"Love is all you need. "
John Lennon.
A little business on a holiday:
Roy Black has a new case: A billionaire West Palm beach Polo enthusiast blew a stop sign in his Bentley and sent a 23 year old young man who had just graduated college into a canal in the Hyundai he was driving, killing him.
SHARPSTEIN AND SHOHAT WIN A BIG ONE.
Sharpie and Shoat got an unusual acquittal on Friday. Representing former top DEA Agent Tom Raffanello on charges he destroyed documents for former Boss/Billionaire Allen Stanford, whose company had received a federal subpoena, visiting Judge Richard Goldberg issued a Rule 29 acquittal after the jury, in the middle of deliberations, sent out a note asking if they could convict one defendant on the substantive charge while acquitting him on the conspiracy.
The Judge, who had previously called the evidence weak, and had reserved on the JOA motions, apparently had had enough with the jury system and took matters into his own hands, issuing the acquittals for all defendants before the jury had the chance to return a verdict.
This is different from what happened in Broward with Lebow. That case has been generating much of the discussion on the blog these past two weeks. But it is highly unusual for a Judge to issue an acquittal during deliberations- and extraordinarily unusual in light of the jury's note.
Ace Federal Blogger David Markus has continuing coverage of this unfolding story here.