The national news this week focused on the discovery of classified documents at President Biden’s home in Delaware and former private office in Washington. Yesterday, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a former federal prosecutor as Special Counsel to investigate the matter. The Associated Press explains here that “The position of Justice Department special counsel is a fairly new creation, enacted by Congress in 1999 following a bruising and politically divisive independent counsel investigation that resulted in [impeachment proceedings against President Clinton]. The purpose was to ensure ultimate Justice Department oversight of sensitive investigations rather than vest them with an independent prosecutor who could operate unchecked and without supervision. Though the attorney general retains ultimate authority over a special counsel’s decisions, special counsels do have the latitude to bring whatever cases they see fit. They are funded by the Justice Department, can bring on their own prosecutors, are entitled to office space and are often expensive.” Keep reading for more news.
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News Roundup
Happy new year! It’s time for the first news roundup of 2023, but I’ll start with one item that dates back to 2022. The Associated Press reports here that “Adnan Syed, who was released from a Maryland prison this year after his case was the focus of the true-crime podcast ‘Serial,’ has been hired by Georgetown University as a program associate for the university’s Prisons and Justice Initiative.” Apparently he will support a class in which “students reinvestigate decades-old wrongful convictions, create short documentaries about the cases and work to help bring innocent people home from prison.” I guess he might know something about that. Keep reading for more news.
News Roundup
The biggest national (and international) criminal law story this week involves the December 1988 terrorist attack on Pan Am Flight 103. The flight was destroyed by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people – many of them American students on their way home for the holidays. Two Libyan men alleged to have been involved in the attack were tried in 2001. One was convicted and imprisoned, and has since died. The other was acquitted. Two years ago, federal prosecutors charged a third man, former Libyan intelligence officer Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, who is thought to have been the bomb-maker. Al-Marimi is now in US custody and some reports indicate that he has confessed to his role in the attack. However, the circumstances of his reported confession and transfer to the US are unclear, with some suggesting that he was essentially kidnapped by a warlord, forced to admit guilt, and handed over to the US despite the lack of any formal extradition agreement between Libya’s dysfunctional government and the US. The Guardian has more here. I expect significant legal wrangling over the purported confession as the criminal case proceeds. Keep reading for more news.
News Roundup
Yale Law School graduate and Oath Keepers founder Stuart Rhodes was convicted this week of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol. Reuters reports here that one of Rhodes’s codefendants was convicted of the same charge, while others were acquitted of that offense but convicted of obstructing an official proceeding. Both crimes carry statutory maximum penalties of up to 20 years in prison, but it remains to be seen what punishment the federal sentencing guidelines will recommend. Trials against additional Oath Keepers and Proud Boys are scheduled to begin soon. Keep reading for more news.
News Roundup
As I write this, Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is in federal court in San Francisco for sentencing. She was convicted of defrauding investors and owes restitution of more than $100 million. She could potentially be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, and given the loss amount, federal prosecutors have asked for a 15-year sentence. Holmes is asking for house arrest, and has submitted letters from Senator Corey Booker and over 100 other people in support of her compassion and character. Plus one of the letters says that she’s pregnant, and another says that her dog was “carried away by a mountain lion” from her front porch. The Verge has some highlights and a link to her sentencing memorandum here. Keep reading for more news.
News Roundup
The election this week had some notable results. Republicans swept the races for appellate judgeships, shifting the state supreme court from majority Democrat to majority Republican. In Columbus County, Jody Greene was elected sheriff just weeks after resigning the same office. He resigned after District Attorney Jon David filed a petition seeking to remove him based in part on racially-charged comments he made during a recorded phone call. This local story indicates that District Attorney David is planning to file a new removal petition against Sheriff-elect Greene. A similar pattern nearly played out in Franklin County, where former clerk of court Patricia Chastain, who had been removed from office by a superior court judge, narrowly lost her bid to be elected back to the same position. This pre-election story has the details. Keep reading for more news.
News Roundup
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that a Florida jury divided on the proper sentence for Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz, with the result that he was to receive a sentence of life without parole. The formal sentencing hearing took place this week, and while the outcome was a foregone conclusion, many surviving victims and relatives of deceased victims addressed the court – and the defendant. Their words were sometimes raw and angry, and at other times preternaturally compassionate. Excepts from their statements appear in a number of stories about the sentencing hearing, including from CNN and the Associated Press.
News Roundup
If you’ve been to Walmart lately, you know that there are hardly any cashiers anymore. The retail giant seems intent on getting us all to use its self-checkout kiosks where shoppers scan their own merchandise and bag it too. Pretty much every time I shop there, the kiosk alerts, suggesting that I may have “missed a scan.” I flag down the harried employee who is supposed to be keeping an eye on at least a half-dozen kiosks, and he or she straightens things out. But beware the shopper who actually does miss a scan . . . or perhaps misses several scans. Fox News reports that “[a] Michigan woman is being charged after allegedly stealing items from Walmart by not scanning all of her items at the self-checkout.” I was initially outraged on behalf of Walmart shoppers everywhere, though my outrage diminished significantly upon reading that surveillance footage allegedly shows the shopper in question failing to scan over $1000 in goods over a period of months. Keep reading for more news.
News Roundup
Steve Bannon, former aide to President Trump, faces sentencing today on two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress. The charges arise from his failure to respond to a subpoena from the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. There are two counts because Bannon neither (1) provided documents nor (2) appeared to testify. There are two major issues for the sentencing judge. The first is what sentence to select. As is routine in federal court, a probation officer has filed a report that includes a calculation of the applicable sentencing range under the advisory federal sentencing guidelines. The report concludes that the proper range is 1 to 6 months in prison. The government is asking for 6 months, while Bannon is asking for probation. The second issue is whether to delay the effective date of any sentence pending Bannon’s appeal. The planned appeal concerns whether Bannon should have been allowed to introduce evidence that he relied on the advice of his lawyers in declining to respond to the subpoena and therefore lacked the requisite mens rea for the offense. Pundits seem to believe that the judge may grant a stay pending appeal, but we’ll know for sure shortly. CNN has a primer here. Keep reading for more news.
News Roundup
Last week, President Biden issued this proclamation effectively pardoning “all current United States citizens and lawful permanent residents who committed the offense of simple possession of marijuana” in violation of federal law, including the laws of Washington, DC. It seems that no one will be released from prison as a result, as no one is in federal prison solely for marijuana possession, and marijuana possession has been permitted under DC law since 2014. However, the US Sentencing Commission’s analysis reveals that over 6,500 US citizens, and over 1,000 legal permanent residents, will have previous federal convictions wiped away under the pardon proclamation. I could not find a similar analysis of the effect of the pardon on DC convictions.
Of course, the vast majority of convictions for marijuana possession take place in state court. Here in North Carolina, there were almost 2,000 convictions for simple possession of a Schedule VI controlled substance last year alone. According to WCNC, Governor Cooper supports President Biden’s issuance of the blanket pardon. The Governor has said that “simple possession of small amounts of marijuana should not be a crime” and that he has “asked [his] lawyers to examine North Carolina law regarding simple possession of marijuana convictions and pardons to determine if there is action we can and should take.” If the Governor does take any action, we will of course cover it here. Read on for more news.