By Jordan Weissmann
Lawyers for former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring have asked a federal judge to delay their client's retrial in order to give the U.S. Supreme Court time to rule on three cases that could affect his defense.
The three cases, including the yet-to-be-argued Skilling v. U.S., address the federal honest services statute, which prosecutors used to charge Ring on six separate counts of fraud. In October, U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of the District of Columbia declared a mistrial in Ring’s case after a jury deadlocked on all eight counts against him. His new trial is currently set for June 21.
In a motion filed Monday afternoon, Ring’s lawyers—a team from Miller & Chevalier, including partner Andrew Wise—argued that their client’s trial should be delayed until October, by which time the justices should have clarified their position on the honest services law. His lawyers note that during oral arguments in two of the cases the high court is considering—Black v. U.S. and Weyhrauch v. U.S.—justices questioned whether the statute was overbroad or vague. The Skilling case, meanwhile, includes an outright challenge to the statute, and might not be decided until well into June.
“It is clear that if the Court does not strike down the statute altogether, it will, at least, provide extensive guidance and much-needed definition to an often-criticized statute,” Ring’s lawyers wrote.
How the Court comes down will affect what charges Ring would face in a second trial, as well as whether certain key defense witnesses choose to testify or take the Fifth, Ring’s lawyers argued. They said it would also determine whether guilty pleas by several government witnesses would remain in effect.
According to the Jan. 25 motion, the government is opposing a continuance in the case, but has agreed to a status hearing to discuss scheduling.
The Honest Service Statute is an abusive and unAmerican statute. Needs to be shot down.
Posted by: David Oscar | January 26, 2010 at 11:53 PM
The dilatory requests of Kevin Ring's defense team are suggestive of preferential legal treatment for deep-pocketed defendants. Such apparent favoritism undermines the sense that the administration of justice for violating laws is even-handed.
As Chief Justice Burger has noted: "A sense of confidence in the courts is essential to maintain the fabric of ordered liberty for a free people and three things could destroy that confidence and do incalculable damage to society: that people come to believe that inefficiency and delay will drain even a just judgment of its value; that people who have long been exploited in the smaller transactions of daily life come to believe that courts cannot vindicate their legal rights from fraud and over-reaching; that people come to believe the law - in the larger sense - cannot fulfill its primary function to protect them and their families in their homes, at their work, and on the public streets".Burger, What's Wrong With the Courts: The Chief Justice Speaks Out, U.S. News & World Report (vol. 69, No. 8, Aug. 24, 1970) 68, 71 (address to ABA meeting, Aug. 10, 1970).)
Posted by: Dr. Gene Nelson | January 26, 2010 at 06:44 PM