Beyond The Horizon
The El Chapo Files: El Chapo And The Reply To The Motion For A New Trial (Part 2) (7/6/24)
Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, the notorious Mexican drug lord, has filed a motion for a new trial based on several key arguments.
- Ineffective Assistance of Counsel: El Chapo claims his previous legal team provided inadequate representation. Specifically, he argues that they failed to explore a plea bargain and did not object to government motions regarding classified information
- Juror Misconduct: A significant part of his motion centers on allegations of juror misconduct. An anonymous juror told Vice News that some jurors had accessed media coverage during the trial, which included prejudicial information about Guzmán. This alleged misconduct, according to El Chapo’s defense, compromised the fairness of the trial.
- Extradition Issues: Guzmán also challenges the legality of his extradition from Mexico, arguing that the agreement stipulated he should be tried in Texas or California, not Brooklyn .
- Pretrial Detention Conditions: He contends that the harsh conditions of his pretrial detention at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, which included perpetual solitary confinement and constant lighting, impaired his ability to participate in his defense.
In this episode, we continue our exploration of the El Chapo Files and the story of one of the most notorious crime bosses in history.
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source:
El Chapo defense reply motion for new trial - DocumentCloud
- Duration:
- 13m
- Broadcast on:
- 06 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
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VGW Group, voidware prohibited by law, 18-plus terms and conditions apply. What's up everyone and welcome back to the program. This episode we're picking up where we left off with El Chapo and his reply for the motion for a new trial. See, in stressing the court's recurring cautionary instructions, jur inquiries during trial and favorable impressions of the panel's diligence, obedience and attentiveness, the government simply begs the question presented. After all, the subject jur alleges in the vice article that they and their counterparts habitually violated the court's instructions and answered its inquiries dishonestly. That's the whole point of Guzman's motion and hearing a request. Try as it might the government can't just wish the disputed issue away or paper the contest over by assuming a preferred conclusion. Indeed, the second circuit roundly rejected a similar exercise in circular reasoning just a few years ago. Even U.S. vs. Haynes, Defense Council informed the judge that an alternate jur told the lawyer he'd overheard some woman jurors saying prior to deliberations that the defendant might be guilty, she's here. Even though the alternate obviously didn't give any specifics, the judge responded much like "the government, in this case, that the jury had been continuously advised that if there were any discussions prior to deliberations, that it should be brought to the court's attention immediately, and no jur brought anything like that to the court's attention." The second circuit reversed for retrial, partly because the court failed to investigate the possibility that the jury had deliberated prematurely in violation of the judge's instructions, impairing the presumption of innocence and committing potential misconduct. More recently, a New York appeals panel reversed a murder conviction after a thorough trial court hearing established that a jur failed to follow the court's instructions concerning communicating with outside parties about case prior to rendering a verdict by sending and receiving text messages regarding the trial and the events surrounding it, and misrepresenting her actions when questioned about them. Prompting the hearing, nothing more than a discharged alternate jur's reporting to Defense Council after the verdict that she, the offending jur, had engaged in prohibited communications during the trial. A proper, far more vague, and conclusionary than the in-depth, especially by comparison, Vice-Expose. In asserting otherwise, the government reaches for a pair of unpublished district court opinions, one from a different circuit, deeming news articles insufficient to trigger post-trial evidentiary hearings. As one of the cases allows this type of analysis, gauging the strength of the defendant's evidentiary showing it's highly fact-sensitive, they thus offer the government little comfort here. US vs. Bin Laden, fronted in our opening papers, found that a single vague sentence, frail, ambiguous, and made almost as an aside in a news story, did not warrant hauling jurors back to court over two years after the verdict was rendered. Meanwhile, the out-of-circuit, K. Slapari, involved a claim of judicial, not jury misconduct, namely coercive ex-parte contact with the panel while deliberating. The little party article grew out of the reporter's interview with the defendant in prison more than a year after sentencing. What defendant said, but never detailed for the court, motivated the reporter to track down the jurors, the defendant sought a new trial some two years after the verdict. Recusal of the court, an investigation of a long-discharge jury, the judge noted, is relief of the most extraordinary nature. Accordingly, and given the significant passage of time, the length of time that is passed, the court is justified in requiring a showing of real substance and support of this application. The time elapsed is also significant, added the judge, when the court looks to the burden on the jury and cost to the interest of the jury process. In these novel circumstances, the court held here that only the most compelling of evidentiary showings would rationalize, bringing these people back for yet another inquiry into the integrity of their deliberations. This article is not such a showing. The remedy sought is to extreme and the evidentiary support to scanty to justify a different result. Since the vice article appeared and is being litigated immediately following the verdict, among many palpable distinctions, the bin Laden and lapari situations scarcely resemble this one, equally unavailing as the government's juxtaposing the jurors' trial silence as to the vice allegations with three occasions when jurors raise concerns with the court. One, when a trio of them protested an alternate's drinking, another, when a juror revealed, inadvertent contact with the defense paralegal, and a third, when a juror disclosed accidental media exposure. But reporting accidents and accusing others of wrongdoing is a far cry from coming forward to implicate yourself in deliberate criminal activity. It's folly to compare the two, and fancy to expect the subject juror or their culpable colleagues to have taken the latter step. In a last-ditch effort, described a hearing, the government's memo impunes the subject juror throughout as anonymous source. But it was the government that successfully moved to keep the jury in this case, anonymous, during trial for safety reasons. Yet having lobbied the court to implement the drastic measure, the same government now scorns the juror, for nominally preserving their anonymity due to what the article plainly identifies as the same safety concerns. The government can't have it both ways, wielding anonymity as both sword to help convict Guzman a trial and shield to help avoid requisite jury misconduct hearings afterwards. Having it both ways though is exactly what the government seeks in simultaneously scolding the juror for remaining anonymous and accusing him of courting notoriety, a catch-22 situation if ever there was one, damned if you do, damned if you don't, heads or tails, the government always wins. Part 2, prejudice is presumed when jurors deliberately consult, information in violation of their instructions, and falsely deny it upon inquiry and the government fails to rebut the presumption. After spending dozens of pages picking the vice article apart and quibbling over the smallest details, the government urges the court to forget all that, presume the article's truth, and summarily deny Guzman's motion without a hearing. Even assuming its truth, the government says, a hearing's unnecessary because multiple jurors starkly violating their oath and chronically flouting the court's instructions by regularly tracking a storm of sensational media coverage unprecedented in scope and intensity only to lie about it when asked somehow if it didn't prejudice Guzman. No harm, no foul as it were, even if the coverage included bombshell allegations, child rape among them, that the government deemed to inflammatory to admit a trial. And even if it prematurely pronounced the defendant guilty by an overwhelming margin. Not so fast. The court should see this ploy for what it is, an illicit attempt to lure it into a conventional harmless error analysis in a setting where the exposure's likely impact is evaluated for objective influence on a hypothetical average jury, not subjective effect on the actual jurors in Guzman's case. And where prejudice is thus presumed with reversal, all but automatic, for material misrepresentations upon judicial inquiry. For a swarm of reasons, the government's invitation to legal impropriety should be swiftly declined. We all have somewhere we're trying to get to. As the largest energy producer in Colorado, Chevron is helping meet rising demand, and we're working to do it responsibly. Our next-gen, tankless facilities reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of our operations by more than 90% compared to our older designs. 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Fairly read, the jurors' vice remarks accuse themselves and several fellow jurors of systematically breaking their oath and consciously spurning their instructions by routinely and constantly monitoring the media blitz throughout the Guzman trial. They don't merely imply that some members of the jury viewed certain media as the government lamely tries to sugarcoat it. It follows that the government can't duck a hearing by presuming the allegations true because we don't know the allegations or the underlying misconduct's full nature and extent. How many jurors are claimed to have violated their instructions? Precisely what they read and saw, whether, when and how frequently they discussed it, and exactly who said what to whom, put more concisely, you can't presume something's true if you don't know what you're presuming. The government's alternate suggestion is a logical impossibility and a contradiction in terms. It gets things precisely backward, putting the cart before the proverbial horse. In short, this is a case where ignorance isn't bliss, sunlight will be the best disinfectant. B. In taking the opposite approach to the government, basically argues that it doesn't really matter what extraneous information the jurors may have seen, read or heard, or how many of them may have seen, read or heard or discussed it. Guzman's such a bad guy, one of the world's most notorious criminals, responsible for horrific and brutal crimes, and the case against him was so strong that no outside information was capable of hurting his defense. In other words, injury to this defendant is legally and factually impossible. He's functionally immune from harm, essentially prejudice-proof. Chapo planned the JFK assassination, so what? L.S.L. Diablo. Chapo arranged the 9/11 attacks big deal the government's evidence was crushing. See. But those unspoken premise contradict and invert the settled legal principles controlling this motion's disposition. True, those key tenants get fleeting nods and a few lonely snippets of the government's memo, but having grudgingly acknowledged the guiding precepts, the bulk of its 96 pages proceed to studiously ignore them. If not polka-sharp stick in their eye, tacitly encouraging the court to discard them and substitute for biden, harmless error review. Put more bluntly, the government's memo says one thing and does another. Indeed, it effectively does the converse. To briefly recall, the operative rules are these. Alright folks, we're going to wrap up right here and in the next episode dealing with the topic, we'll finish this bad boy off. All of the information that goes with this episode can be found in the description box. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. You may be able to save too. 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