Justice Breyer at the DCBA

Great DCBA Event this afternoon at the Hyatt where Justice Stephen Breyer spoke to a packed audience about his new book, "Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View," published last September. In the book, Justice Breyer lays out his theory of "pragmatic" jurisprudence, an intellectual counterweight to Justice Scalia's textualist approach. At the talk, Justice Breyer actually credited conversations with Justice Scalia for inspiring him to write the book (now those sessions would be pay-per-view worthy). Justice Breyer was on his game and quite funny at times. You can see why he was known as a great law school professor back in the day. For those that missed or enjoyed like I did, here's a link to a transcript of a Terry Gross ("Fresh Air") interview with Justice Breyer from last September on the book and more.

Yo Ho Ho

You know you've been a bad boy when your lawyer agrees to a low-end sentence of 27 years. Abduwali Muse, the sole survivor of a four-person Somali pirate gang that hijacked the Maersk Alabama in April 2009, will be sentenced Wed. in the SDNY. Muse and his cronies kidnapped 53 people in a five-week stretch before a daring Navy Seal raid freed the hostages. The plea deal avoided a conviction for federal piracy which carries a mandatory life sentence. Muse was somewhere between 16 and 18 years of age at the time of the spree. Prosecutors are arguing for the high-end range which is just shy of 34 years. The NYT has coverage here.

My Kingdom for a Home

Ok, it's not quite Shakespeare but the SDFLA criminal trial of former Lancer hedge fund impresario, Michael Lauer, is inching closer to DDay and love is most definitely NOT in the air. They're up to docket entry #917, which is worth the read, and Judge Jordan (who seems to get more than his fair share of big paper cases) is umpiring. It's been a rough go for Lauer who had his assets frozen in a 2003 SEC enforcement action and his Greenwich home auctioned off by the IRS. The asset freeze also cost him go-to lawyer, Norman Moscowitz (always on my speed-dial), but luckily for Lauer the Court qualified him as indigent and appointed an FPD team ably led by Chief Assistant Michael Caruso.


Lauer, now living in NYC, is trying to get the government to pay for his housing during the expected two-to-three month trial in Miami slated to begin at the end of the month or else transfer venue to SDNY. As part of his down-and-out pitch, Lauer pointed to the total asset freeze and ongoing eviction proceedings against him for failure to pay for his NYC apartment rental. Which got the government digging into gumshoe landlord-tenant terrain. In its papers, the government paints Lauer as a closet John Le Carre fan who obtained the said apartment by posing as one "Misha" or "Michal Lauer" with an identity card from, of all places, "the Republic of Poland." The pleading also contains this deadpan scholarly footnote from AUSA Harry Schimkat who gets in the Valentine's mood: According to one internet dictionary, 'Misha' is a Russian nickname for Mikhail. It also means little bear or teddy bear. If the government can prove this up, Lauer may be feeling like this when all is said and done.

But beyond the bear humor, there are real issues raised with pre-trial asset freezes. It's been more than 20 years since a 5-4 Supreme Court found, in a drug trafficking case, that depriving a criminal defendant of his ability to pay for a private attorney through an asset freeze does not violate the 6th Amendment. The majority's reasoning was that "a robbery suspect, for example, has no Sixth Amendment right to use funds he has stolen from a bank to retain an attorney to defend him if he is apprehended. The money, though in his possession, is not rightfully his." Of course, the argument presupposes guilt, prior to adjudication, and is a particularly awkward fit in many white collar cases where a defendant earns income from a legitimate financial sector job but stands accused of some type of workplace fraud. In the civil context, a defendant is not even entitled to appointed counsel leaving some once-wealthy defendants to have to go pro se against the SEC and federal regulators. And though in today's climate there is little public sympathy for those accused of financial fraud, the truth is these complex heavy-document cases require hefty resources to adequately defend. To have the Lauers of the world swallow up large amounts of taxpayer-financed indigent defense resources has never made much sense to me. Here's hoping the Supremes revisit this case law in the white collar context soon.

And then there's the added question of trial detention. To detain a defendant, who has complied with bond conditions and has been found to not be a flight risk, during a lengthy out-of-state trial because he cannot afford a hotel, seems unfairly punitive. Well, there's certainly plenty of local foreclosure vacancy. Maybe Judge Jordan will get creative.

Stay tuned . . .

Happy V Day!

The (much) less famous Marcus (but more importantly better Beth Am basketball player) in the house covering for the Big D. I haven't won a grammy or anything but I'm feeling pretty good this morning. At the shiny controls of the Blog mothership, my spiritual journey from prosecutor to defense lawyer is now complete. And the week already is a personal success because I learned the important stuff like inserting pics. Time to put the toys down and figure out something to write for you all. Feel free to email me noteworthy items this week at jeffmarcus@bellsouth.net.

Welcome a new guest blogger

Starting Monday, I'm excited to announce that we'll have Jeff Marcus guest blogging for the week.

Enjoy!

Friday

Last night was an unbelievable event for the FBA. Congrats to Brett Barfield for the most well-attended event in recent history.

The District just updated its website, but now there is a push to have all the district courts conform to a template. Not sure why this is what our government should be spending money on. Does it matter if our District's website is the same as the District of Oregon's website? This example of inconsistency doesn't really persuade me:

The home page for the U.S. District Court for Alabama's middle district cheerily offers a "Kids' Corner" where "kids of all ages" can find out more about the federal court system. But if you go to the court's home page for information on filing a judicial misconduct complaint, you'll only find it if you click on the "judges information" tab.

Nebraska's federal district court site, on the other hand, has a tab specifically labeled "judicial misconduct and disability" on its home page. But its "kids' corner" is pretty well hidden under a "community/educational outreach" tab.

Those randomly picked examples of inconsistency between federal trial court Web sites may become a thing of the past because of a recently created "website toolbox" that went out to all 94 district courts late last month.

In other news, Mr. Melendez-Diaz of Supreme Court fame, just won an acquittal. From the Boston Globe:

A Jamaica Plain man has been acquitted in a retrial of a cocaine trafficking case that went to the US Supreme Court and resulted in a landmark decision affecting evidence in criminal trials around the country.

Melendez-Diaz’s appeal of his 2004 cocaine trafficking conviction led to a ruling by the Supreme Court in 2009 that the US Constitution’s Sixth Amendment guarantees defendants in criminal cases the right to confront forensic experts in court.

The ruling invalidated a Massachusetts law that allowed prosecutors to present forensic experts’ reports as evidence without giving defendants a chance to cross-examine them.

During Melendez-Diaz’s retrial, prosecutors followed the new regime laid out by the high court. On Wednesday, they called to the stand a chemist from the state Department of Public Health who testified that the substance allegedly found in the back seat of a police cruiser with Melendez-Diaz and two other men in 2001 had tested positive for cocaine.

Margaret Fox, defense lawyer for Melendez-Diaz, said the verdict was “an enormous relief.’’

“It was a case that really seemed to be about guilt by association,’’ she said. “He’s very thankful he was given a second trial and that the jury got it right.’’

“This was a murder case. His vacation schedule trumped everything. You don’t make decisions based on [when you will be] sipping piña coladas.”

That was Alan Dershowitz, criticizing a judge (during an appellate oral argument) for forcing a defense lawyer to give a closing so that the judge could get to his vacation.

Dersh did give props to the appellate court: Afterwards, Dershowitz said, "The court was extremely well prepared. ... No one can predict the outcome of an appeal."

Federal Bar Judicial Reception

It's tonight at the Hyatt. 5:30-8:30. Always a great event.