Jump to content

TwiceHorn

Certifiably Surly
  • Posts

    34621
  • Joined

  • Days Won

    2

Everything posted by TwiceHorn

  1. Again, it would not have. The crime is unlawful possession/retention of NDI. There is a high overlap between classified information and NDI, but they are not perfectly interchangeable. Especially for NDI that is not or no longer classified.
  2. As stated previously, Engoron is a national treasure. He seems to be exactly what a judge should be, firm but courteous and decisive without being rash. And if it is personal pique or bias that motivates him, he does a great job of a) restraining himself and b) legally and factually justifying his actions. In federal courts, one or both clerks attend hearings and trials (and appeals) sitting at a desk/bench away from the judge. It's not common for a judge to call a clerk over to the bench, but if it happened, it would take massive brass balls for an attorney to question that in open court, real fucking clangers.
  3. Right, I am just aiming to educate people a little bit about where all this "the law is an ass" stuff comes from. And, on CIPA, I'm struggling to understand the issues and operation of it myself, but when I think I reach an understanding of it, I'll come and explain what I think I'm getting. But, as mentioned previously, in a criminal case, the defendant generally gets everything the government intends to use against them. Classified information cannot be given to defendants, so complying with the above is impossible without waiving all confidentiality/classification. If the defendant can't be given anything, the case has to be dismissed. CIPA tries to strike a balance, about which the parties are going to argue extensively. The Reality Winner case, which as far as I know involved a single item of NDI, had some very extensive wrangling over CIPA, like months' worth and dozens of docket entries on that alone.
  4. Well, the Rules of Civil Procedure and local rule additions/modifications don't provide for just filing any old thing. And a "notice" is kind of any old thing. What the government filed did not neatly fit into any category. Note that she didn't, at least by that order, unfile or strike the government's "notice." But it was a warning to the parties not to just start filing "notices" of any old thing. You could probably expect something similar from just about any federal court in the nation. Sometimes, parties write letters to the judge, that may or may not get docketed on the formal public docket, to accomplish the same thing. Unless invited to do so by the court, that practice has always struck me as odd and maybe a good way to piss off the judge. ETA: The government filed their "notice" on 11/2, after briefing was complete on Trump's motion to continue the case/various deadlines. A hearing was held this morning on that motion. The government could just as easily raised that at the hearing without filing the notice, most likely, but maybe wanted to "get on record" with it before the hearing (she has been kind of persnickety about issues arising at the last minute).
  5. What a fucking load of horseshit.
  6. Well, that's pretty much what I have said all along. Not sure what shit you don't think anyone believes. Pretty much everything I have said is factual. CIPA requires a fight between the government and the defendant as to what will be disclosed to the jury and, consequently, to the defense. You'd expect any defendant to try to get as much as they can and the government to give as little as they can, subject to meeting their constitutional obligations and burden of proof before the jury. Zero from the government is unrealistic just as 100% disclosure to the jury and defendant is unrealistic. Where it comes out in the end is a bit anyone's guess.
  7. As I think I have said on more than a few occasions, I'm generally pro-defendant in criminal cases, at least as far as procedure and application of substantive law. That winds up putting me nominally "on the side" of some despicable characters. To include here one Donald J. Trump. Please never lose sight of the fact that I want him convicted as badly as anyone here, but I do want the government to do it right. And, I'm not going to begrudge criminal defense lawyers for making the government do it right. Seems like Smithco is doing that, if being somewhat aggressive. A big part of a criminal defense lawyer's job is making what seems to be preposterous arguments on behalf of their clients. But in proper context, they're not really that preposterous and a defense lawyer would be derelict not to make them. Of Trump's criminal lawyers, Blanche and Kise seem to be toeing this line pretty appropriately. Lauro on the other hand is being a bit too outrageous for my taste.
  8. Witnesses and defendants are caught in lies or dissembling on the crucial issues in lawsuits every day. Nothing usually comes of it because everyone involved has bigger or more immediate fish to fry. Theoretically, it could support a perjury prosecution, but basically "aint nobody got time for that" and DA's offices would grind to a halt. In a really egregious case, a criminal referral may be made, sometime by the judge. I have heard of them calling in a DA to a hearing or trial right in the middle of it to "see" what just happened.
  9. As stated before, there's a cat out of the bag problem here. And, anything given to Trump or his attorneys at the point will be tightly controlled. And. you're not paying attention. The CIPA process determines not only what Trump and/or his counsel get, but what the jury sees. Any lawyer for someone similarly situated to Trump is going to be fighting tooth and nail to get as much of the classsified/NDI as possible. The defendant presumably has already seen it and done crimes, or we wouldn't even be having this discussion. The lawyers have not seen it and need to see as much of it as they can to defend their client. That's not a bad-faith thing, as much as you want it to be.
  10. So, on one of the first lawsuits by creators for infringement by AI engines for using copyright material as input, the first decision was largely in favor of the AI outfits. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/federal-judge-sides-with-ai-companies-in-artists-copyright-dispute-2387654 Seems like something of a technicality because a lot of the works allegedly copied weren't registered prior to filing suit. Copyright is weird in the US in that a claim to a copyright must be registered before you can file suit for infringement of the copyright. Hardly any other country has a registration scheme.
  11. Long story short, FTX was a crypto-exchange, pretty legit as far as those go. But there was also an investment bank called Alameda Research that was co-owned and affiliated. Alameda used deposited funds at FTX to finance and invest all kinds of things without ever hinting that FTX depositors funds were subject to such use. When crypto cratered, depositors did a bank run on their funds, which were no longer there because Alameda, with SBF's knowledge and approval, had misappropriated them. FTX had to file bankruptcy to avoid the run and the whole scheme fell apart.
  12. I have seen a few decent articles talking about this culture of arrogant greed and disregard of business norms in the commercialization of "disruptive tech" in the Silicon Valley and surrounding Stanford in particular.
  13. Overall, this whole thing is pretty stunning. Not only the fraud, but I can't remember a case where the government jumped into action so quickly. Not even a year ago, FTX cratered, the government figured it out, got every single lower-level exec to plead and give evidence and got this dipshit indicted, tried, and convicted in under a year. And the defendant a white guy with resources. Extraordinary. Seems to be a just result, but it's also a little frightening when you think about it.
  14. I am. Absolutely. Our courts should err on the side of protecting us from the criminal investigative and prosecution power of the government every single time, regardless of the identity of the defendant or the grievousness of the crimes. The usual suspects up at 1 First Street, NE have some of these rights under assault even as we speak. We don't need the ostensible good guys doing it too in a case of expediency because we believe the cause to be righteous. This is the "good guys" version of leopards eating faces. But most of all, people objecting to Trump's legal team receiving information about the classified documents aren't making any specific objection related to the likelihood of his conviction. Doing this right, erring on the side of disclosure, is not going to get him acquitted. It is, however, going to make it easier to affirm any conviction on appeal if the courts err in his favor, rather than the government's.
  15. Definitely a little odd and kind of gratuitous. In a criminal case, I think it would be against most local rules to comment on pending litigation like that, but things are a little less cautious surrounding civil cases.
  16. From the sentencing standpoint, any federal financial crime takes into account the "loss" caused by the crime. Any recoupment of losses occurring after the "detection" of the crime doesn't reduce the loss number, which can significantly influence the guideline range for sentencing. The idea being anything "paid back" after the defendant is caught is not worthy of consideration. So, this would have no effect on SBF's sentencing guideline range. In the case of a bank or mortgage fraud, assuming there was no default and associated loss prior to detection, there would be no loss. So, using the Trump example, there's no loss figure currently relevant. A subsequent default on a fraudulently obtained loan might well create a loss number and any effort to pay that back would not reduce it. But, Tish James is not attempting to prove that kind of fraud, it's different and not reliant on any bank or insurer being actually deceived in issuing the loan. In fact, the penalty she seeks is unjust enrichment, the amount Trump gained by the fraud rather than any actual loss incurred by the "victims."
  17. It would be massively interesting to get an in-depth interview with her clerks from this period at some point in the future.
  18. Well, I am/was raised one, as you probably are aware. But, it's pretty straight up AA/recovery moral psychology, perhaps subconsciously filtered. The closest ancestor to AA was something called The Oxford Group, far more overtly Christian than AA and not actually directed at dealing with addiction, but rather a more practical Christianity than typically practiced at most churches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Group It does not appear to have been in any way Wesleyan in orientation. As mentioned above, Wilson and Smith distilled useful principles from Oxford Group's explicitly Christian teachings (although non-denominational), and made it about as secular as they could in mid 30s America. The Big Book is still rife with references to God, but more as a convenient shorthand that remains unfortunately off-putting to a lot of newcomers that are looking for any excuse to avoid AA.
  19. For the record, I'm not personally advocating that Trump see them himself. I think it's probably important that his lawyers see them to some extent. It's not like going out and doing something illicit with them is penalty-free at this stage. The lawyers have security clearances and are subject to the usual penalties and most of much of this stuff can't be removed from a SCIF or other secured facility (in stark contrast to how this stuff seems to be handled around the White House). And there's also the "cat of out the bag problem." Ostensibly Trump has already seen this stuff and done whatever he did with it. So, it's not really that absurd to grant him, or certainly his lawyers, some access to the materials under closely controlled conditions. If he hadn't already seen this stuff, seems like maybe his guilt is a bit in doubt, no? But the other issue here is what Trump/his lawyers get to see is what gets shown to the jury. Whatever that is needs to be sufficient to convince a jury that he violated the statute by impermissibly handling information relating to the national defense. Because the offense doesn't deal specifically with "classified information," it's probably insufficient to just wave around a bunch of documents and tell the jury "see that stamp"? There has to be some information or testimony to indicate that is is in fact information relating to the national defense. And that's probably going to take more than a witness saying, "well it's classified, of course it relates to national defense" or "I've read it in its entirety and can tell you that it relates to the national defense, but I can't tell you what it says." How the hell can you cross-examine that guy? This is where it starts to become "take our word for it." Constitutionally, we don't really want the government to be able to just say "take our word for it," but more practically important is there has to be enough to sustain a conviction by convincing the jury that this wasn't just Putin's brownie recipe with a bunch of ominous stamps on it (a bit of a joke).
  20. Also, very traditional prayer can/does include statements of gratitude (which is something probably everyone can exhibit more of or spend more thought-time on). And, yes, during these times of meditation and prayer, where the outside world is "excused" for a moment, the answer to the prayer becomes apparent, or maybe soon thereafter. Whether that is an appeal to and response from a higher power, or just clarity of thinking that results from mindfulness is a guess subject to one's beliefs, but it practically works surprisingly often. One thing that is often not acknowledged is that even the Old Testament with all its bizarre rules and rituals and condemnation, contains some pretty decent "self-help psychology," and of course the New Testament is filled with it. Most of the texts and materials of the world's religions have similar teachings at a higher level of abstraction. Sidenote: Not prayer related, but "confession" is extremely useful at eliminating guilt that can really hold you back in life. Even trivial stuff that you feel bad about can really beat you down after a while, and sharing it with another person, or even just writing it down can give you some perspective and relief. And that is the genius of AA, Bill Wilson and Bob Smith distilled a lot of that self-help psychology from Christianity and other religions and religious help groups into a mostly secularized program that can be a miraculous cure for addiction.
  21. I mean, I get why you're mad, I guess. But you do understand the general importance in 99.9% of criminal cases that a defendant, and his lawyers, get to see all of the evidence the government intends to use against them, right? It's not "just because." It's a deviation from the constitutional standard. That's not lightweight shit that you get to dismiss because you hate Trump. We don't have exceptions to the 4th, 5th or 6th Amendments just because the defendant is an extraordinary shithead. That's why we have this CIPA thing and that's why it has to be handled with some nuance. ETA: Also, fuck your "meemaw voice" bullshit. I'm sitting here trying to explain complicated shit that has its foundation in constitutional criminal procedure. Things that protect us all from the government and that don't need to be eroded, even for a fuckhole like Donald Trump.
  22. His attorneys were required to get one at the outset. That's a subsidiary issue: it is often easier to justify disclosing to counsel only, than to the defendant himself. But the default condition in American courts is defendants, themselves, get to see everything. Any deviation from that constitutionally-required scheme can be viewed with suspicion.
  23. Because the legal issue for proof is not that it is "classified," it is that it contains national defense information. Of course the odds that a properly classified document does not contain national defense information are small. But in criminal defense, you can't leave a stone like that unturned, even if the odds of it being exculpatory are low. Any criminal defense attorney worth a shit will be fighting tooth and nail to get as much of the classified documents as possible. Failure to do so may even constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. What's supposed to happen in the Section 4 CIPA hearing is that the defense explains to the judge ("ex parte"), and maybe to the government ("adversarial"), what its theories are as to why the content of the classified document is relevant and forms an element of defense of the case, and the government explains to the judge why redactions, summaries, or substitute statements are adequate for the defense's purposes. And in some cases, maybe most, the judge can't look at the documents in their entirety either. It's a bit of a delicate thing for the judge and you want them to get it right and err in favor of the defense, in the general case. Put it this way, if the process is too cavalier about the defendant's ability to review documents that are essential to the proof of the case, it's grounds for a very solid appeal with better than average odds of reversal.
  24. Not sure anyone is saying they should get the documents themseives, especially not Trump himself, but what you propose amounts to "taking the government's word for it." Also, the CIPA processes not only govern what the defendants get but what gets shown to the jury. The government is in a tough spot in choosing between exposing sensitive material and trying to ask a jury to "take our word for it."
  25. It's somewhat stunning how a pretty small shop with some specialized expertise (theirs seems to be well-control) can build a pretty decent size operation in oilfield services. They can also vanish in the blink of an eye, by acquisition or otherwise. In any event, I don't think Trendesetter is gigantic by any stretch of the imagination. ETA: I took your comment initially as sarcasm, but I see it wasn't. Ha.
×
×
  • Create New...