The DOJ bought benchslapped once more final evening by federal Justice of the Peace Choose Zia Faruqui. The beatdown got here within the case of Kevontae Stewart, a DC resident who was sitting in his automotive on September 17, smoking a joint and bothering nobody, when ATF brokers began hassling him. Prosecutors filed a felony grievance alleging that Stewart fled and tried to do away with a gun, which he was not permitted to own attributable to a previous felony conviction. However the grand jury didn’t purchase it, and the DOJ bought no-billed, as they’ve executed repeatedly since Jeanine Pirro bought sworn in as US Legal professional for the District and began charging each particular person she may get her fingers on with pissant nonsense.
However Pirro was feeling fizzy as a field of Franzia left within the solar, so on September 26, the identical day prosecutors bought no-billed by the federal grand jury, her workplace took Stewart’s case to an area grand jury convened by DC Superior Courtroom. That panel was extra cooperative, and on September 29, the DOJ tried to current the native indictment to Justice of the Peace Faruqui. After which all hell broke unfastened.
“This want to only in any respect prices get folks charged and arrested is shedding, every single day, credibility earlier than the courtroom,” Choose Faruqui railed, including, “You possibly can’t even get grand juries returned now, as a result of the general public appears to have misplaced all religion within the course of.”
The courtroom refused to just accept the indictment and ordered briefing on the legality of utilizing a DC Superior Courtroom grand jury to return an indictment in federal courtroom, a course of the courtroom described as doubtlessly illegal and at a minimal unseemly.
However Pirro’s workplace didn’t file a response — or no less than not instantly. First it demanded to talk to the supervisor, docketing an emergency movement to vacate Choose Faruqui’s briefing order. The federal government insisted that the Justice of the Peace’s position is only ministerial, and thus the courtroom had no discretion to reject the indictment. However they bought no pleasure from Chief Choose James Boasberg, who refused to countermand the briefing order, instructing prosecutors to enchantment any ultimate order in the event that they had been nonetheless mad about it.
The federal government’s place is that D.C. Code § 11-1916 empowers an area grand jury to “take cognizance of all issues introduced earlier than it no matter whether or not an indictment is returnable within the Federal or District of Columbia courts.” They level to US v. Seals, a 1997 DC Circuit case during which the courtroom allowed federal prosecution when the grand jury indictment was procured by a jury convened by the DC Superior Courtroom. However, as Stewart identified in his personal transient, that case preceded the adoption of the Federal Guidelines of Prison Process by 5 years. FRCrP 6 empowers “the courtroom” — i.e., a federal decide — to impanel a grand jury. And as Choose Faruqui identified in his order dropkicking this indictment, FRCrP 1 particularly states that DC Superior Courtroom judges are not federal judges.
There’s additionally the minor matter that, not like on the time of Seals, the procedures for choosing DC and federal grand juries are usually not the identical. And … is the DOJ significantly arguing {that a} native statute can bind the federal judiciary? WTF?????
“This litigation and the delay attributable to it may have been prevented if the federal government had merely gone to one of many different federal grand juries. That escape hatch stays open at present,” Choose Faruqui concluded. “At any time, the federal government can brief circuit this dispute by taking their federal cost earlier than a federal grand jury. The query then is why are they now afraid to take action?”
The federal government huffily proclaims that it’s going to enchantment once more to Chief Choose Boasberg. But when they guess mistaken, they’re going to be in a wee spot of trouble. They’ve bought 30 days from September 18, the date of the unique grievance, to indict Stewart, the poor man smoking a J in his personal automotive who wound up in the midst of this ridiculous pissing match.
Good factor he wasn’t driving 119 mph in a 65, or he could be in actual hassle.
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore the place she produces the Regulation and Chaos substack and podcast.
