded in 2019, run on an intentionally small caseload, with offices in Columbia and Mount Pleasant, South Carolina and clients nationwide. Elizabeth Franklin-Best has more than 20 years of federal and appellate criminal defense experience. Nothing on this page is a promise about any case; whether a particular avenue is open depends on the record and on deadlines that may already be running. To ask about a specific matter, the firm’s details are at contact.

Together they are recognized authorities on 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motions and federal post-conviction relief.

Frequently Asked Questions About Our Video Library