Here's another one for which I'd appreciate an informed answer:

We all remember that, in Gotti's last trial, the judge disqualified his regular lawyers, Bruce Cutler and Gerald Shargel, for being "house counsel"--they were heard on wiretaps participating in planning or commmenting on Gambino family business. Er, pardon my naivete, but aren't lawyers also entitled to give business advice to clients? When I was with a very big company, our in-house lawyers often litigated cases. Weren't they "house counsel," too? And if Cutler and Shargel were heard advising Gotti on illegal activities, shouldn't they have been prosecuted?

TB, I gave a little answer on this in the other thread. Yes, they were taped advising Gotti et al on illegal activity in order to advance a criminal enterprise. Disqualification is still considered by many as a dubious action, but I think one angle of the court was that under the circumstances Cutler couldn't give his client proper representation. As for Cutler's prosecution, I suppose they could, but I'm not sure how they would approach that. I think there's some fine lines there.

Thanks, Oli. Gotti retained Albert Krieger, a more experienced (and IMO, a better) lawyer than the flamboyant Cutler. But I think everyone by then had had enough of the "Teflon Don," and Da Bull made a surprisingly credible witness. Krieger tried to brand him a "serial killer," but I suppose that's what made his tale of the Castellano assassination all the more credible.

I think with Gravano and the tapes that Gotti would have lost the case anyway BUT Cutler was not charged or disqualified was he? So it seems to be very self-serving for the government to charge you with a crime and then say you can't use the lawyer of your choice who has (fairly or not) beaten them in previous cases.

True, Lilo, but as you know, once a case goes to trial, the figure of merit isn't innocence or guilt, or even right or wrong: it's about who wins and who loses. In a balls-out struggle like the the last Gotti trial, the government holds the high cards.

Another interesting aspect of American justice (and forgive me if it sounds naive): When you're on trial, you're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. But if you make an appeal, you're guilty until proven innocent. And proving innocence isn't simply a matter of showing that the judge and/or prosecutor made reversable errors, or that new evidence became available that wasn't at the trial. It's also largely a matter of the whim(s) of the judge(s) hearing the appeal.

Unfortunate case: a friend was convicted of insider trading and sentenced to six years. A three-judge panel voted 2-1 to order a new trial. So the government came back with a nine-judge panel to review the three judges' decision. My friend was defended by Maureen Mahoney, who is considered the top appeals lawyer in the US. The panel voted 5-4 to reinstate his conviction.

The Supreme Court, exercising its greatest power (IMO) simply declined to hear his case--their prerogative. He went to prison. His law team found that the sentencing judge (who was a bigot, and who ultimately resigned from the bar in disgrace) had made an error in calculating the penalty for my friend. So an appeals judge heard his case and resentenced him. Surprise, surprise: the judge was one of the five who voted to reinstate his conviction. She peeled all of two months off his sentence. "Conflict of interest"? Not according to her. And, my friend's law team told him if he further appeals the sentence, it can be lengthened.

"Justice"?

However TB, appeals courts are intended to deal with due process, not facts of cases. As you know, once adjudged guilty by a jury, an appeals court will usually only remand the case for retrial. So, the legal guilt is already there. A remand doesn't vacate the guilty verdict unless the appeals court orders so.

Lawyer Sues Ex For $95,000 For Canceled Wedding

Associated Press

Chicago - Dominique Buttitta, a suburban Chicago lawyer who says her ex-fiance called off their wedding just four days before the ceremony, wants to make him pay -- literally.

According to a lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court, Buttitta of Hoffman Estates is suing 31-year-old Vito Salerno for $100,000 over the canceled wedding.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the suit was filed Friday.

The wedding was supposed to take place on Oct. 2. But the bride says that on Sept. 27, Salerno backed out and "intentionally inflicted emotional distress" on her.

She says she's looking to recover the more than $95,000 she spent on the wedding, including nearly $12,000 on flowers and $5,400 on her wedding dress and accessories.

Messages left for Buttitta and Salerno weren't immediately returned.

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/met...penses-20101211

Is it me, or did the price of wedding gowns go sky high? I've watched "Say Yes To The Dress" a few times, and the salespeople say that a bride with a $3,000 budget will have a hard time finding a dress. WTF??

"Funny" is not really the word I would use to describe this situation but "strange" might be. Suspicious of an affair, a husband checked his wife's email and found out that she was indeed doing the horizontal mambo with a previous abusive husband.

So we all have our crosses to bear. Seems like that would just be the end of the story yes?
No. The husband was charged with a felony and if convicted could face up to five years in prison.
I wonder what the prosecutor is thinking or if there is some other personal animus here. The wife can take half in a divorce but the husband isn't supposed to know if someone else has been shaking her tree???


Full Article
A Rochester Hills man faces up to 5 years in prison -- for reading his wife's e-mail.

Oakland County prosecutors, relying on a Michigan statute typically used to prosecute crimes such as identity theft or stealing trade secrets, have charged Leon Walker, 33, with a felony after he logged onto a laptop in the home he shared with his wife, Clara Walker.

Using her password, he accessed her Gmail account and learned she was having an affair. He now is facing a Feb. 7 trial. She filed for divorce, which was finalized earlier this month.

Legal experts say it's the first time the statute has been used in a domestic case, and it might be hard to prove

"It's going to be interesting because there are no clear legal answers here," said Frederick Lane, a Vermont attorney and nationally recognized expert who has published five books on electronic privacy. The fact that the two still were living together, and that Leon Walker had routine access to the computer, may help him, Lane said.

What a disturbing story out of the UK. Have you guys heard of this "Crossbow/Cannibal killer?" One story said they found 82 body parts in one area of one of his victim. The video speaks for itself

TIS

TB, Olivant, this case sounds like it fits some of the criteria you were discussing as far as things getting more difficult once you've been found guilty-no matter if the prosecutor played fair or not.

Jabbar Collins

Each morning for 5,546 days, Jabbar Collins knew exactly what he'd wear when he awoke: a dark-green shirt with matching dark-green pants.

The prison greenies of a convicted murderer, he says, were "overly starched in the beginning, but as time wore on, and after repeated washes, they were worn and dull, like so many other things on the inside."

Today, Jabbar Collins works as a paralegal at the Law Offices of Joel B. Rudin in Manhattan. But for 15 years, he sat in prison, convicted of the 1994 murder of Rabbi Abraham Pollack. Mr. Collins, who maintained his innocence, spent much of those 15 years in a computerless prison law library.

For most of those 15 years, Mr. Collins, who maintained his innocence, knew the only way his wardrobe would change was if he did something that's indescribably rare. He'd have to lawyer himself out of jail.

There was no crusading journalist, no nonprofit group taking up his cause, just Inmate 95A2646, a high-school dropout from Brooklyn, alone in a computerless prison law library.

"'Needle in a haystack' doesn't communicate it exactly. Is it more like lightning striking your house?" says Adele Bernard, who runs the Post-Conviction Project at Pace Law School in New York, which investigates claims of wrongful conviction. "It's so unbelievably hard…that it's almost impossible to come up with something that captures that."....

I did hear about that crossbow case, TIS. There are people walking around that are broken inside.

I remember the case you are talking about TB. As a matter of fact I believe that you and I discussed it when I brought it up and you informed me that that it was a friend of yours.

If memory serves me correctly he really was nothing more than a scapegoat in this case. I believe that the real motive of his accusers was to just make an example out of him. There were others who were involved much deeper with insider trading who were not punished as severely as your friend was.

One remedy might be to have all appeals courts rule on fact and not just due process. Of course, that would tie up the judicial system even more than it is already.

You're correct, DC. My friend was a victim of CEO-prosecution-envy. Law is a competitive business. High-profile convictions cement prosecutors' careers. After some US Attorneys nailed the CEO's of Adelphia, Worldcomm, HealthSouth, etc., the US Attorney in Denver wanted his share of glory. My friend was a sitting duck for him. He was an Italian-American with a Brooklyn accent, running one of Denver's biggest companies. The media resented him as a "carpetbagger" because he flew back to NJ every weekend to be with his family. He ran his company's stock way up, and his employees liked that. But, many of them, greedily put every cent they had in the company's stock. When his company's stock got caught in the general telecom meltdown (which affected every carrier), he was made the scapegoat. The US Attorney knew that not a single juror would be on my friend's side. The judge was a bigot who later had to resign from the bench. My friend never had a chance.

Our justice system is a function of so many things but ultimately one of fallible people. The justice system does not necessarily attract the noblest among us. Of course, it's an adversarial system. What more can you say?

Anger management, people. It's called anger management.
Roseville woman sets boyfriend on fire

I would be so incredibly angry and bitter I don't think there's any amount of money that could make me let that go.

Declared innocent after thirty years in prison

God bless him. It sounds like he was convicted on some pretty flimsy evidence - picked out of a photo array by one victim, but not the other??? It doesn't sound like enough evidence for a trial, and it certainly sounds like enough for reasonable doubt when it DID go to trial!

The fallibility of the system is the primary reason I oppose the death penalty, cause if the system screws up and someone dies, there is no way to bring him or her back.

Jan 08, 2011 Rep. Gabrielle Giffords shot in Arizona

Rep. Gabrille Giffords (D- Ariz.) was shot while holding a public event outside a Tuscon grocery store, Arizona Public Media reports. At least nine others were injured.

A gunman ran up and started shooting while the third-term congresswoman was hosting a "Congress in Your Corner" event, according to Peter Michaels, news director of Arizona Public Media.

NPR reports that she has died.

This is terrible. Hope NPR is wrong, but...point blank?

And look at this relic from the mid-terms: Left column, Fourth row.



Bye Bye Sarah '12

Conflicting reports: it's still not clear if Representative Giffords has died as well as 4 others including a child.

I am just getting home hearing about this shooting now. How horrible. MSN is saying she is in surgery and IS expected to pull through. I hear an aide was killed. Does anyone know what sparked this??

The shooter is in custody right?



TIS

Yeah, they got the guy. Who the hell knows what this is about?

I honestly hope it's not some birther, tea party nutjob. But with everything that's been going on in Arizona lately, it very well could be.

I am hearing a child was killed???? That's absolutely terrible.



TIS

(CNN) -- Six people were killed and 12 others wounded including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. An aide and federal judge were killed.

Well, MSNBC IS reporting that one child, about 9 years old has died.



TIS

Apparently true.