Judge dismisses cases against James Comey and Letitia James after finding prosecutor was unlawfully appointed
Judge dismisses cases against James Comey and Letitia James after finding prosecutor was unlawfully appointed
"And because Ms. Halligan had no lawful authority to present the indictment, I will grant Ms. James’s motion and dismiss the indictment without prejudice.
That's a big issue. It should certainly be with prejudice, especially for Comey, because the statute of limitations has run on his actions. A fake prosecutor can't reset the clock on the statute, can it? That's not a reasonable legal position.
... However, later language leaves the statute of limitations question open. "I will invalidate the ultra vires acts performed by Ms. Halligan and dismiss the indictment without prejudice, returning Ms. James to the status she occupied before being indicted." ... If that is taken at face value, then the statute wouldn't get reset.
Disagree. The answer is to dismiss without prejudice. The issue before the judge was, at its heart, whether the prosecutor had the legal authority to bring the indictment. The answer was no. As such, it's not up to the court to tell the government they cannot bring the case again in a proper manner from qualified prosecutor.
The beauty of the decision is that -- by issuing the order in this manner -- the government is screwed anyway because (unless they successfully appeal this decision) the statute of limitations has tolled on Comey's case,so even if Halligan or some other prosecutor were able to bring charges, the window to do so has closed. Case dismissed.
This is essentially dismissing with prejudice without prejudice. The case is over, at least for Comey, unless government is successful on appeal.
lol. Those Wikipedia editors are fast.
Edit: now it’s a less spicy “disputed”
They are fairly well known for their distinct lack of fucking around. That is until they decide to fuck around, which is another matter all to itself.
The cases were dismissed without prejudice, meaning they can be refiled at a later date.
Five days after the post, Halligan, who had no prosecutorial experience, presented the Comey case to a grand jury. The presentation came days before a five-year statute of limitations on the charges was set to expire.
How does the statute of limitations work after a case is dismissed? Are they still allowed to refile?
IIRC, an indictment that's thrown out for procedural errors has 6 months from the SoL expiration to fix the indictment, so long as the original indictment was made before the SoL expired.
With the question of whether or not the grand jury actually agreed to indict or just the foreman, the more interesting question is whether or not there even is an original indictment to be fixed.
As with many issues surrounding this administration, I don't know if we have precedent on something like this. The way they stack up their fuckups on top of each other and make everything legally hazy means they're either the worst attorneys in America or are really clever. Or, more likely, someone really clever knows how to use one of the worst attorneys in America in an attempt to buy 6 more months to come up with something to justify charging Comey.
Also, they can also now pretend he did something wrong but got off on a technicality. Now that it's thrown out on procedural grounds, they don't have to show their lack of evidence.
I agree that they won't be refiled, and that MAGA will probably act like it's some conspiracy, that the rulings were fake or something, just like any election that MAGA doesn't win must be fake.
One other reason that they won't be refiled is that these cases have now been analyzed in public pretty thoroughly now. Any lawyer who is offered the job now knows for sure how high profile it is, and as a result, how likely they are to face some consequences for their actions.
There was no true bill returned by the grand jury, and nobody in charge with legitimate authority to bring an indictment anyway, so that's two reasons that there was no indictment. So in the case of Comey, since the statute of limitations was two days from expiring when the non-charges were brought, DOJ is shit out of luck.
They'll probably take another run at Tish James, though.
I believe they still have to abide by the SoL. So... By Monday or something?
Good question. There must be some limit, otherwise you could use refiling as a loophole to keep extending the limitations forever.
I wouldn't be surprised if that loophole is in our laws
I would think statute of limitations refers to date of infraction so it shouldn’t matter. This would be refilling so therefore not allowed. At least that was my take from the LegalEagle episode about it.
Obligatory I am not a lawyer, but in my reading of the applicable statute, the indictment can be refiled within 6 months of the dismissal, and not an additional 6 months after the statute of limitations expires. While this might seem similar to what the other posters said, this allows prosecutors to prepare on a much longer timescale (6 months vs the ~week they had for the original indictment after Trump fired the AG for the District) AND also allows them to continue to refile even if the indictment is dismissed again (e.g., their incompetence results in another dismissal).
The bigger point is whether there was an indictment at all, if the person who brought it had no legal authority to do so, and if the whole of the grand jury didn't actually vote on it anyway.
There are about eight grounds for dismissing the whole case. There won't be coming back from all of them.
Who had Justice by Sheer Stupidity on their Bingo card for 2025?
Everyone
Ya I thought that was the free space
It's not entirely surprising. This administration has some of the worst representation that I have ever seen.
The vast majority of their victories in the courts have been due to corruption.
Trump always hires C and D tier lawyers because they are the only ones that are willing to work with him. Given that he is president, this carnival of mediocrity often works against weak or unprepared victims. Taking on law experts at the top of their field, who can call on friends who are also the very best at their craft, and assigning someone with no prosecutorial experience just because she makes his peen feel funny, seems ill advised.
the A list attourneys used to work for him, but you see, he has a terrible habit of refusing to pay people for their work (unless they are connected to the russian mob, at least, whom he always pays on time and in full), so most of the top tier lawfirms basically said fuck trump and stopped offering to represent him.
not out of some moral duty, but simply because his documented history of not paying.
The C and D lawyers, though, they are ambulance chasing scumbag scammers. Just being near him and getting on Camera is enough payment for them, so they go through the motions dutifully doing everything he wants.. secure in the knowledge once he collapses, They'll be able to use their association for the next 10+ years to fuck over the everyday idiots that come to them.
Time to disbar Halligan.
Actually, I bet this saves her from any consequences. She wasn't supposed to have the job in there first place, so all of her unforced errors don't matter.
They should, but she has the magic (R) after her name. So it's just "Oopsies!", and then she can go on with her day.
"Your honor, let the record show that I never wanted this job anyway. I wanted to be... a lumberjack!"
If she knew she wasn't legally appointed, and did the job anyway, that'd be a major ethics violation.
So are the illegal jury instructions, the tampering with the indictment, the lying to the trial judge (Bondi did that too), and probably a few more.
Ha ha!
Finally someone is saying to Trump administration officials, "No, you can't do whatever the f%^k you want. YOU have to obey the law too."