“The state eventually dropped the charges against Miller. His two years in jail, however, took a toll, according to his criminal defense attorney, who said Miller’s cancer was in remission but recurred after the state locked him up, as he could not access his medication.
Following his release, Miller sued Craycraft. The district court concluded Craycraft was entitled to absolute immunity. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit subsequently noted that Craycraft’s alleged chicanery was “difficult to justify and seemingly unbecoming of an official entrusted with enforcing the criminal law.” But that court went ahead and ratified the grant of absolute immunity anyway—a testament to the malfeasance the doctrine permits.
Core to the decision, and to similar rulings, is Imbler v. Pachtman (1976), the precedent in which the Supreme Court created the doctrine of absolute prosecutorial immunity. The Court ruled that a man who had spent years in prison for murder could not sue a prosecutor who allegedly withheld evidence that eventually exonerated him.
Plaintiffs’ only way around this doctrine is proving that a prosecutor committed misconduct outside the scope of his prosecutorial duties. It’s a difficult task. Louisiana woman Priscilla Lefebure sued local prosecutor Samuel C. D’Aquilla after he sabotaged her rape case against his colleague Barrett Boeker, then an assistant warden at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.”
https://reason.com/2024/09/29/absolute-immunity-protects-the-indefensible/
“”Criminal laws have grown so exuberantly and come to cover so much previously innocent conduct that almost anyone can be arrested for something,” Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch observed in 2019. Gorsuch elaborates on that theme in his new book Over Ruled, showing how the proliferation of criminal penalties has given prosecutors enormous power to ruin people’s lives, resulting in the nearly complete replacement of jury trials with plea bargains.
“Some scholars peg the number of federal statutory crimes at more than 5,000,” Gorsuch and co-author Janie Nitze note, while “estimates suggest that at least 300,000 federal agency regulations carry criminal sanctions.” The fact that neither number is known with precision, they suggest, speaks volumes about the “unpredictable traps for the unwary” set by the government’s ever-expanding rules.
To illustrate “the human toll” of “too much law,” the book tells the story of Florida fisherman John Yates, whose grueling legal odyssey began with the charge that he had discarded undersized red grouper. That alleged act supposedly violated a law aimed at deterring the destruction of potentially incriminating financial records. Gorsuch also recalls the pretrial suicide of 26-year-old computer programmer Aaron Swartz, whom prosecutors threatened with “decades in prison and millions in fines” for downloading a bunch of articles from an online academic library without permission.
Over Ruled emphasizes how overmatched ordinary people are in disputes with bureaucrats empowered to write the rules under which they operate. Those nemeses include officials charged with dispensing government benefits, deciding whether immigrants can remain in the country, and enforcing the frequently arbitrary and petty restrictions inspired by COVID-19. Gorsuch also decries draconian prison sentences and mass incarceration, again illustrating how his supposedly right-wing instincts frequently overlap with progressive concerns. His compassion for people confronted by bewildering, absurdly punitive legal codes defies ideological stereotypes.”
https://reason.com/2024/10/04/over-ruled/
“Special counsel Jack Smith has outlined new details of former President Donald Trump and his allies’ sweeping and “increasingly desperate” efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, in a blockbuster court filing Wednesday aimed at defending Smith’s prosecution of Trump following the Supreme Court’s July immunity ruling.
Trump intentionally lied to the public, state election officials, and his own vice president in an effort to cling to power after losing the election, while privately describing some of the claims of election fraud as “crazy,” prosecutors alleged in the 165-page filing.
“When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office,” the filing said. “With private co-conspirators, the defendant launched a series of increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states that he had lost.”
When Trump’s effort to overturn the election through lawsuits and fraudulent electors failed to change the outcome of the election, prosecutors allege that the former president fomented violence, with prosecutors describing Trump as directly responsible for “the tinderbox that he purposely ignited on January 6.”
“The defendant also knew that he had only one last hope to prevent Biden’s certification as President: the large and angry crowd standing in front of him. So for more than an hour, the defendant delivered a speech designed to inflame his supporters and motivate them to march to the Capitol,” Smith wrote.
The lengthy filing — which includes an 80-page summary of the evidence gathered by investigators — outlines multiple instances in which Trump allegedly heard from advisers who disproved his allegations, yet continued to spread his claims of outcome-determinative voter fraud, prosecutors said.
“It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell,” Trump allegedly told members of his family following the 2020 election, the filing said.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/bombshell-special-counsel-filing-includes-193959558.html
“When Trump lawyer Michael Cohen paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 shortly before the 2016 presidential election to stop her from talking about her purported 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, that transaction was “not illegal,” Trump’s lead defense attorney, Todd Blanche, said during his opening statement last week. “Entering into a nondisclosure agreement is perfectly legal. Companies do that all the time….Executives, people who are wealthy, people who are famous enter into nondisclosure agreements regularly, and there’s nothing illegal about it.”
…
“Trump is not charged with “conspiracy” or “election fraud.” He is charged with violating a New York law against “falsifying business records” with “intent to defraud.” Trump allegedly did that 34 times by disguising his 2017 reimbursement of Cohen’s payment to Daniels as compensation for legal services. The counts include 11 invoices from Cohen, 11 corresponding checks, and 12 ledger entries.
Ordinarily, falsifying business records is a misdemeanor. But it becomes a felony when the defendant’s “intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” Bragg says Trump had such an intent, which is why the 34 counts are charged as felonies.
Bragg had long been cagey about exactly what crime Trump allegedly tried to conceal. But during a sidebar discussion last week, Colangelo said “the primary crime that we have alleged is New York State Election Law Section 17-152.” That provision says “any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.”
In other words, Bragg is relying on this misdemeanor to transform another misdemeanor (falsifying business records) into a felony. But the only “unlawful means” that he has identified is Cohen’s payment to Daniels. And while Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to making an excessive campaign contribution by fronting the hush money, Trump was never prosecuted for soliciting that contribution.
There are good reasons for that. The question of whether this arrangement violated federal election law hinges on whether the hush money is properly viewed as a campaign expense or a personal expense. That distinction, in turn, depends on whether Trump was motivated by a desire to promote his election or by a desire to avoid embarrassment and spare his wife’s feelings.
The former hypothesis is plausible, especially given the timing of the payment to Daniels. But proving that allegation beyond a reasonable doubt would have been hard”
…
“Convicting Trump of soliciting an illegal campaign contribution would have required proving that he “knowingly and willfully” violated the Federal Election Campaign Act. Federal prosecutors evidently concluded that they could not meet that requirement. But to violate Section 17-152 of the New York Election Law, the provision on which Bragg is relying for “another crime,” Trump would have had to “conspire” with Cohen to influence an election through “unlawful means,” which suggests he knew the payment to Daniels was illegal.”
…
“The fact that Bragg is relying on an obscure offense that apparently has never been prosecuted speaks volumes about his eagerness to convert the Daniels hush payment into 34 felonies. That strategy will prove “twisty,” Connor said, because “you’re having an underlying crime within an underlying crime to get to that felony.”
If Trump did not recognize the hush payment as “unlawful,” it is hard to see how his “intent” in falsifying business records could have included an intent to conceal “another crime.” And that’s assuming a purported violation of federal campaign finance restrictions counts as “unlawful means” under Section 17-152.”
https://reason.com/2024/05/03/the-new-york-case-against-trump-relies-on-a-twisty-legal-theory-that-reeks-of-desperation/
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/10/trump-fifth-tish-james-new-york-00050839
“Federal prosecutors’ show of leniency for some defendants charged in the long-running unrest in the streets of Portland could have an impact on similar criminal cases stemming from the Capitol riot, lawyers say.
In recent weeks, prosecutors have approved deals in at least half a dozen federal felony cases arising from clashes between protesters and law enforcement in Oregon last summer. The arrangements — known as deferred resolution agreements — will leave the defendants with a clean criminal record if they stay out of trouble for a period of time and complete a modest amount of community service, according to defense attorneys and court records.”
…
“prosecutors in D.C. can argue that what happened there is more serious even if the physical actions of the defendants were comparable.
“Attacking the Capitol is sui generis — it’s in a category of its own,” Levenson said. “One is the seat of government and the other is not.””
“After spending six months investigating the shooting in which Taylor was killed in her own home, he only recommended charges of wanton endangerment to just one of the three officers who fired a total of 32 shots into her apartment on March 13. That single charge was the only one jurors were allowed to consider — whether former officer Brett Hankison endangered neighbors when he shot through Taylor’s apartment, not whether any of the officers committed murder or even manslaughter in regards to Taylor.
Cameron also didn’t immediately admit that this was the only charge he presented to jurors. And after a judge ordered Cameron to release the grand jury recordings earlier this month, some argued that he heavily relied on witnesses that supported the officers’ version of events.
For example, Cameron’s team presented testimony from a witness who said he heard the officers knock on Taylor’s door that night, but did not present testimony from the dozen other witnesses who said police had not knocked, according to attorneys for Taylor’s family. All of this has left advocates casting doubt on Cameron’s process — and questioning the vast amount of latitude he’s been afforded.
And the doubt isn’t without reason — prosecutors are rarely ever checked or disciplined for their decisions. According to Kami Chavis, a professor of law at Wake Forest University and director of the school’s criminal justice program, prosecutors have broad discretion, discretion that’s rarely ever challenged. And grand jury proceedings, a body of peers tasked with determining whether to bring charges against an alleged perpetrator, are often done under secretive pretenses. While there’s good reason for grand jury proceedings to be secret, Chavis says, cases like Taylor’s, in which public distrust is high, demand transparency.”