Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the sentencing hearing of former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Unfortunately, in the hearing, Judge Emmet Sullivan fulfilled the expectations of the D.C. Circuit panel that ordered him to dismiss the charge without further delay. That decision was reversed en banc but only because the court decided (as many of us argued) that Sullivan should be allowed to issue a final decision before an appellant review of his handling of the case. The en banc court did not rule in favor of his controversial comments or orders. Yet, in the hearing, Sullivan declared “Suffice it to say, the case was remanded to me by the en banc court.” As argued below, the law is clear and, suffice it to say, Sullivan will be reversed if he follows the advice of John Gleeson. Instead, Sullivan announced that he still “has questions” and indicated that he is not prepared to issue a final decision after two years. Instead, he repeated the words of Gleeson as virtual fact like an alter ego. This is moving from the cathartic to the tragic. The Court is not just prolonging the inevitable for the ruling but the trauma for the defendant. Flynn should have been sentenced years ago and the charges dismissed months ago. A defendant should not be a vehicle of the court to express displeasure or satisfy its curiosity on public controversies. The court knows that it would be almost certainly reversed if it follows the advice of its self-appointed quasi-prosecutor Gleeson. Instead, it is continuing to refuse to rule while using the case to ask more questions about the internal decision-making at the Justice Department.
Here is column: Continue reading “It Is Time To Dismiss The Flynn Case”
We have previously discussed courts in the United States seeking to punish lawyers for making critical comments about 
Three years ago, I wrote 
Today I am testifying in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution on the anti-free-speech movement in the United States. The hearing is entitled “
We have been discussing the ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in tossing the death sentence of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev due to juror bias (as well as reversing some convictions). The ruling is a relatively rare case of a court taking such action. Criminal defense attorneys, including myself, have long complained that judges talk a good game about fair trials but always seem to find a way of avoiding new trials in the face of even clear juror bias. That was 
U.S. District Judge James Robart issued an order Friday night that blocked a Seattle law prohibiting police from using pepper spray and other anti-riot weapons. While described by the court as “very temporary,” it is also very dubious from a constitutional standpoint. I do not see the authority of a federal judge to stop the City of Seattle from determining what gear and devices may be used by its own officers, particularly in response to the federal government objecting to the state policy. The court in my view does not have the authority to make such a policy decision, even on a “very temporary” basis. Update: 
In a murder that has shocked the nation, the son of federal judge Esther Salas was killed and her husband wounded in their home in North Brunswick, New Jersey. Daniel Anderl, 20, was a student at Catholic University with hopes to go to law school. His father is a criminal defense attorney. Such attacks on federal judges are thankfully rare and there is much speculation about high-profile cases that Judge Salas has handled or taken on recently, including a lawsuit related to Jeffrey Epstein and another past case involving “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Teresa Giudice. While the crime had the markings of premeditation and even professional elements,