Joshua Schulte Attempts to Hack the Court System
Joshua Schulte attempted to complete a hack of the court system yesterday.
I don’t mean that Schulte used computer code to bring down the court systems. His laptop doesn’t connect to the Internet, and so he does not have those tools available. Rather, over the 3.5 years he has been in jail, he has tested the system, figured out which messages can be used to distract adversaries, and which messages have an effect that will lead the system to perform in unexpected ways. He identified vulnerabilities and opportunities — SDNY arrogance, the pandemic and related court delays, Louis DeJoy’s postal system, and even the SAMs imposed on him — and attempted to exploit them.
As a reminder, a jury hung on the most serious charges against Schulte in March 2020. Afterwards, the government moved to retry Schulte quickly, but his defense attorneys said they needed more time, in part because their expert, Steve Bellovin, was for health reasons unwilling to serve as an expert during COVID. Last November, Judge Paul Crotty scheduled a trial to start June 7, 2021, which would have been a week ago Monday. In March, Schulte’s superb attorney, Sabrina Shroff, moved to delay the trial once more, to October, still citing Bellovin’s withdrawal.
Meanwhile, starting in January, Schulte started submitting pro se filings, some filed through Shroff, and some sent directly. The government responded to a motion for habeas corpus (basically, to point out he needs to file suit against the Warden of MCC, not the prosecution), but did not respond to his motion to suppress evidence seized from the MCC jail. When Schulte filed to request direct access to Lexus Nexis, the government responded, in part, by asking Judge Crotty to force Schulte to decide whether he was representing himself, pro se, or, if not, then to solely allow Shroff and her team to make filings on his behalf.
The defendant’s request appears to be an attempt to further his pattern of engaging in inappropriate, quasi-pro se litigation. The Court should not consider the defendant’s instant letter for that reason. “A defendant has a right either to counsel or to proceed pro se, but has no right to ‘hybrid’ representation, in which he is represented by counsel from time to time, but may slip into pro se mode for selected presentations.” United States v. Rivernider, 828 F.3d 91, 108 (2d Cir. 2016). Although the Court has “discretion to hear from a represented defendant personally,” id. at 108 n.5, “the interests of justice will only rarely be served by a defendant’s supplementation of the legal services provided by his . . . counsel,” United States v. Swinton, 400 F. Supp. 805, 806 (S.D.N.Y. 1975). To the extent the defendant has any colorable claims for relief, his attorneys can present them to the Court, and the Court should reject the defendant’s attempts to “slip into pro se mode,” Rivernider, 828 F.3d at 108, whenever it suits him. See, e.g., United States v. Crumble, No. 18 Cr. 32 (ARR), 2018 WL 3112041, at *4 (E.D.N.Y. June 25, 2018) (“As Markus has not elected to represent himself, he does not have a right to make a motion on his own behalf, nor does he have a right to insist that the district court hear his applications. While I have previously exercised my discretion to entertain Markus’s pro se submissions, I will do so no longer. If Markus wishes to file any further motions, he is directed to ask his trial counsel—or appellate counsel— to adopt this motion. I trust that assigned counsel will file any motions that they do not view as frivolous on Markus’s behalf. Any pro se motions made by Markus, however, will be summarily denied.” (cleaned up)).
In any event, even if the Court considers the defendant’s submission, it is without merit. As his letter acknowledges, he has access to legal databases (a fact confirmed by the volume of his recent pro se filings), but additionally he demands special access to “filings, briefs, modern search, and the ability to print.” The defendant’s claims about the purported deficiencies of the databases to which he does in fact have access do not support such demands or establish a basis for relief. “[A]n inmate cannot establish relevant actual injury simply by establishing that his prison’s law library or legal assistance program is subpar in some theoretical sense.” Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 351 (1996). The defendant identifies no reason he should be afforded special access beyond that which the facility provides in the normal course, and at bottom, he is represented by counsel who have the ability to make well-researched and thoroughly prepared legal claims on his behalf.
Crotty denied Schulte’s request for Lexus Nexis, but didn’t address the pro se request.
Meanwhile, two of the three prosecutors on the team, Matthew LaRoche and Sidhardha Kamaraju, withdrew from the case, both because they’ve left government. LaRoche was involved in a prosecution that collapsed because the government committed a Brady violation, but Kamaraju was not. Kamaraju, however, probably has the most computer expertise of the original three.
Yesterday there was a remarkable status hearing. Crotty started by asking the remaining prosecutor, David Denton, when replacement prosecutors will file an appearance. Imminently, Denton said, though it sounded like he didn’t believe that.
Crotty asked whether Shroff has found an expert. Curiously, she explained that Bellovin still can’t do it, even with the waning risk of COVID, because of his schedule at Columbia University. Crotty noted that it is her responsibility to find an expert (she had said in a November status conference that it would amount to ineffective assistance not to have one).
But the real stunner came at the end, when Shroff said that Schulte wanted her to tell the court that he had told the government back in November that he was proceeding pro se. Denton responded that this was the first he had heard of such a thing, and Shroff responded that he was incorrect; Schulte had informed the government in November.
The hearing ended with a commitment to brief whether Schulte can proceed pro se.
It is almost without exception an insanely bad idea for a defendant to represent themselves, and this is probably not that exception. Still, there are advantages that Schulte would get by representing himself. He’s brilliant, and clearly has been studying the law in the 3.5 years he has been in prison (though he has made multiple errors of process and judgment in his own filings). He has repeatedly raised the Sixth Amendment problems with Special Administrative Measures, notably describing how delays in receiving his mail make it impossible for him to respond to legal developments in timely fashion. So I imagine he’d prepare a Sixth Amendment challenge to everything going forward. He’d be able to demand access to the image of the server he is alleged to have hacked himself. By proceeding pro se, Schulte could continue to post inflammatory claims to the docket for sympathetic readers to magnify, as happened with a filing he submitted earlier this year. And after the government has made clear it will reverse its disastrous strategy from the first trial of making the trial all about Schulte’s conflicts with the CIA, by questioning witnesses himself, Schulte would be able to make personality conflicts central again, even against the government’s wishes. Plus, by not replacing Bellovin, Schulte would serve as expert himself. In that role, Schulte would present the false counter story he has been telling since he was jailed, but in a way that the government couldn’t cross-examine him. So it would probably be insanely detrimental, but less so than for most defendants that try it. It certainly would provide a way to mount the defense that Schulte clearly wants to pursue.
But I think that’s just Schulte’s fall-back plan.
I think his current plan is to argue that, because anything his attorneys did in his name after he purportedly informed prosecutors he was proceeding pro se would be a legal nullity, then two things have happened since that allegedly occurred that will permit him to demand immediate release. First, if his attorneys’ agreements to exclude time from the Speedy Trial clock were not valid, then it would mean the government has run out of time to prosecute Schulte. Additionally, if a request that Shroff made in March to reschedule the trial was not valid, then the trial would have still been scheduled for last week. I suspect Schulte will try to argue that the government forgot to hold their trial and so must be released.
Mind you, there’s no evidence in the docket that Schulte informed prosecutors, much less the court, that he was proceeding pro se. There’s a filing he made in April 2020 that claimed he had no lawyers and made requests as if he was proceeding pro se, one that everyone ignored. But according to Shroff, that’s not the notice; the notice took place in November. Still, given how Schulte has carefully tested how the mail system works with SAMs and COVID, I don’t rule out him sending a letter directly to prosecutors.
The other problem with his claim to be proceeding pro se is that in a May filing, Schulte referred to the October trial (meaning, he recognizes the validity of both that request and Shroff’s exclusion of time under the Speedy Trial Act) and complained that his attorney-client mail was being opened. If he were proceeding pro se without Crotty formally appointing Shroff as standby counsel, their communications would have no privilege. So he has said two things in a pro se filing that are inconsistent with really proceeding pro se.
Certainly, Shroff has said things — in multiple venues — that indicate she believed she remained Schulte’s lawyer.
Given that Schulte claims everything his legal team has done since November was done without his sanction, though, the government would seem to have cause to ask Crotty to assign entirely different lawyers to serve as Schulte’s stand-by counsel, if indeed he does proceed pro se going forward. Which would make his plan for the actual trial, if it ever happens, untenable.
To be sure, I’m not saying this is going to work. But the government — what’s left of the prosecution team, anyway — had better understand that Schulte has been treating the court system with the same adversarial approach as he allegedly did the CIA’s servers. Schulte is claiming to have entered a command into his prosecution back in November that hacked the system, effectively changed the effect of everything that has happened since. Just trusting that such a possibility cannot happen under the legal system is probably a bad idea given where the CIA’s trust that Schulte wouldn’t hack the system turned out.
Update: Via InnerCity Press, there’s the transcript of the hearing.
April 12, 2020: Schulte claims he has no attorneys, claims only a few months remain on Speedy Trial
May 31, 2020: Shroff asks for a week extension to respond to government scheduling motion
June 8, 2020: Schroff requests a status conference for August or September 2020, acting as if Schulte’s request did not exist
June 15, 2020: Shroff initiates White Plains grand jury challenge
June 19, 2020: SDNY extends Speedy Trial to July 1, 2020
July 16, 2020: Shroff informs Judge Crotty Schulte will not reply to Rule 29 motion
July 27, 2020: Shroff asks for extension on grand jury challenge
July 28, 2020: Shroff asks for ESXi server (basically a repeat of Schulte’s April request)
July 30, 2020: Shroff asks for two week delay on status hearing citing (in part) Steve Bellovin’s withdrawal
August 14, 2020: Shroff asks for two week extension on reply to request for ESXi server
September 15, 2020: Shroff reply on ESXi laptop
September 16, 2020: SDNY proposes schedule, with January 2021 trial date
September 21, 2020: SDNY responds to Bellovin submission of ex parte declaration
October 14, 2020: SDNY asks for 30 day exclusion
October 30, 2020: Shroff requests Schulte appear remotely
November 4, 2020: Status conference, trial set for June 7, 2021, with time excluded; Shroff maintains it would be ineffective counsel to go to trial without expert
THE COURT: Are you entitled to an expert?
MS. SHROFF: In a case like this, yes. I’m quite certain I’m entitled to an expert. I think it would be clear error and ineffective assistance of counsel to try this case without an expert, without a doubt.
November 16, 2020: Shroff-submitted motion to dismiss on White Plains grand jury
November 19, 2020: Shroff submits request for VTC meeting with Schulte’s family
January 1, 2021: Schulte motion to suppress MCC evidence (docketed February 24)
January 7, 2021: Shroff requests 2 week extension on White Plains grand jury reply
January 19, 2021: Shroff files Schulte pro se motion for writ of habeas corpus regarding SAMs, dated December 25, 2020
January 22, 2021: Shroff requests two week extension on January 21 deadline for reply on White Plains grand jury reply
January 22, 2021: Shroff requests funds for new laptop for Schulte
January 27, 2021: Civil Division AUSA asks Crotty to dismiss motion for writ so it can be refiled naming Warden as defendant
February 22, 2021: Shroff submits reply on White Plains grand jury challenge
February 24, 2021: Schulte files motion to reconsider decision on habeas (docketed March 4)
March 19, 2021: Schulte calls on Crotty to decide his motion to suppress on the merits, given government non-response (docketed April 5)
March 22, 2021: Shroff moves, with consent of Schulte, to reschedule trial to last quarter of 2021
March 24, 2021: Crotty denies motion to dismiss; Crotty reschedules trial for October 25, excludes time
April 12, 2021: Schulte asks for Lexus Nexis (docketed April 29)
May 5, 2021: Schulte complains about mail delays (docketed May 19); among other things it reflects an October trial date and references attorney-client mail
May 7, 2021: Matthew LaRoche withdraws
May 11, 2021: SDNY submits opposition to Lexus Nexis request, including request for order that Schulte not submit pro se
June 3, 2021: Sidhardha Kamaraju withdraws
June 7, 2021: Date of trial scheduled in November 2020
June 15, 2021: Status hearing at which Schulte claims to have been representing himself pro se since November
Interesting. Would his putative attorneys be at risk if, while they knew he was representing himself since November, still acted as if they were still representing him to allow some clock to run out?
An unlikely scenario. Had defense counsel ignored Schulte’s decision and acted as if they still represented him – knowing he had ended their representation – they would have been committing a fraud on the court, they would be subject to sanction or disbarment, there would be no client confidentiality for information exchanged after they no longer represented him, and they wouldn’t get paid. The odds that anyone who passed a bar exam would entertain the arrangement are nil. No, Schulte is playing his own lawyers as much as he is the system overall.
IIRC, they’re not “Schulte’s lawyers” — he hates them; they’re appointed public defenders whom he blames for giving him bad legal advice which created superseding indictment for when he followed their advice and was then charged with more crimes. He’s tried to get them dumped off his case, and they’ve tried to oblige only to be rebuffed by court. It’s been a shotgun marriage to this point since judge hadn’t approved their leave from case.
If you even harbor the thought that Sabrina Shroff is ineffective, you are sorely mistaken. She is quite good.
Also, too, jackasses need to be protected from themselves, and courts try to do that.
It was Schroff’s own allegation & petition herself. I’m not alleging that, she, herself tried to allege it to be removed as Schulte’s counsel nearly two years ago.
Lol, and the court clearly denied any such nonsense. Thanks, this is not some stupid civil case, and a panel atty does not easily get dispatched over bullshit from a nutbag defendant. This happens all the time. You are shouting at the wind.
Oh, and by the way, if an attorney is counsel of record, and such is indeed the case here, they are indeed “Schulte’s lawyer”.
No, this is a complete joke.
“Schroedinger’s Prosecution.”
IANAL, but if I were the government, I’d request a formal statement to the court and the prosecutors, and that it *not* be backdated, before I went along with *anything* he asked for, since it’s impossible to be sure when he’s being truthful.
It’s a brazen ploy.
Either Schulte has the goods — timely Nov notice in sufficient form — but no one believed him; that _should_ be their problem and not Schulte’s.
If Schulte doesn’t have goods, either not noticed, or not noticed in suitable form, then conniving acts like this will almost certainly do damage to his case.
He’s also unfortunately facing a court which also likes to tend towards natural order. When Scalia held in Herrera that bona fide innocence is no shield against exoneration then any and every technical fouling of process can be on table against cause for dismissal.
I assume you meant “execution” and not “exoneration?”
Right. It should be “for” not “against.”
It would appear to me that some useful questions need answers:
1. Was Shroff being paid to be Schulte’s lawyer from November until now? If so, that would also undercut the gambit being tried here because no one does anything without a reason.
2. Do private letters constitute a contract or agreement that the government was obligated to follow? Since this is an active case with clearly declared counsels of record, judicial notice has to be taken to allow the change. It can happen quickly (i.e. I suppose he could fire Shroff in the hearing) but it also must be done with some formality. Double-secret messages should be disregarded once formal trial activity has started because the court needs to know if there are any deals.
3. If Schulte went pro se in November, then why in the 18 steps noted since then (including at least a couple that Schulte was on record as approving Shroff acting on his behalf) did Schulte never say he was acting pro se? The court needs to know who has the standing to speak, and this is the fundamental question raised just now.
If it were up to me, I’d reject this claim as unsupported and force Schulte to:
1. Provide proof of the letter contents, that he sent it, and that the government received it. I do not see how the government can be held in any way accountable for something they were not told.
2. Submit an actual brief to explain why in the 18 steps this situation was never raised although it was clearly relevant to the proceedings at each step. Schulte has to do this, not Shroff.
Then he can get his hearing. One thing Schulte’s play also does here is to allow the government time to bring in some more counsel and to re-address the evidence. I don’t think it will go as well as Schulte hopes. Is Judge Crotty as sharp as a tack or as sharp as a brick?
All sensible steps. I’m just not sure whether anyone came out of yesterday’s hearing knowing WTF was up.
Is any of this a legacy of being tied up with Schrof/Zaz’s attempt to disengage as counsel due both to ineffective counsel and/or misconduct, and/or separately Branden’s attempt to disengage as supplemental counsel because of schedule/ineffective counsel?
I would think that the government could help Schulte decide by subpoenas for the conversations with Shroff, because I do not think they’re protected if he’s pro se and she’s not appointed his adviser with judicial notice.
1) Of course Sabrina is being paid, she is a CJA panel attorney.
2) No.
3) Because Schulte is a loose cannon and a dope. Shroff is extremely competent.
But he’s found this one weird trick on the internet…
The Poor are NOT Only People of Color, They are white & underpaid. Why doesn’t Empty Wheel carry, news of Low-income paid, being told they must have 2 to 3 times the rent, dispute Fair Housing Laws, Saying they cannot be charged 2 to 3 times the rent. I am glad this con, has tried to do Pro Se. I want to see a story, on White/ Free/ Poor folks.
Firstly, your comment is off topic for this post which is about Joshua Schulte.
Secondly, you apparently missed three posts written recently which address issues like labor and housing.
Thirdly, the contributors here write what they want to write. If you don’t like what is published here, perhaps this isn’t a site for you.
Welcome to emptywheel.
Justice The American way?
Corruption has no bounds, when like the in denial alcoholic, anything can be rationalized as in 1857.
Disruptive speech,
Mayor Daley?
Sit down and shut up?
“1”
Wow, trip down memory lane. I knew David Denton, Jr.’s dad. We were at SDNY at the same time. Dave senior was a VERY nice man. He died at only 57 years old.
Schulte may be brilliant in his quick learning of the law and knowledge of technology, but IMHO as a non-lawyer “observer,” there’s more to winning at legal stuff. That said, I have directly witnessed marginal attorneys rely on a range of unethical techniques (imagine that) to achieve a degree of courtroom success.
But I have to ask, what do you think Schulte sees “success” as being. It does seem he is looking for more than saving himself, or maybe his priority is not in saving himself but in screwing things up beyond the court system. And/or using chaos like Trump did to do bad things and get away with it. He seems to be playing with us and the courts, and he can do it cause he’s so young and doesn’t know how truly painful it is to be tied in chains to the floor or wall, like I understand he is at rare moments when he is allowed short access to technology (or is this one more false story).
To me, he’s a immature self-absorbed little boy who knows too much and thinks he’s it. He seems to be doing this crap because it’s fun rather than a Daniel Ellsberg moment. I could say something worse, but I’m holding back. I was trying to find a description of his parents and childhood but couldn’t. I’m curious. Anyone?
I’m not a total idiot regarding the government and what some of its nastiest do. But bells were ringing when I read the government got hold of his computers and located child porn. How convenient. Or maybe it’s true? I always wondered what actually occurred regarding San Francisco’s KGO 810 radio’s progressive host Bernie Ward during the 2007/2008 presidential campaign and the sudden finding of child porn on his computers. On the other hand, it sounds like Schulte may have drugged and raped a roommate.
If Schulte did it, then he’s probably hoping at best to not be treated like a terrorist who conspired against the US and maybe get passable conditions while incarcerated.
If Schulte didn’t do it, but has become the Vault 7’s leak scapegoat, then he might legitimately be seeking dismissal/exoneration.
But who knows? He’s whined his conditions in solitary are unjust. He’s whined that he has no administrative recourse — prison makes him fill out his complaints on its form in pen, and the government has convinced the courts to bar him from having pens in jail as a terrorist. He’s whined that he’s been unfairly persecuted. He’s whined about his lawyers. But despite writing out what essentially amounted to a full confession in prison notebooks — part of the add-on superseding offenses which lost him his use of pens in prison —he has maintained his innocence, I guess, FWIW.