Tipsters unite

Yesterday the Magistrate Appointment Committee, led by David Rothman, interviewed 15 applicants (which narrowed the field from over 50).

 The committee then recommends that the District Court interview 5 of those applicants. The process is very secretive, so I don't have the 5 names yet, but if you know of someone who got out of committee, let me know.

In other news, Eric Holder defended the Aaron Swartz prosecution yesterday. I think the exchange is pretty telling:

I think that's a good use of prosecutorial discretion to look at the conduct, regardless of what the statutory maximums were and to fashion a sentence that was consistent with what the nature of the conduct was," Holder testified, adding that Swartz and his attorneys had rejected the plea offers.
Holder was responding to questioning from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who suggested that the prosecutors handling the case were overzealous and guilty of misconduct.
In 2011, Swartz was charged with breaking into a computer network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and downloading 4.8 million documents from JSTOR, a subscription service for academic articles.
Swartz was an accomplished programmer and activist who argued that more online information should be free to the public.
Critics, including Swartz's family and members of Congress, have accused prosecutors of seeking excessive penalties in the case.
"Does it strike you as odd that the government would indict someone for crimes that would carry penalties of up to 35 years in prison and $1 million fines, and then offer them a three month prison sentence?" Cornyn asked.
Holder insisted that the charges themselves are less important than the penalties sought by prosecutors and said several months in prison would have been appropriate based on the crime.
But Cornyn worried that such harsh potential penalties could empower prosecutors to "bully" defendants into pleading guilty.

Shocker! Defendants being bullied into pleading guilty.  Say it isn't so!

Khan convicted

The jury came back this morning guilty on 4 counts in the only defendant remaining in the Pakistani Taliban case.

Why doesn't the SDFLA have a drug court?

Seems like this District would benefit from such a program, which are up and running in numerous districts around the country. The front page of the NY Times profiles the new federal drug court and Judge Gleeson, who is yet again out in front of cutting edge criminal practice:

Federal judges around the country are teaming up with prosecutors to create special treatment programs for drug-addicted defendants who would otherwise face significant prison time, an effort intended to sidestep drug laws widely seen as inflexible and overly punitive. The Justice Department has tentatively embraced the new approach, allowing United States attorneys to reduce or even dismiss charges in some drug cases. The effort follows decades of success for “drug courts” at the state level, which legal experts have long cited as a less expensive and more effective alternative to prison for dealing with many low-level repeat offenders. But it is striking that the model is spreading at the federal level, where judges have increasingly pushed back against rules that restrict their ability to make their own determination of appropriate sentences. So far, federal judges have instituted programs in California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Hampshire, New York, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington. About 400 defendants have been involved nationwide. In Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Thursday, Judge John Gleeson issued an opinion praising the new approach as a way to address swelling prison costs and disproportionate sentences for drug trafficking. “Presentence programs like ours and those in other districts mean that a growing number of courts are no longer reflexively sentencing federal defendants who do not belong in prison to the costly prison terms recommended by the sentencing guidelines,” Judge Gleeson wrote. The opinion came a year after Judge Gleeson, with the federal agency known as Pretrial Services, started a program that made achieving sobriety an incentive for drug-addicted defendants to avoid prison. The program had its first graduate this year: Emily Leitch, a Brooklyn woman with a long history of substance abuse who was arrested entering the country at Kennedy International Airport with over 13 kilograms of cocaine, about 30 pounds, in her luggage. “I want to thank the federal government for giving me a chance,” Ms. Leitch said. “I always wanted to stand up as a sober person.”

Doug Berman has uploaded the Gleeson opinion here, and it's worth a read.

Claudio Osorio pleads guilty

But not before Judge Altonaga. He was scheduled to plead before her this week, but she recused. The case was reassigned to Judge Dimitrouleas and he took the plea today to two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1349, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1956(h). AUSA Lois Foster-Steers is prosecuting the case.

Verdict in Steiner case

The verdict is in for Steve Steiner and Henry Fecker. It was a 54 count indictment. Fecker was found not guilty of all counts and Steiner was found not guilty of about 75% of the counts. Trial was before Judge Kathy Williams.

Interesting Jury Question in Khan case (UPDATED)

Khan Jury Question 

And here's Judge Scola's response:

Court's Response 

Thanks very much to my tipster!

UPDATE -- here's the latest question.  Fascinating!

Another Kahn Question by

Verdict(s) today?

The juries are out in the Pakistani Taliban case and the Steve Steiner Mutual Benefits money laundering case.  If you hear anything, shoot me an email and I will post it.  Thanks!

Why won't the Supreme Court hear a prosecutorial misconduct case

There have been a bunch lately, but the Court keeps turning them away.  Justice Sotomayor issued a rare statement condemning the prosecutor (joined only by one other Justice), but why won't the Court take these cases? 

From her conclusion:

It is deeply disappointing to see a representative of the United States resort to this base tactic more than a decade into the 21st century. Such conduct diminishes the dig nity of our criminal justice

system and undermines respect for the rule of law. We expect the Government to seek justice, not to fan the flames of fear and prejudice. In discharging the duties of his office in this case, the Assis tant United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas missed the mark. 

 

Also troubling are the Government’s actions on appeal. Before the Fifth Circuit, the

Government failed to recognize the wrongfulness of the prosecutor’s question, instead

calling it only “impolitic” and arguing that “even assuming the question crossed the line,” it did not prejudice the outcome. Brief for United States in No. 11–50605, pp. 19-20. This prompted Judge Haynes to “clear up any confusion—the question crossed the line.” 478 Fed. Appx. 193, 196 (CA5 2012) (concurring opinion). In this Court, the Solicitor General has more appropriately conceded that the “prosecutor’s racial remark was unquestionably improper.” Brief in Opposition 7–8. Yet this belated acknowledgment came only after the Solicitor General waived the Government’s response

to the petition at first, leaving the Court to direct a response.

 

I hope never to see a case like this again.