Mr. Abramoff goes to Washington

The government really really wants Jack Abramoff close to Washington, D.C.

Ann Coulter

From CNN.com:

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (AP) -- Conservative columnist Ann Coulter has refused to cooperate in an investigation into whether she voted in the wrong precinct, so the case will probably be turned over to prosecutors, Palm Beach County's elections chief said Wednesday.
Elections Supervisor Arthur Anderson said his office has been looking into the matter for nearly nine months, and he would turn over the case to the state attorney's office by Friday.
Coulter's attorney did not immediately return a call Wednesday. Nor did her publicist at her publisher, Crown Publishing.

Knowingly voting in the wrong precinct is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
Anderson's office received a complaint in February that Coulter voted in the wrong precinct during a February 7 Palm Beach town council election.
Anderson said a letter was sent to Coulter on March 27 requesting that she clarify her address for the voting records "or face the possibility of her voter registration being rescinded." Three more letters were sent to Coulter and her attorney, but she has yet to respond with the information requested, Anderson said.
In July, Anderson said, he received a letter from Coulter's attorney, Marcos Daniel Jimenez D'Clouet. The letter said the attorney would only discuss the matter in person or by telephone because, he complained, Anderson had given details to the media. Anderson said the matter had to be discussed in writing.
The right-wing commentator also authored a book that said some September 11 widows were "enjoying their husbands' deaths."

Looks like our former U.S. Attorney and previous guest-blogger will be representing her...

Boo.

Happy Halloween. In that spirit, the government wants its witnesses to wear disguises. Ze'ev Rosenstein's lawyers, Roy Black and Howard Srebnick, think this is a bad idea... Here is the intro from their response to the government motion for its witnesses to wear "light disguises":

Under the government’s proposed procedures, the defense may not conduct its own investigation of the surveillance officers, and instead must accept the government’s claim that "none of these officers have . . . information in their background that would provide ammunition for cross-examination . . . ." [Government’s Motion at 7].

Also under the government’s proposed procedures, the defense and the jury may not see or assess the true emotions and expressions of the surveillance officers while they testify.

Finally, the defense may not cross-examine these anonymous and veiled foreign witnesses about their procedures and techniques, and must accept their testimony that they were at all times able to accurately observe and identify people and what they were doing.

***

President Eisenhower once described face-to-face confrontation as part of the code of his hometown of Abilene, Kansas. In Abilene, he said, it was necessary to "[m]eet anyone face to face with whom you disagree. You could not sneak up on him from behind, or do any damage to him, without suffering the penalty of an outraged citizenry . . . In this country, if someone dislikes you, or accuses you, he must come up in front. He cannot hide behind the shadow." Coy v. Iowa, 487 U.S. 1012, 1017-18 (1988).

A wig, make up, and fake facial hair is not "light disguise," as the government states. It is a complete costume, the shadow to which President Eisenhower refers. After all, the purpose of the disguise is to make the witness look like someone else entirely – to be unrecognizable. In Israel, and presumably in this Court if allowed, the witness will not only wear full facial disguise, but s/he will also wear a turtleneck shirt and a large overcoat, so that only a fake face is seen. If the witness fidgets, the coat will hide it. If he is a bald male and his head perspires when nervous, the wig will hide it. If his mouth twitches slightly, the fake facial hair will hide it. If she is a female and her ears turn red during testimony, the wig will hide it. If the veins on the neck enlarge out of fear or anger, the turtleneck will hide it. If the face turns pale during testimony, the make up will hide it. Essentially, the person on the witness stand will be a fake.

Lots of other good stuff in this response. Any bets on what Judge D will do?

News and notes

1. When a lawyer runs for office, is his choice of clients a fair target for attack? Vanessa Blum covers this debate here: "Less than two weeks before the Nov. 7 election, Broward County Commissioner Jim Scott is attacking challenger Ken Keechl for his legal representation of a company accused of defrauding investors out of nearly $1 billion. Scott wants voters to know that Keechl, a Democrat making his first run for public office, defended Mutual Benefits Corp. in lawsuits across the country as a partner at Fort Lauderdale law firm Brinkley, McNerney, Morgan, Solomon & Tatum." I particularly like Mike Tein's quote: "I think it's irresponsible and reprehensible for Ken's opponents to even suggest he did anything wrong simply because he represented Mutual Benefits," Tein said. "Any line drawing between the firm and the investigation into this former client is absolutely misguided."


2. The Florida Bar has come out with its Media Awards. "This year’s grand prize winners are The Miami Herald and The Florida Times-Union (newspapers and other periodicals with circulation more than 50,000), The Villages Daily Sun (newspapers and other periodicals with circulation less than 50,000), WTSP-TV of St. Petersburg (television), and WUSF of Tampa (radio). Honorable mentions are awarded to The Daytona Beach News-Journal and The Daily Business Review. " The Herald won for Jay Weaver's investigative series about Broward Circuit Judge Eileen O'Connor, which prompted the NAACP to file an ethics complaint against her with the Judicial Qualifications Commission. Where are the blogger awards!

Acosta sworn in

Alex Acosta was sworn in today as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Great turnout in the Central Courtroom. Justice Alito -- who Acosta clerked for when he was on the Third Circuit -- spoke and administered the oath. When they were standing next to each other, they actually looked liked brothers. Striking similarity...

The program for the event had a quote that I often cite:

"The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he in a peculiar way and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer."
-- Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 88 (1935) (Sutherland, J.).

The AP already has coverage of it here.

News and notes

1. Rumpole is going off about federal sentencing....

2. Judge Moore ordered restitution in the Masferrer case.

3. Big plea in the Mutual Benefits case.

4. Alex Acosta is being sworn in tomorrow at 2PM.

Read more about other law bloggers

here.

Weekend reading...

Here's a New Times article by Carl Jones accusing a criminal defense lawyer and some DEA agents of some bad bad things. The first in the three part series starts this way:

Back in July 1998, Pensacola prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for a 28-year-old father of three named Antonio Monroy. He had been charged with three counts of cocaine trafficking. Soon he was picked up in Miami. He was sent to a federal prison in Coleman, Florida, northwest of Orlando, and a few months later, with a trial looming, he pleaded guilty.
It was the kind of case that breezes through the courts every day.
Then a friend of Antonio's contacted his mother, Virginia. A Miami lawyer could get her son out of prison early, he said.
At the time, Israel Perez Jr. was a defense attorney with almost twenty years of experience, including time clocked as a prosecutor in Fort Myers and Miami-Dade, where he served under Janet Reno. Before he met Antonio Monroy, the only blight on his record had been a 1993 public reprimand by the Florida Bar for improperly handling the funds of a client. Perez had an office in a black and tan tower called the Gables International Plaza in Coral Gables. He seemed like a reputable guy.
Virginia agreed to meet the lawyer, who soon showed up at her aging apartment building on Indian Creek Drive across from the Intracoastal Waterway in Miami Beach. According to the woman's description of that meeting, Perez laid out a plan. Perez would fly to Coleman and tell Antonio to expect two Drug Enforcement Administration agents to visit him after sentencing. Then agents would tell the court he deserved to be freed. It was a sure thing.
The cost to Antonio and his mother would be $100,000.