Did you notice that Foggo’s counsel is Akin Gump? Maybe Geragos should talk to his co-conspirator’s law firm about all this.
bmaz says:
I am not buying that Lam or any of her people did any leaking that would be germane to any Motion to Dismiss. If Lam et. al. did any leaking, it was of nothing more than indictments were pending and made so that DOJ main did not sweep the entire thing away. This is, of course, just a hunch. I will say this, and it pains me to say this because he is a very nice guy, but I don’t know about Wilkes’ choice of lawyer. Geragos has a flashy reputation, but it is not backed up by his work product. His performance on Winona Ryder’s case was horrid, and his work on Peterson only slightly better. Believe it or not, I think that with good lawyering, Scott Peterson was imminently acquittable. Michael Jackson was going down the tube at light speed until he canned Geragos in favor of Tommy Mesereau, who is much more of a free spirit than a TV Larry King type of guy, but is one hell of a trial lawyer. To be honest, Geragos’ biggest â€winâ€, Susan McDougal, was not handled particularly well either. It was Mark’s father that was considered the the shrewd litigator of the family business, but he has long been out of the picture. This was a long detour to get to the point that this Motion to Dismiss is going nowhere. Not a chance. Unless the pleading are framed far different than has been reported here, it is not even phrased in the proper legal terms. This type of motion should be based upon the concept of actual prosecutorial misconduct. The burden requires a showing of not only actual, as opposed to potential, prejudice; but also that said prejudice obviates the ability to receive a fair trial. The junk here ain’t even close.
Anonymous says:
bmaz
His challenge to CIPA is even more, um, creative. Back in March he began to say he didn’t want to go through a background check to get a security clearance, and that the requirement to do so under CIPA was a violation of Wilkes’ 6th Amendment. Of course, the prosecution responded that Wilkes’ team had to have someone otherwise there could be no discovery. Amid it all, Geragos was alleging that Wilkes had gotten what he believed to be relevant anyway, via other channels. Now he’s saying the whole CIPA process is unconstitutional.
Not gonna work, I don’t think. I get the feeling perhaps they’ve decided the whole case against Wilkes (to say nothing of the Cunningham-related indictment) is such a slam dunk, they’ll just try smoke and mirrors.
Mimikatz says:
(From the wilds with limited dial-up only.) It smacks of recent cases where the gov’t deliberately sabotaged cases. If you can’t quash the prosecution, if you can’t plant someone incompetent to prosecute it, then taint it. It seems pretty clear that the leaks are coming from main DOJ. Maybe the leak to Geragos that weren’t printed didn’t really come from reporters. Where have we heard â€I heard it from reporters†before?
Anonymous says:
Ah. Mimikatz, even with dialup getting precisely my drift. I’m dying to know who the selected â€journalist†is this time.
Sojourner says:
OK, I am playing the conspiracy and dirty tricks card… What would prevent various people from calling Wilkes, et al, to convey information under the guise of being reporters? Sounds like a Rove trick to cast major doubt on Lam and shut down the prosecution. Nothing was ever reported in the media about the various pieces of information.
Alternatively, could there be some media people who were enlisted to ’help’ in this situation? Sadly, it appears that money has done a lot of talking in the past few years…
bmaz says:
I agree with Mimikatz that leaks are much more likely to be coming out of DOJ Main; and I’ll throw the CIA in there as a possibility too. I was trying to say that above, but was a little scatterbrained and inarticulate. EW, â€not wanting to go through a background check†is not going to help any argument Geragos could make. In my opinion, you can’t ethically take on this kind of case with that view, because the first thing you want to do is be cleared and start demanding everything under the sun; if you don’t, it gives the govt. to many angles to hide behind. However, you might be surprised to hear, I think there is some merit to a Sixth Amemdment challenge to CIPA; in fact, at one point I had exactly such a motion prepared and ready to go in a case, but the issue was limited and was resolved. Under the Sixth, a defendant has the right to â€confront†witnesses against him. This is known as the â€confrontation clauseâ€, and courts have generally held that it means a defendant has the right to meaningfully see, confront and cross-examine all evidence supporting the charges against him. Since a CIPA ruling can tend to hold certain evidence not be disclosed or presented, this could be seen as violative of the Sixth Amendment confrontation clause. This type of argument is VERY fact specific, however, and it, again, does not look like it has been properly set up here. Sure isn’t going to fly if your lawyer won’t even be cleared to where he could see the evidence in the first place.
Ducktape says:
Has anyone raised the thought that this might be sabotage from the DOJ itself, or from someone in another area of the executive branch tipped off by the DOJ?
The drain this whole thing is circling is the Vice President’s office, btw — the naming of Porter Goss and then the Goss elevation of Foggo, the Mitchell Wade & Brent Wilkes relationship and that amazing contract out of the blue for the VP’s office that then paid for the DukeStir …
This is like watching a movie where you already really know whodunnit — the suspense is whether or not they’ll be able to get away with it.
bmaz says:
Let me rephrase the above, the are two constitutional challenges to CIPA. One is that it is unconstitutional as applied to your case and facts; Geragos is not even close on this one. The other is that it is inherently unconstitutional on it’s face. That is a much broader argument, and therefore much less likely to be granted. In fact, a trial court just isn’t ever going to go there; you would have to appeal it all the way to the Supremes to have any hope. As stated above, I think there is a plausible argument in this regard; however, I don’t think it would be granted.
freepatriot says:
I stole this from sojourner’s post
Nothing was ever reported in the media about the various pieces of information.
well, it wasn’t reported in the press untill mr garigos released it to the press by including it in is brief
and there is also ZERO EVIDENCE that anybody in Carol Lam’s office was responsible for the leaks
garigos is claiming an injury to his case that never occured, until he himself inflicted the injury, by making the leaks public
IANAL, but I got some experience at watchin lawyers fuck up a defense
cmc says:
The odd thing about the news reports that the indictments were imminent was that it was first reported in the Wall Street Journal and not in the San Diego Union Tribune or North County Times. SDUT broke the Cunningham story- the SD USA said Cunningham would have gotten away with it without the story in the SDUT. So, it seemed really odd that the story of the imminent indictment was leaked to WSJ.
Wilkes must have gotten a â€heads up†on the â€imminent indictment†some time before Dec. 11, 2006. On that date, he and his wife file for â€legal separation with UCC.†California is a community property state, and all of Wilkes debts and fines would also be his wife’s responsiblity if they were married. So, to protect some of the assets, they filed for separation. I suppose the plan is Wilke’s wife is entitled to half his stuff before the feds take anything. Cunningham’s wife filed AFTER he was indicted and missed out.
Anonymous says:
cmc
Do you have a link to that? I find it interesting they filed around the time Lam was being fired.
Did you notice that Foggo’s counsel is Akin Gump? Maybe Geragos should talk to his co-conspirator’s law firm about all this.
I am not buying that Lam or any of her people did any leaking that would be germane to any Motion to Dismiss. If Lam et. al. did any leaking, it was of nothing more than indictments were pending and made so that DOJ main did not sweep the entire thing away. This is, of course, just a hunch. I will say this, and it pains me to say this because he is a very nice guy, but I don’t know about Wilkes’ choice of lawyer. Geragos has a flashy reputation, but it is not backed up by his work product. His performance on Winona Ryder’s case was horrid, and his work on Peterson only slightly better. Believe it or not, I think that with good lawyering, Scott Peterson was imminently acquittable. Michael Jackson was going down the tube at light speed until he canned Geragos in favor of Tommy Mesereau, who is much more of a free spirit than a TV Larry King type of guy, but is one hell of a trial lawyer. To be honest, Geragos’ biggest â€winâ€, Susan McDougal, was not handled particularly well either. It was Mark’s father that was considered the the shrewd litigator of the family business, but he has long been out of the picture. This was a long detour to get to the point that this Motion to Dismiss is going nowhere. Not a chance. Unless the pleading are framed far different than has been reported here, it is not even phrased in the proper legal terms. This type of motion should be based upon the concept of actual prosecutorial misconduct. The burden requires a showing of not only actual, as opposed to potential, prejudice; but also that said prejudice obviates the ability to receive a fair trial. The junk here ain’t even close.
bmaz
His challenge to CIPA is even more, um, creative. Back in March he began to say he didn’t want to go through a background check to get a security clearance, and that the requirement to do so under CIPA was a violation of Wilkes’ 6th Amendment. Of course, the prosecution responded that Wilkes’ team had to have someone otherwise there could be no discovery. Amid it all, Geragos was alleging that Wilkes had gotten what he believed to be relevant anyway, via other channels. Now he’s saying the whole CIPA process is unconstitutional.
Not gonna work, I don’t think. I get the feeling perhaps they’ve decided the whole case against Wilkes (to say nothing of the Cunningham-related indictment) is such a slam dunk, they’ll just try smoke and mirrors.
(From the wilds with limited dial-up only.) It smacks of recent cases where the gov’t deliberately sabotaged cases. If you can’t quash the prosecution, if you can’t plant someone incompetent to prosecute it, then taint it. It seems pretty clear that the leaks are coming from main DOJ. Maybe the leak to Geragos that weren’t printed didn’t really come from reporters. Where have we heard â€I heard it from reporters†before?
Ah. Mimikatz, even with dialup getting precisely my drift. I’m dying to know who the selected â€journalist†is this time.
OK, I am playing the conspiracy and dirty tricks card… What would prevent various people from calling Wilkes, et al, to convey information under the guise of being reporters? Sounds like a Rove trick to cast major doubt on Lam and shut down the prosecution. Nothing was ever reported in the media about the various pieces of information.
Alternatively, could there be some media people who were enlisted to ’help’ in this situation? Sadly, it appears that money has done a lot of talking in the past few years…
I agree with Mimikatz that leaks are much more likely to be coming out of DOJ Main; and I’ll throw the CIA in there as a possibility too. I was trying to say that above, but was a little scatterbrained and inarticulate. EW, â€not wanting to go through a background check†is not going to help any argument Geragos could make. In my opinion, you can’t ethically take on this kind of case with that view, because the first thing you want to do is be cleared and start demanding everything under the sun; if you don’t, it gives the govt. to many angles to hide behind. However, you might be surprised to hear, I think there is some merit to a Sixth Amemdment challenge to CIPA; in fact, at one point I had exactly such a motion prepared and ready to go in a case, but the issue was limited and was resolved. Under the Sixth, a defendant has the right to â€confront†witnesses against him. This is known as the â€confrontation clauseâ€, and courts have generally held that it means a defendant has the right to meaningfully see, confront and cross-examine all evidence supporting the charges against him. Since a CIPA ruling can tend to hold certain evidence not be disclosed or presented, this could be seen as violative of the Sixth Amendment confrontation clause. This type of argument is VERY fact specific, however, and it, again, does not look like it has been properly set up here. Sure isn’t going to fly if your lawyer won’t even be cleared to where he could see the evidence in the first place.
Has anyone raised the thought that this might be sabotage from the DOJ itself, or from someone in another area of the executive branch tipped off by the DOJ?
The drain this whole thing is circling is the Vice President’s office, btw — the naming of Porter Goss and then the Goss elevation of Foggo, the Mitchell Wade & Brent Wilkes relationship and that amazing contract out of the blue for the VP’s office that then paid for the DukeStir …
This is like watching a movie where you already really know whodunnit — the suspense is whether or not they’ll be able to get away with it.
Let me rephrase the above, the are two constitutional challenges to CIPA. One is that it is unconstitutional as applied to your case and facts; Geragos is not even close on this one. The other is that it is inherently unconstitutional on it’s face. That is a much broader argument, and therefore much less likely to be granted. In fact, a trial court just isn’t ever going to go there; you would have to appeal it all the way to the Supremes to have any hope. As stated above, I think there is a plausible argument in this regard; however, I don’t think it would be granted.
I stole this from sojourner’s post
well, it wasn’t reported in the press untill mr garigos released it to the press by including it in is brief
and there is also ZERO EVIDENCE that anybody in Carol Lam’s office was responsible for the leaks
garigos is claiming an injury to his case that never occured, until he himself inflicted the injury, by making the leaks public
IANAL, but I got some experience at watchin lawyers fuck up a defense
The odd thing about the news reports that the indictments were imminent was that it was first reported in the Wall Street Journal and not in the San Diego Union Tribune or North County Times. SDUT broke the Cunningham story- the SD USA said Cunningham would have gotten away with it without the story in the SDUT. So, it seemed really odd that the story of the imminent indictment was leaked to WSJ.
Wilkes must have gotten a â€heads up†on the â€imminent indictment†some time before Dec. 11, 2006. On that date, he and his wife file for â€legal separation with UCC.†California is a community property state, and all of Wilkes debts and fines would also be his wife’s responsiblity if they were married. So, to protect some of the assets, they filed for separation. I suppose the plan is Wilke’s wife is entitled to half his stuff before the feds take anything. Cunningham’s wife filed AFTER he was indicted and missed out.
cmc
Do you have a link to that? I find it interesting they filed around the time Lam was being fired.
Here is the link
http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/port…..ema=PORTAL
If that doesn’t work, you can search the link below using
case type= domestic
case location= san diego
party type= unknown
last name= wilkes
http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/port…..ema=PORTAL
And just fer fun, you can search on FOGGO and EAST COUNTY.
Guess he didn’t get along with the first wifey either.
Thanks cmc. THough you get the feeling that Foggo’s current domestic blisslessness consists of something more than just divorce…
Must be the hookers.
Perhaps these are Dusty’s DR lawyers. http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/L…..038;page=1