As we write this post U.S. District Court Judge George Russell is holding a hearing on Defendant's Motion to Dismiss with prejudice. I have previously discussed this case here and here. The motion is bottomed on various alleged prosecutorial errors and misdeeds. In a bad omen for the Government, Judge Russell only set arguments on the Motion to Dismiss (despite the pendency of other motions) and summarily denied the Government's motion to delay the hearing. The Government wanted a delay in the wake of an onslaught of defense motions, authored by Womble Carlyle's Josh Greenberg, alleging additional Government misbehavior, including destruction of potentially exculpatory evidence at a time when the Defendant's Motion for New Trial was filed and awaiting a decision. The Government later joined in the Motion for New Trial after admitting that it presented false material testimony to the jury. Meanwhile, in a filing that can only be described as stunning, the Government yesterday attempted to defend its admitted document destruction. Here lies the Government's Response Re Document Destruction.
Category: Current Affairs
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Things are getting personal in U.S. v. Annappareddy. I posted here last week about this District of Maryland case in which the Government ultimately admitted to having presented false evidence to the trial jury, and grudgingly joined Defendant's new trial motion–granted the next day by Judge George Russell. Now the Government has admitted to "disposal" of certain documents while defendant's New Trial Motion was pending in March 2015. Annappareddy's current trial team was not notified of the disposal until August 19, 2016, and claims, in Defendant's Motion for Extension of Time to File Motions In Limine, that some of the destroyed documents were exculpatory in nature. No court order authorized the destruction at the time it was accomplished.
The DOD/OIG Evidence Review Disposal Sheet from March 11, 2015 states that AUSA Sandy Wilkinson determined that the items in question "were not used as exhibits in trial and would not be used in future proceedings against Annaparreddy." In other words, Wilkinson acted unilaterally, apparently consulting no one on the defense team before making her decision. The Government's response to the allegation is a footnote stating in part that "in early March 2015, after the trial, the government began to clean up papers and documents not used from the Washington Blvd collection and store the trial exhibits post- trial. The government began purging the contents of several unused boxes. These were items Defendant and his own attorneys had reviewed at length and were never marked as exhibits or used in any way by them at trial. Yet they couch their complaint again in the most accusatory of tones. "
Well, yes. Destruction of potential evidence prior to final judgment on appeal is quite rare, if not unheard of, in federal criminal practice. That an AUSA would do it on her own is remarkable. The Government's Response to Annappareddy's Motions to Limit Government Evidence complains further that Annappareddy's new lawyers don't play nice in the sandbox, unlike the original trial lawyers–you know, the ones who lost after the Government presented false testimony. That's right, Ms. Wilkinson. Lawyers tend to get angry when false testimony is put in front of the jury and potentially exculpatory evidence is destroyed.
The case is far more involved, and the issues more complex, than I can do justice to here. Annappareddy has moved to dismiss with prejudice and a hearing on that motion is set for September 1. Failing that, the defense wants to limit the Government's evidence at a new trial to the evidence presented at the first trial. One thing absent from the Government's papers that I have had an opportunity to review is any recognition of the emotional, financial, and strategic harm suffered by defendants when the Government screws up, forcing a new trial. It's as if Ms. Wilkinson wants a cookie and a pat on the back for deigning to agree that Reddy Annappareddy gets to go through the whole damn thing again.
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I received the McDonnell decision with mixed feelings. Initially, I was happy for my colleague Hank Asbill, one of the nation's top criminal defense attorneys, for a great victory. Asbill and his co-counsel litigated this case the "old-fashioned way" – they fought it, and fought it, and then fought it. Their tenacity, dedication and skill make me proud to be a defense lawyer.
Not having read the briefs of the parties, or of the amici, or heard the oral arguments, I am hesitant to criticize the opinion, especially an opinion by a brilliant chief justice for a unanimous court (I suspect due to a compromise by potential dissenters, possibly to avoid an outright dismissal). Indeed, the opinion makes a strong case that the decision was required by precedent. However, I do question several aspects of the opinion. First, I find questionable Justice Roberts' Talmudic crucial narrowing of the definition of "official act" by virtually eliminating the broad catch-all words "action" and "matter," largely by resort to the Latin word jurisprudence that is often an indication that the interpretation is on shaky ground.
Second, while I am less troubled than the Court about the federal assumption of power to monitor the conduct of state officials for purportedly violating their offices, there is something bothersome about federal officials by criminal prosecutions in effect setting ethical standards for state officials. However, as a practical matter it appears that with rare exceptions local prosecutors lack the will and/or the resources to prosecute high state officials. In New York City, for instance, U. S. Attorney Preet Bharara has in recent years prosecuted about ten state legislators on corruption charges, while New York's five district attorneys combined have not prosecuted any.
Third and most importantly, I am concerned by the decision's enablement of business-as-usual pay-to-play practices. By narrowing the definition of "official act, the Court has legalized (at least federally) the practice of paying a government executive to set up a meeting with a responsible official. By doing so, the Court has given such "soft" corruption a green light. Under the opinion, a businessperson does not violate federal bribery law by paying a governor, mayor - or even the President - tens of thousands of dollars to make a phone call to a purchasing official asking or directing her to meet with the businessperson. And that call, however innocuous that actual conversation may sound, will have real consequences - otherwise, why would the businessperson pay for it? Even absent a verbal suggestion that the executive wants the official to do business with the caller, the official cannot but think that the executive would like that she do business with that person. I imagine a New Yorker cartoon with a governor sitting at a phone booth with a sign saying, "Phone calls, official meetings. $10,000 each."
To be sure, the law concerning bribery – not alone among federal statutes – vests too much power in the government. At argument government counsel conceded (candidly but harmfully) that a campaign contribution or lunch to an official could constitute the quid in a quid pro quo. That is frightening, but the problem is in the quid, not in the quo – about which this case is concerned. (I applaud Chief Justice Roberts statement in response to the standard "Trust me, I'm the government" argument that "We cannot condone a criminal statute on the assumption the government will use it responsibly.") And, certainly, if this case were to apply to campaign contributions – and not, as in this case personal receipt of money and goods-in the words of the amicus brief of former White House counsel - it would be "a breathtaking expansion of public corruption law." Indeed, a distinction should be made between personal and campaign contributions. But this case applied to the quo – what the governor did in exchange for $175,000 worth of goods and money. And, in my view he took "action" as the governor on a "matter" by "official acts" – hosting an event at the official mansion, making calls and arranging meetings.
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McDonnell v. United States and Arthur Andersen v. United States are remarkably similar Supreme Court reversals. In both cases, aggressive federal prosecutors pushed obviously dubious jury instructions on all-too-willing federal district judges. In Arthur Andersen, Enron Task Force prosecutors convinced Judge Melinda Harmon to alter her initial jury charge, defining the term "corruptly." Judge Harmon's charge was right out of the form book, based on the approved Fifth Circuit Pattern Criminal Jury Instruction. The Government's definition allowed conviction if the jury found that Andersen knowingly impeded governmental fact-finding in advising Enron's employees to follow Enron's document retention policy. The 5th Circuit Pattern's requirement that the defendant must have acted "dishonestly" was deleted by Judge Harmon and the jury was allowed to convict based on impeding alone. Thus, at the government's insistence, knowingly impeding the fact-finding function replaced knowingly and dishonestly subverting or undermining the fact-finding function. This effectively gutted the scienter element in contravention of the standard Pattern definition. Local observers were not surprised by Judge Harman's ruling. Her responses to government requests are typically described as Pavlovian. Judge James Spencer, the trial judge in McDonnell, is also an old pro-government hand. Generally well regarded, he was a military judge and career federal prosecutor prior to ascending the judicial throne. In McDonnell, the government's proposed jury instructions regarding "official act" flew in the face of the Supreme Court's Sun Diamond dicta. They were ridiculously expansive, with the potential to criminalize vast swaths of American political behavior. In both cases, Andersen and McDonnell, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed. In both cases, careful attention to the law, even-handedness, and a willingness to stand up to the government would have saved taxpayer dollars and prevented human suffering. Careful attention to the law, even-handedness, and a backbone. That's what we expect from an independent federal judiciary.
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When I first read the Baylor University Board of Regents FINDINGS OF FACT, it was immediately obvious that these were not factual findings at all, not in any sense that lawyers would recognize. They were normative conclusions almost completely unsupported by detailed facts, particularly with respect to the individuals who have been publicly shamed by the Board. Say what you will about Pepper Hamilton's report on the Penn State Jerry Sandusky debacle, that report at least contained a detailed, chronological factual narrative. Not so with Baylor's findings, which were promulgated by the Regents under Pepper Hamilton's guidance. Want to find out what Ken Starr did to warrant removal? His name is nowhere mentioned in the findings. Is Starr mentioned by title? Yes, the President and Chancellor are referenced exactly three times. "A Special Committee of the Board of Regents, on behalf of the University, accepted the President and Chancellor’s recommendation to engage Pepper in order to ensure objectivity, and Pepper was provided with unfettered access to personnel and data." Wow. What an indictment! It was Starr who recommended, almost immediately after learning about Baylor's problems, that Pepper Hamilton be hired in the first place. "Pepper interviewed witnesses across multiple departments, including the President’s Office…" There you go! Fire the bastard! Pepper Hamilton was given unfettered access to his office. How about Coach Art Briles? Surely his dastardly deeds would be dealt with in the findings. But Briles is not mentioned by name or by his Head Coach title. There are six references to "coaches" in the Findings, but no way of telling if Briles is one of them or even knew or approved of what the others did.
So I was all set to call for releasing the real report, the Pepper Hamilton Report of Internal Investigation. You know what I'm talking about, right? The report that law firms produce after conducting internal investigations of purported misconduct for companies and other entities? The kind of report that companies typically do NOT release except to DOJ, but that universities, such as Penn state, do? But then I read the Board of Regents' Statement posted on Baylor's website and realized that there is no report! That's right folks, the Board met with Pepper Hamilton from time to time and was "updated" with factual findings. "Over the course of the investigation, a special committee of the Board of Regents was periodically updated on Pepper's work. Additionally, in early May, Pepper presented their findings of fact and recommendations to Board leadership in Philadelphia and was onsite to brief the full Board during its May meeting in Waco. While no written report has been prepared, the Findings of Fact reflect the thorough briefings provided by Pepper and fully communicates the need for immediate action to remedy past harms, to provide accountability for University administrators and to make significant changes that can no longer wait." Translation: the Pepper Hamilton investigation was structured in such a way that no written report would be generated. This was obviously done for reasons of litigation and public relations strategy.
Now the Baylor Board can pretend that it has issued detailed findings admitting its sins in the interest of transparency. It isn't true. There is not one fact in the findings justifying the firing of Starr, or even Briles for that matter. There isn't any information about any improprieties that may or may not have been committed by Board members themselves. The conflict of interest here is palpable, as the Board is currently being sued and can probably expect more suits in the future. Do we really think that no member of the Board ever intervened in any manner in Baylor's athletic programs?
There is only one action the Baylor Board can take to assure its students and alumni that the full facts of the scandal, and the justifications for the Board's actions and inactions in the wake of its findings, are set out for all to see. Release the factual materials actually presented to the Board and/or its subcommittee by Pepper Hamilton, with appropriate redactions to protect any victims. Release all interview summaries. Release all PowerPoint presentations. In the alternative, Pepper Hamilton can be directed to draft the report it should have done in the first place. Only then can the Baylor Board say that it has come clean.
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Judge Valerie Caproni, the Southern District of New York judge presiding over the case of convicted former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, has unsealed papers submitted by United States Attorney Preet Bharara alleging that the convicted politician had affairs with two women who allegedly received favorable treatment from him in his professional capacity. The women, whose names were redacted from court papers (but identified, with accompanying photos, by the New York Daily News) were allegedly a prominent lobbyist who dealt regularly with Silver in his official capacity and a former state official whom Silver allegedly helped get a state position.
The government, whose efforts to introduce evidence of the relationships at trial were rebuffed by the judge, argued it should be able to provide such evidence at sentencing, purportedly to demonstrate that these relationships and favors provided by Silver demonstrated a pattern of abuse of power and possibly to rebut any evidence, including Silver's 50-year marriage, of Silver's good character. The judge seemed to accept the first argument, stating that she viewed this information "as a piece with the crimes for which Mr. Silver stands convicted," although "not exactly the same since no one is suggesting a quid pro quo, but of a piece of a misuse of his public office, and that's why I think it is relevant."
Generally, a federal judge has a right to consider virtually any information on sentencing, but I am uneasy about the injection of information of extramarital affairs of a defendant into the sentencing decision. If "no one is suggesting a quid pro quo," as Judge Caproni said, I question its relevance. Unless there is some basis that Silver did something favorable for these women because of their alleged sexual relationships – which I would call a "quid pro quo – I wonder whether his alleged actions constitute a "misuse of public office."
There, of course, is a difference between allowing a party to present evidence or argument at sentencing and factoring that information into the sentencing decision, and, absent specific facts, I am hesitant to say the material should not be considered. I am troubled, however, by the possibility that a defendant's alleged marital infidelity will become a regular part of a prosecutor's sentencing toolbox.
I am relatively sure that my first boss, from almost fifty years ago, Frank Hogan, the legendary and exemplary longtime District Attorney of New York County, would not have proffered such evidence, but Mr. Hogan was a man with a perhaps old-fashioned notion of fair play in a perhaps gentler age in which prosecutors rarely took aggressive (or even any) positions on sentencing (and the press did not publicize the dalliances of public officials).
(I note that Mr. Silver, whom I never met or spoke with, or contributed to, appointed me three times (and failed to reappoint me a fourth) to serve on the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct).
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By now, every reader knows that President Obama has appointed D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. On the merits, Garland appears to be a sterling appointment with impressive credentials and moderately liberal views on most issues and moderately pro-government views on criminal issues, positions that approximate those of the President. As a political matter, he, of the named contenders for the Supreme Court, is the one most likely to overcome the Republicans' stated refusal to approve any nominee until the next President is in office. I predict that Garland will be confirmed, but not until 2017, in the first term of President Hilary Clinton.
Garland, I also predict, will be a middle-of-the-road justice on criminal justice issues and generally pro-government on white-collar crime issues, somewhat like Justice Elena Kagan. He will, at least on white-collar issues, be far less pro-defense than his predecessor, Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia, although painted by liberals as an arch-conservative (as indeed he was on some social issues, like abortion and same-sex marriages) had pro-defense views on many issues, such as the right to confront witnesses, the right to trial by jury, and overcriminalization. Not only did he often vote in favor of the defendant, he sometimes authored opinions with innovative interpretations that became established law.
At a bar affair at which I was introduced to Justice Scalia as the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, he said, absolutely deadpan, "Why don't you guys give me an award? I'm the best justice you have." The NACDL never did, nor was it to my knowledge ever seriously considered, no doubt because of his overall conservative reputation and record. It may to some seem far-fetched, but I would not be surprised if a few years ago from now, white-collar defense lawyers will be lamenting the loss of Justice Scalia.
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This morning the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals put the final nail in the coffin of former Governor Rick Perry's criminal case. The indictment was returned to the trial court to be dismissed. Here is the majority opinion in Ex Parte Rick Perry.
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Not surprisingly, New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance's office has announced it will after a hung jury retry, albeit in slimmed-down form with fewer defendants and counts, the criminal case involving the defunct firm of Dewey & LeBoeuf's alleged misrepresentations in seeking financing during its desperate dying days. Prosecutors rarely admit defeat in big cases after a single hung jury. Double jeopardy does not apply.
The major defendant, against whom (as often happens with the highest-ranking officer) there is the least evidence, Steven H. Davis, its former chair, has been pared from the case and apparently will receive a deferred prosecution. "Deferred prosecutions" are rarely, if ever previously, given to individuals by New York state prosecutors, at least by that name. Although the terms have not been announced, this disposition, I suspect will essentially be just a dismissal dressed up so that the prosecutor can save some face and not admit a total loss.
The prosecutor, as is a custom in New York County, announced publicly on the record his plea offers to the three defendants remaining. I find this custom repugnant and sometimes in return I announce the defendant's terms for a final disposition – such as, a dismissal, an apology by the prosecutor and a testimonial dinner in the defendant's honor.
The plea offers here were a felony plea with a one-to-three year jail term to Joel Sanders, a felony plea with 500 hours of community service to Stephen DiCarmine, both of whom spent six months at the trial that ended in a hung jury, and a misdemeanor plea with 200 hours of community service, to Zachary Warren, who was severed and has not yet gone to trial. I would not be surprised if these cases were settled before trial, not necessarily at the offered price.
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The New York Times reported today (Goldstein, "Witness in Insider Trading Inquiry Sentenced to 21 Days, see here) what it called a "surprising" 21-day prison sentence imposed by Judge P. Kevin Castel upon a felony conviction broke "what has been the standard practice" in insider trading cases in the Southern District of New York. Anyone not familiar with the customs of that court's prosecutors and judges might think that such a sentence was out-of-the-ordinary lenient. However, as the article makes clear, that sentence, for a major cooperator, was apparently considered out-of-the-ordinary harsh.
The defendant, Richard Choo-Beng Lee, was a California hedge-fund owner who, after being approached by FBI agents with evidence that he (and his partner, Ali Far, who was later sentenced to probation by a different judge) had broken securities laws, cooperated with the government by recording 171 phone calls with 28 people, including Steven A. Cohen, DOJ's no. 1 target, who has not been indicted (although his firm, SAC Capital Advisers, was and pleaded guilty and paid a multi-billion dollar fine).
New York City is the cooperation capital of the world. As the Times article indicates, cooperators in white-collar (and other) cases in the Southern District of New York are given considerable benefits for cooperating (far greater than in most jurisdictions) and the default and almost uniform sentence for them is probation and not jail. To be sure, cooperators make cases, and many of those cases and the individuals charged would go undetected without cooperators looking to provide assistance to the government to lessen their own potential sentences.
However, the cooperation culture in New York has many deleterious consequences. To the extent that deterrence is achieved by jail sentences (and I believe it is in white-collar cases, but not in many other areas), its effect has been minimized. The clever white-collar criminal (and most but not all are intelligent) knows that he has in his pocket a "get-out-of-jail card," the ability to cooperate against others and get a non-jail sentence. The mid-level financial criminal can commit crimes, enjoy an outrageously lucrative, high-end life style, and, when and if caught, cooperate, stay out of jail and pay back what assets, if any, remain from his wrongdoing.
Knowledgeable white-collar defense attorneys are well aware of the benefits of cooperation. It is often good lawyering to urge cooperation, at times even in marginal cases, to avoid jail sentences. Indeed, more than a a trifling number of those who plead guilty in white-collar cases are actually innocent, often because they lack the requisite mens rea (a difficult, even when accurate, defense). And sometimes, at the urging of their lawyers, they admit guilt and tailor their stories and testimony to what the prosecutors and agents (who usually see only the dark side of equivocal facts and circumstances) believe actually occurred so that others actually innocent are convicted (or also choose to plead guilty and perhaps cooperate against others). The bar for indictment and conviction has been lowered. The adversary system has been turned sideways, if not upside-down.
To many, probably most, lawyers, cooperation is personally easier than going to trial. Cooperation avoids the stress of battle and the distress of (statistically probable) defeat at trial. No longer do lawyers walk around with "no-snitch" buttons. The white-collar bar has become generally a non-combative bar. To the extent it ever had one, it (with notable and not-so-notable exceptions) has lost its mojo. The first (and often only) motion many lawyers make upon being retained is to hail a taxi to the prosecutor's office.
I write about the role of the bar as a lament more than a criticism. I too represent cooperators when I think cooperation is to their benefit. There is a great penalty (or, to put it gently, "loss of benefit") for not cooperating. Those accused who choose not to cooperate, or those whose own scope of criminality and knowledge of wrongdoing of others is so limited that they cannot, receive (in my opinion sometimes, but far from usually, appropriate) severe jail sentences. Those who cooperate, except for the unfortunate Mr. Lee, almost always avoid jail.
Lawyers and professors talk about the "trial penalty," the extra, often draconian, prison time one receives for exercising his right to trial. The principal "penalty" in white-collar cases is not the trial penalty, but the "non-cooperation penalty." Even those who choose not to go to trial and plead guilty are punished much more severely than those who cooperate.
MattBray.net 