2. Alan Fein is a big-time blogger now, opining on Obamacare and Miami and Judge Marcus.
3. Another big case, another dismissal due to prosecutorial misconduct (via Thomson Reuters):
Matz based his decision on numerous examples of government misconduct, beginning with falsehoods in search-and-seizure warrant applications, extending to false and misleading grand jury testimony by an FBI agent, and compounded by prosecutors' failure to turn over some of that testimony to the defense. Handzlik, Levine, and their teams had alerted the judge to much of the misconduct before the jury reached a verdict, but Matz said the magnitude of the government's behavior became clear only in retrospect.
"When a trial judge managing a large docket is required to devote a great deal of time and effort to a fast-moving case that requires numerous rulings, often the judge will miss the proverbial forest for the trees," Matz wrote. "That is what occurred here ... . The government has acknowledged making many 'mistakes,' as it characterizes them. 'Many' indeed. So many, in fact, and so varied, and occurring over so lengthy a period (between 2008 and 2011) that they add up to an unusual and extreme picture of a prosecution gone badly awry."
Here's the order. It's worth a read.
