Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman-Loera has filed a motion for an evidentiary hearing on the issue of whether flagrant and admitted juror misconduct during the trial warrants a new trial.

I wrote this long post on the juror misconduct when it was first disclosed.

The 26 page motion is available here. It was written by attorneys Marc Frenich and Jeffrey Lichtman (and very well done in my opinion).

I doubt this judge will allow the defense to question the jurors, but hopefully he'll at least agree to question them himself and ask written questions proposed by both sides.

Prosecutors in Chicago today dropped all charges against "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett, who had been charged with 16 felonies for allegedly directing a hate crime against himself.

Jussie continues to maintain his innocence. The AP has a curious statement in its article:

It was not immediately clear what prompted the decision to dismiss the case. Typically, a minimum condition of dropping cases is some acceptance of responsibility.

That's obviously wrong. It suggests that cases are never dropped because police make mistakes and the defendant is innocent. Why would a person who has been falsely charged accept responsibility for anything? Shouldn't the police or DA be accepting responsibility for rushing to judgment and filing charges it decides a few weeks later it cannot prove? Innocence may or may not be why Smollet's charges were dropped, but it is a reason many other people's charges are dropped. Not everyone who is arrested and charged is guilty.

There is no statement by the DA's office that they dropped the case because Jussie is innocent. [More...]

I apologize for the lack of open threads recently. It's because I start one and try to include something worthwhile and end up writing half a novel about a topic and then get diverted to something else and never finish it.

So here's an empty open thread, all topics welcome.

Months ago, Michael Avenatti, the abrasive TV pundit and lawyer for Stormy Daniels, was suggesting he should be President. Today, he was charged in Federal Court with two sets of crimes:

Lawyer Michael Avenatti was hit with a one-two punch of federal charges on Monday: an allegation in New York that he tried to extort Nike for up to $25 million and an accusation in California that he misappropriated a client’s settlement money.

....Minutes later, on the opposite coast, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman told reporters that Avenatti had “used legal and extortionate threats with the purpose of obtaining millions of dollars in payments for himself”—an old-fashioned shakedown.

Here is the Press Release from the SDNY. The Criminal Complaint and Affidavit is here. [More...]

We knew Donald Trump wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but who knew he can't even read?

Trump claimed today Mueller's report on the Special Counsel's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and obstruction of justice exonerates him. Attorney General Barr's four page letter contains this direct quote from Mueller's report: (link fixed)

The Special Counsel states that "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."

Either Donnie can't read, or he didn't have the attention span to make it to page three of a four page letter. Take your pick.

Robert Mueller has turned in his report on Russia. What's in it? No one knows. Attorney General Robert Barr says he will update Congress this weekend.

Since there have been no announcements of new arrests, I assume D.Jr. skated on charges of lying to Congress. As soon as Trump announced it's okay with him if Mueller's report gets released, I figured that would be the anti-climatic ending.

Joe Biden has a new gimmick -- he may not only decide to run but he is considering Stacy Abrams as a VP candidate.

Memo to Dems: Stop funding Joe. He is not Obama. He's a crime warrior, especially on drugs. He's got a lousy record on criminal justice issues and has stuck us with some of the worst bills of the last generation. He once bragged in Congress he was tougher than George Bush I on crime. He is a police fan-boy. He's a one-man crime band.

Joe Biden is the self-admitted architect of the worst crime bills in history.

The 1994 crime bill provided tens of billions of dollars to put thousands of additional police on the streets, build new prisons, increase border protection, and fund crime prevention programs. It included several measures — including the Violence Against Women Act and a federal ban on certain assault weapons — that remain popular among many Democrats.

[More...]

As inexperienced, untalented, and "bubble-ized" as we all know the Trump offspring to be, the new book "Kushner, Inc" shows just how much Donald Trump has imperiled the nation with his nepotism and the tawdry list of characters he has appointed and fired. It's hard to take sides when they are all so appalling.

White House staffers mocked Kushner as the “secretary of everything” for his wide-ranging meddling and derided Ivanka Trump’s team as Habi – “home of all bad ideas”.

...John Kelly, formerly Trump’s chief of staff and homeland security secretary, is quoted as dismissing the couple as “just playing government”.

[More...]

Donald Trump has issued his first veto in response to Congress's rejection of his emergency declaration of a border crisis.

It's unlikely Congress will have the votes to override the veto. Still, at least some Republicans refused to go along with Trump's shenanigans.

Donald Trump is asking Congress to pass his budget bill includes $8.6 billion to help pay for his worthless wall.

I do not want a wall. We do not need a wall. Mexico will not pay for a wall. America will not see a dime from El Chapo. Instead, Americans will pay $60,000. a year to warehouse him at Supermax in Florence (assuming that's where he is designated to serve his sentence.) [More....]

Donald Trump's 2020 budget includes $100 million for a project created and led by his daughter, Ivanka Trump, named the Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative. (I wonder how much they paid for the spiffy website.) It will give $50 million to 50 million women in the developing world.

Do we have a math problem here? How is $1 per woman going to help empower anyone?

What exactly qualifies Ivanka Trump for this position? What does she know about women entrepreneurship in countries where working mothers don't have multiple nannies like she does?

I do not want my tax dollars going to any federally funded position led by a child of Donald Trump. Not a single one of them has been proven to have the experience or skill set to lead anything. It's pure nepotism and like everything Trump, just another branding exercise.

Paul Manafort is in the courtroom. He is in a wheelchair. If you are following, let us know what happens. [Added: I returned just as the prosecution was wrapping up its argument. The updates below start with the latest and work backwards.

Update 5:23 p.m: Every prominent sentencing hearing in which the judge grants a downward variance from the advisory sentencing guideline is a good thing in that it will serve as a reminder to every other judge of their ability to do so, and that their job is not to impose a guideline sentence, but one that is sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes of sentencing]. Chief among these factors is the nature of the offense and "the history and characteristics of the defendant."

Every judge must complete the "Judgment" form after sentencing. Part of that form is called a "Statement of Reasons." It lists a lot of factors and asks the Judge to check off the boxes that apply to their decision to impose a non-guideline sentence (called a variance -- a departure is something different.) When the judge completes and submits the Statement of Reasons, it does so under seal (sometimes available to counsel for the defendant). The form itself is not sealed and available on the U.S. Judiciary website. Here is the page with the non-exhaustive list of reasons a judge might choose to vary from and impose a non-guideline reason.

Update: 5:00 p.m. (MT): Manafort is sentenced to 47 months. Quite a departure from the guidelines, which reportedly were 19 to 24 years (according to the Government and Probation.) As a defense lawyer, I say good for Judge Ellis for so publicly recognizing that the advisory guidelines are just the starting point. Judges may not even presume the guidelines to be reasonable. [More...]