Notable Cases

Eastern District of Michigan Case No.20-20599.

In this case, the Federal District Court in Detroit granted our post-trial motion for judgment of acquittal and dismissed the charges. The government charged the defendant with fraudulently obtaining police reports in violation of the federal wire fraud statute, 18 USC § 1343. The Court granted our motion for acquittal because the police reports were not property and because proof of property is an essential element of federal fraud statutes. We argued, based on recent U S Supreme Court decisions including Kelly v United States, 140 S Ct 1565 (2020), Ciminelli v United States, 598 U S 306 (2023), and Cleveland v United States, 531 U S 12 (2000), that public reports required by law to be made and kept for regulatory purposes are not property within the meaning of federal criminal laws. The government did not appeal.

In Peeler, the Michigan Supreme Court held that a judge appointed as a one-man grand juror may investigate but has no authority to indict; and, that when charged after a one-man grand jury investigation, a defendant has a right to a preliminary examination. The result was dismissal. In proceedings after the unanimous Supreme Court decision, the trial court dismissed the cases against our client and against eight other defendants charged similarly.

These cases arose from investigations of the so-called Flint water crisis. Charges were first filed by the States Attorney General using a traditional complaint and preliminary examination procedure. After an election, a new administration opted to proceed by obtaining the appointment of a circuit court judge to act as a one-man grand juror. A year later, the judge filed indictments in circuit court charging our client and eight others. We moved in the trial court for a preliminary examination and to dismiss and appealed after our motions were denied. The Supreme Court reversed.

The District Court granted our pre-trial motions to dismiss racketeering murder charges in this case arising from allegations of street gang violence in Detroit, including the Attorney General’s authorization to seek the Death Penalty. The Court agreed with our arguments that there was no connection between allegations of local violence and Interstate Commerce sufficient to satisfy the jurisdictional elements of the federal offenses charged in the indictment.

The Supreme Court ruled in this case that a private citizen has a legitimate expectation of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment in digital records of his movements in public spaces. The decision in Carpenter resolved a growing division among courts on the question whether digital records kept by cell phone carriers are merely business records or have Fourth Amendment privacy protection and require law enforcement to establish probable cause to believe the records are evidence of crime in order to obtain their disclosure with a search warrant.

Our client was charged with multiple Hobbs Act robbery offenses and related firearms charges. He was convicted at trial and sentenced to a term of 116 years because of multiple mandatory and consecutive sentences for the firearms convictions. His convictions were affirmed by the Court of Appeals after the decision by the Supreme Court. It relied on application of the “good faith”doctrine that allowed law enforcement to have the benefits of the law as it was before the Supreme Court decision. We continue to litigate the length of our client’s sentence.