NACDL

RICO Report Barry Tarlow

Stubbornness as a defense to intent and creative use of expert testimony Barry Tarlow

RICO Report Barry Tarlow December 2002 50   Who loves a man in a uniform? It comes as no surprise to many trial lawyers that a large number of prospective jurors are sympatico with the title of Gang of Four's 1982 pop song, “I Love a Man in a Uniform.” In fact, the National Jury Project, a non-

RICO Report Barry Tarlow November 2002 51   You can't take it with you — forget about forfeiture. Are you willing to go to jail? Recently, we discussed the travails of five defense lawyers fighting to save roughly $1.9 million in fees from forfeiture. See Fee Forfeiture: Getting it up Front May

RICO Report Barry Tarlow September/October 2002 46   United States v. Coppa: Let the foxes guard the hen house On March 1, 2002, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York entered a seemingly innocuous order. It ordered the prosecution in a large stock fraud and money

RICO Report Barry Tarlow May 2002 36   Fee forfeiture: getting it up front may not mean you get it in the end Stephen Saccoccia and his wife Donna had a very lucrative business in the coin and precious metals trading industry. The government, however, concluded that their lucre was generated by

RICO Report Barry Tarlow April 2002 58   Co-Conspirator's Witness-Killing and Confrontation Rights Waiver The Sixth Amendment provides that “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” Even though the right of confrontati

RICO Report Barry Tarlow March 2002 56   When Too Much Discovery Is Not Enough In complex cases, most prosecutors recognize that they cannot directly shirk the duty of disclosure imposed by Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) and Rule 16. However, some have decided that if they can't suppress

RICO Report Barry Tarlow January/February 2002 52   Grand Jury Misconduct — A Window of Opportunity Anyone analyzing the issue of prosecutorial misconduct before the grand jury realizes that, at least in theory, the law is extremely unfavorable to the defense. Anyone litigating a motion to dism

RICO Report Barry Tarlow December 2001 56 State Bar Discipline: An Essential Remedy for Prosecutorial Misconduct Perhaps the most surprising fact about the published reports of disciplinary actions against prosecutors is their limited number. Given the large number of cases documenting countless

RICO Report Barry Tarlow November 2001 54 The Later Misadventures of ‘Sammy The Bull’ Budding author, former hit man, allegedly reformed gangster and star government informer Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, a.k.a. “Sammy the Bull's-Eye,” seems to have run into a patch of bad luck. After havin

RICO Report Barry Tarlow September/October 2001 53   Drug Enhancements Declared Facially Unconstitutional When courts hand a victory to the defense, it is often narrow and at times it is reversed by a higher court. In an August 9, 2001 decision as groundbreaking as Apprendi v. New Jersey, 120 S

RICO Report Barry Tarlow August 2001 49   Fee Payments as 18 U.S.C. § 1957 Money Laundering Who better for the government to use as a vehicle for prompting ill-advised pronouncements of law than an unsympathetic convicted felon who surrounded himself with colorful, unsavory characters. But, wha

RICO Report Barry Tarlow July 2001 50 Legal Representation, Bad Judgment or Obstruction of Justice: No Bright Line The Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed that “Lawyers in criminal cases are necessities, not luxuries.” United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648 (1984), Id., at 653, quoting Gideon

RICO Report Barry Tarlow June 2001 51 The Highwayman Visits the Marianas: Informers Beware When confronted with the awesome power of the state, perhaps the single greatest threat to an innocent person is the false testimony of an informer who has made a deal with the prosecution. “Our judicial hi

RICO Report Barry Tarlow May 2001 50 Polygraph Evidence in the Post-Daubert Era and the Admissibility of Soft Expert Testimony Judicial evaluation of the admission of polygraph evidence has followed a long and tortuous history, particularly in the Ninth Circuit. See RICO Report, The Champion (Dec

RICO Report Barry Tarlow April 2001 49 Charlie Keating's Long, Hard Road to Freedom At the outset of his opinion affirming the grant of Charles Keating's petition for a writ of habeas corpus from his state court conviction, Judge Reinhardt observed that “most readers of this opinion will be well

RICO Report Barry Tarlow March 2001 49 Apprendi and CCE Apprendi v. New Jersey, 120 S. Ct. 2348 (2000), did not merely hold that defendants were entitled to jury findings on factual issues that would increase a sentence. Far more significantly, it embraced a revolutionary way of evaluating the ri

RICO Report Barry Tarlow January/February 2001 65 Ninth Circuit Decision on Joint Defense Agreements Raises More Questions Than It Answers The Joint Defense Agreement (JDA) has become an essential feature of criminal defense practice, particularly in federal court. Targets of grand jury investiga

RICO Report Barry Tarlow December 2000 56 Brady Violation of Undisclosed U.S. Customs Service Bonuses Results in Downward Departure Although not widely discussed until recently, a court's choice of remedies for a Brady violation are wider than determining whether a new trial, reversal, or dismiss

RICO Report Barry Tarlow November 2000 53 Sixth and Ninth Circuits Apply Bright-Line Rule in Rejecting Pre-Indictment Right to Counsel The Sixth Amendment provides that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.” In Ki

RICO Report Barry Tarlow October 2000 56   New Trial Motions Based on Evidence of Perjury: What Standard Applies? Rule 33 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure states, rather obliquely, that the district court may grant the defendant a new trial “if the interests of justice so require.” Al