Funny Bunny Money? Edwards Jury: Four Days and Counting

It's the old axiom: $400 hair cuts never pay.  Senator Edwards's hairgate episode has resurfaced during the trial in the form of a key handwritten letter written by FOJ heiress, Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, to former Edwards aide and star government witness, Andrew Young.  The letter written in response to negative hair press has been dubbed by trial followers as the "haircut letter."  In it, Mellon wrote, "From now on, all haircuts, etc., that are a necessary and IMPORTANT PART OF HIS CAMPAIGN, please send the bills to me. It is a way to help our friend WITHOUT GOVERNMENT RESTRICTIONS."  Over the next 8 months, Mellon sent Young more than $700,000 in checks made out to Young's wife -- payments to support and stash Edwards's mistress and love child.  Another large donor, Fred Barron, also made similar payments.  Neither Mellon (101 years old) nor Barron (deceased) were available to testify at trial.  The jury has been poring over the letter as well as two related letters written by Mellon's personal attorney during its now-four days of deliberations.  The jury is likely stuck on whether payments made to hide Edwards's affair can be reasonably classified as illegal campaign contributions.  Many legal commentators already have poked holes in the government's novel theory of prosecution so I won't bore you with my defense musings.  You can read more here.

Btw, there is a local angle to the case.  Pictured above (stage center just behind D.C. defense superlawyer Abbe Lowell) is the always-dapper DOJ prosecutor and SDFLA alum, Jeff Tsai.  In my former life, I had the pleasure of second-chairing one of Jeff's first trials in the office.  Jeff is a good trial lawyer (and an even better dresser).  His perfect Windsor knots in an office of government schleps were the stuff of legend.  In a different world, he and Senator Edwards would have a beer summit over hair coif tips.  

College Student to Plead Guilty for Obama Facebook Threats

Hi folks, SFL here.

My knowledge of crim law is limited to booking crim pro in law school about forty thousand years ago, plus sitting through multiple plea hearings as the lawyers wait to finally get in front of a federal judge on one of our civil matters.

Speaking of plea hearings, this kid is set to plea out on his cute Facebook musings which evidently involved our President:

A Miami college student plans to plead guilty in federal court to threatening President Barack Obama on Facebook.

A plea hearing is set for Wednesday afternoon for 20-year-old Joaquin Amador Serrapio Jr.

His attorney says he intends to plead guilty to one count of threatening to kill or harm the president.

Federal prosecutors say Serrapio posted threats on Facebook in February when Obama was in Miami to give a speech.

The posts threatened to put a bullet in the president's head and asked if anyone wanted to help in a presidential assassination.

Oh, the kids today and their social media -- why don't they want to go outside and throw the football around anymore?

(You can read the probable cause affidavit here.)

 

Feeling the Heat

The "other" Marcus in for the King.  I'll try not to pull a James Jones this week.  Let's Go Heat! 

I SPY

DOM asked us to help out this week and we've put together a little Supreme Court update. The Supreme Court agreed to return to the arena of terrorism Monday when they granted cert in 
Clapper v. Amnesty International  which challenged the constitutionality of  the Foreign Service Intelligence Surveillance Act. 
The second circuit found that the plaintiffs- a collection of lawyers, journalists and the odd activist- had standing to challenge the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and it is this point only that is on appeal. The second circuit then  refused to re-hear the case en banc, prompting Chief Judge Jacobs to issue a rare dissent on the denial to re-hear the case en banc.
The CJ's attack on the veracity of the  plaintiffs/lawyers is startling, and the CJ's comparison of the plaintiffs to a disturbed pro se plaintiff suing the CIA for thought control is downright amusing. From the CJ's dissent (you can read it all here): 


      An assortment of lawyers, journalists and activists, 
and organizations representing such people, facially  challenge the constitutionality of § 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (“FISA”... Their claim is that the FAA lowers the standards for obtaining warrants to surveil foreign persons abroad, which has caused the plaintiffs, who are not foreigners, to develop a reasonable fear of being surveilled when communicating with foreigners around the world who are their journalistic sources, clients, human rights victims, witnesses and so on--all of whom are, in plaintiffs’ estimation, potential objects of surveillance. The plaintiffs contend that this fear compels them to communicate with their clients or foreign contacts only in  person, at such trouble and expense as to constitute injury that supports standing. ..
To support the otherwise-mysterious idea of injury to these plaintiffs (and causation), the panel opinion relies entirely (even credulously) on affidavits submitted by the plaintiffs, describing their supposed anxieties. But these affidavits employ all the lawyer’s arts to convey a devious impression...
At the risk of being obvious, the purpose of this lawsuit is litigation for its own sake--for these lawyers to claim a role in policy-making for which they were not appointed or elected, for which they are not fitted by experience, and for which they are not accountable. As best I can see, the only purpose of this litigation is for counsel and plaintiffs to act out their fantasy of persecution, to validate their pretensions to policy expertise, to make themselves consequential rather than marginal, and to raise funds for self-sustaining litigation. In short, counsel’s and plaintiffs’ only perceptible interest is to carve out for themselves an influence over  government policy--an interest that the law of standing  forecloses. For the foregoing reasons, I conclude that the plaintiffs suffered no injury, and certainly none that can  be redressed by this Court. In part, that is a function of the frivolous nature of the claim. In that respect, it bears similarity to a pro se plaintiff’s allegation that the CIA is controlling him through a radio embedded in his molar. But, as to the standing analysis, there is this difference: The pro se plaintiff is actually suffering, is truly hoping for redress, and is not bringing suit as a  pretext to weigh in on government policy. 
Rumpole says: Wow. It's not often the Chief Judge of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals writes with  sympathy for pro se plaintiffs suing the CIA for thought control. "Politics and standing make strange bedfellows, eh?" 

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Lawyers behaving badly

Everyone's all aflutter about the depo drawings leading to sanctions against lawyers.  Here's the order by Judge Altonaga. 

South Florida Lawyers and ATL cover the story. 

Civil lawyers are so funny.  All this fighting about discovery.  Try coming to criminal land -- no depos, no witness statements, no nothing.  And when something does get buried, no sanctions are allowed. 

Anyway, I'm taking the week off from blogging next week, and leave you in the capable hands of Rumpole, SFL, Jeff Marcus, and a potential mystery blogger.  If something really exciting does come up, I'll pop my head in.

For now, I'm going to go and try to get in on some of this Facebook action.

Have a nice weekend.