Legal Commentary

Thursday Night Open Thread: Odds and Ends

By Jeralyn

We had server difficulties this afternoon which hopefully are now resolved.

There's a double eviction tonight on Big Brother. I think Matt will be the first one sent home. (No spoilers in comments please until 10 pm ET.) For those of you who still don't know who Snooki and Mike "The Situation" are, there's also a new episode of Jersey Shore. And a new Project Runway. What a dismal summer this has been for TV.

The Judge in the Rod Blagojevich case said today he's only inclined to allow two lawyers at taxpayer expense for the now-broke former Governor. He did say he'd allow more lawyers if Rod found a benefactor. Will Donald Trump step up? Don't count on it.

The judge hopes to start the re-trial in early January, but didn't set a firm new date. So far, Sam Adams, Jr. and Sr. are still on board.

I'll bet Tony Rezko and others who pleaded to felonies and cooperated, but haven't been sentenced yet, aren't thrilled about waiting another five months. According to a motion Team Blago filed in April, 2010, here's the list of them: Ali Ata, Joseph A. Cari, Jr., John Harris, Jacob Kieferbaum, Stuart Levine, Steven Loren, Alonzo Monk, Antoin Rezko, and Dr. Robert Wienstein. Blago tried to preclude them from testifying. The grounds: [More...]

The defendant believes that many of these convicted persons/government witnesses have not been sentenced, and, in fact, the sentences of these persons have been deliberately postponed by the government in order that the government may exercise a modern “sword of Damocles” over the witnesses.

The promise and/or hope of freedom as an inducement by the government to obtain testimony by these witnesses is nothing short of bribery by the government as recognized by many respected federal judges.

Unfortunately for Blago, the case law is against him on that argument. Over at Huffpo, a lawyer writes to suggest Team Fitz should skip the retrial and focus on getting Rod sentenced on the false statement charge. Why that won't happen: The Government could lose the appeal of the false statement charge, which would leave them with nothing. Fitz will keep going, although I think he will follow the sound advice many have given him to reduce the number of charges and make the case simpler. At a minimum, he ought to dump the RICO charges. Here's a question: Prior to charging RICO, the U.S. Attorney needs to get approval from Washington. Does the approval requirement extend to a retrial after a failure to convict? If so, maybe the request will be rejected.

In Canada, a former American Idol contestant (Canadian version) is now charged with terrorism.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 26, 2010 (boomark / email).