Watch here:
It's strange to me that people are just as angry with Acosta (the prosecutor) as they are with Epstein (the sex offender). As I've written about here in the Miami Herald, Acosta ensured Epstein had to plead, register, and go to jail. Ten years later, the deal looks too lenient, but to say that he cut the deal for some nefarious reason is not fair. Anyone who worked with or against Acosta knows that he would not have done that. Some of the details in the piece are now dated because it was written back in December, but the main point is still the same. I also wrote this piece for The Hill about Acosta, differentiating a bad deal from real prosecutorial misconduct.
This morning, the WSJ has a similar take here.
The SDFLA Blog is dedicated to providing news and notes regarding federal practice in the Southern District of Florida. The New Times calls the blog "the definitive source on South Florida's federal court system." All tips on court happenings are welcome and will remain anonymous. Please email David Markus at dmarkus@markuslaw.com
14 comments:
Harvard cabal. Big Harvard donor gets big Harvard law prof to influence-peddle ambitious Harvard alum US Attorney, now downplayed by Harvard alum blogger. What happened was wrong. Don't they teach that at Harvard?
Wow, DOM, were we really that lost as a society just ten years ago that the deal was ok then, but now, in our new enlightened present the deal seems too lenient? I don't buy it.
This case just shows what has always been true about our criminal justice system:
Rich, white, powerful, well-connected men are prosecuted and punished differently than poor people of color.
Also, US Attorney is a political position given to politically-ambitious individuals. They may be people of generally good character, but they are very susceptible to strong political pressure.
It was a mistake, even under the barbaric standards of ten years ago, to give Epstein such a sweetheart deal. Own it like the man of character DOM claims you are Acosta. The victims deserve as much.
DOM, the answer to your query, "why the hate for Acosta" seems plain to me:
Start with the premise that it's hard to regret or gainsay anything that's going to happen to Epstein, who appears to have raped children on an industrial scale. This prosecution raises some jurisprudential concerns (you've discussed some), but Epstein qua Epstein is entitled to nothing but contempt. And if anyone is shown to have joined in Epsteins contemptible activities (ANYone) then they deserve all those consequences, too.
But make no mistake, the volume, temperature and pressure of the hate ACOSTA is receiving is a direct reflection of current politics. How many versions of the headline "Trump Cabinet Member Cut Sweetheart Deal With Sex Offender" have you seen? For those writing/tweeting/broadcasting them, the temporal dishonesty of those headlines is not a bug, it's a feature. Because anything that sullies Trump is fair play to them.
Never mind Acosta was USA under W and Obama. Never mind the deal (about which, as a civil practice guy I claim no expertise, but which sure seems to me to have been unreasonably lenient) happened eleven years ago. This is a chance to tar TRUMP and that is not a chance many in the press can pass up.
To be clear -- since such disclaimers are now required -- I think Trump is a narcissistic buffoon on his very best day, and often as not a threat to liberty. But associating him with the Epstein deal would be seen as the nonsense it is vis-a-vis any other president with any other climate in the press.
[Standing by for responses wondering "why do you support Trump?" or "so you favor slapping serial rapists on the wrist" an so forth, since calling out any excess or want of logic is now forbidden, if the excess or want of logic hurts the president.]
It's pretty misleading to say that Acosta was USAO under Obama. He stayed until June 2009, less than five months after Obama was inaugurated, like all USAOs do until the successor president appoints a replacement.
It's a bit like saying that Sally Yates was the Attorney General under Donald Trump.
Bob, Please. Not everything falls into your digital tribalism. Acosta isn't being bombarded because we hate Trump. Acosta is being bombarded because he gave a sweatheart deal to a rich, powerful man in a case dealing with child rape and abuse where the victims were intentionally left in the dark in violation of federal law.
Here are my, admittedly not as erudite as DOM's, thoughts on this issue that I posted yesterday on Facebook after seeing the press conference.
Gotta say I was not impressed with the reporters questioning Acosta today. They had political reporters not criminal justice reporters. Anyone with a background in criminal justice would know that, as my cousin Vinnie memorably said, everything that guy just said was bullshit.
1) Claim that sexual assault victims were treated differently in the old days of 2007 and now judges wouldn't let you get away with what you could then--bullshit. The federal rape shield law was enacted in 1994. Prohibits questioning sex assault victims about past sexual history, unrelated allegations they have made, etc. Nothing has changed legally from 2007-2019 in terms of what defense lawyers can ask on those topics.
2) Claim that case wasn't a slam dunk and he wanted to make sure Epstein got jail time--bullshit. Anyone who knows anything about federal work knows they don't file unless they have very solid evidence. Here they filed. And the evidence here was very solid, it is detailed in the Herald's extensive investigative work on the case.
3) Claim that state court proceedings were best way to assure justice done--bullshit. Everyone knows it works the other way, state defers to feds not vice versa. Feds have way more favorable (to prosecutors) discovery and other procedural rules, way more ability to seize assets, judges and prosecutors who are not elected and thus less vulnerable to political or financial pressure of a wealthy defendant, etc.
4) Generally claim this was a win because Epstein went to jail--bullshit. He went to county jail for 13 months and got out for 12 hours a day to go to his office. Anyone who does any sort of work in this field knows that is an absurdly light sentence for sexually assaulting one child, let alone scores of them.
5) Claim that this was best way to protect victims--bullshit. Why did they go out of their way to not notify the victims? Because it wasn't what the victims wanted and they knew it.
I can confidently tell you that nobody else in the Southern District of Florida accused of these crimes, both now and when Alex Acosta was running the office, would have been handled this way. Zero chance. Asking for a deal like this would get you laughed out of the room. No defense lawyer who practices down here will tell you any different.
1155
I agree entirely with Bob. The outrage is 80% trump and 20% rich WHITE guy.
If its not about tying to trump, why do we hear ***nothing*** about the democratic state atty in palm beach who proposed an even more lenient deal?
@ 11:43: Fair point. I didn't mean to imply that he was an Obama appointee. He was W's man and merely an Obama a holdover. My point was just that "Trump Cabinet Member Gave Sweetheart Deal to Sex Offender" is wildly, seemingly intentionally, misleading.
@ 11:55: It's not so much MY "digital tribalism" as it the current era's digital tribalism. Nearly everything in American discourse has devolved to side-taking, with most folks willing to jettison their principles like cargo off a sinking ship if they can but score a point against "the other side," or as needed to defend "their guy." (Cf.the responses to Gov. Northam being either the guy in blackface, or the guy in a Klan suit, but certainly being one or the other. Also cf. the responses to Trump's vile taped comments/admissions on that bus. The responses to both are indeed all tribally determined.)
As for my own response, I don't think I could have been clearer that I thought the deal Acosta made was a bad one, and I agree with the reasons you cite for it being so bad. I just don't think it had or has a thing to do with Trump
[Want to be entertained by the degree of irrational, frothing hatred for Trump? Find any Facebook or Twitter feed about the WH announcing new kidney medicine initiatives designed to 1. reduce the numbers of those needing dialysis outside the home, and 2. make more kidneys available for transplant. You cannot in your imagination hope to match the heights of Trump-hating lunacy achieved by those who seriously suggest that was Trump intends is 1. to deny dialysis to people of whom he disapproves and 2. harvest kidneys from unwilling immigrants. My point is that nonsense like this -- and like trying to associate the Epstein deal with Trump -- distracts energy and sense and legitimacy from the necessary and useful opposition to his actual excesses. It's the boy who cried wolf to the Nth degree.]
Also, not for nothing folks, nobody who knows me calls me "Bob." That was my beloved dad. No big thing. But just saying.
Dan I don't think the feds ever filed charges against Epstein. The only charges that were filed were state charges, and the fed portion of the deal was an agreement not to prosecute (NOT a plea bargain). Doesn't take away from your larger point, though. If I am mistaken I'm sure someone here will let me know.
I love that Krischer is criticizing Acosta--Krischer was willing to do absolutely nothing, and only a ton of external pressure forced him to cut even the sweetheart deal. He was content to let Epstein walk and resisted efforts to investigate Epstein for years.
@ Dan: Your point No. 2 is tremendously salient. It has now been widely reported that the SDFL had prepared a 53-page indictment of Epstein that it abandoned in favor of the deal.
Again, I claim only the limited expertise of a civil practitioner who used to be a newsman, but I never saw a 53-page federal indictment that the prosecutors didn't think was a "slam dunk." And last time I checked, isn't District Court still called "the guilty factory?" [I do know one of the last stories I wrote at The Review was about the incredible success rate of the FPD here in south Florida -- incredible, as I recall, in that it managed to win acquittals something like 10% of the time.]
The point being, it is hard to imagine Epstein being prosecuted on an indictment like that, in a court like this, without being convicted and sent away for good. In that light, the agreement he got, and the "bedtimes only" sentence he served, seem inexplicable. Again, at least to me.
man, conservatives just love to play the victim card - so sad :(
Yeah right, in 2009, I had a client who was a big time Kiwanis member However, he liked seducing teenage boys and video taping their sex acts. He ended being sentenced to 30 years after a plea.
No way that Epstein resolution was reasonable.
They gave immunity to known and unknown coconspirators! Nuff said to know this was total bullshit. The notion about interstate travel is just misleading. For enticement, you certainly don't need intersatate travel. 10 yr mm baby. Epstein....justice:
https://youtu.be/IQ8kUWOkqT0
ACOSTA RESIGNS!
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