As we enter 2025, we want to thank all our loyal readers for taking the time to visit Grand Jury Target and read our posts. When we updated our website late in 2022, we moved our blog “in-house,” so to speak, so people looking at our bios could also see what we’ve written about white collar defense issues. While our page views are rounding errors for Google or YouTube, we’re gratified that so many people found our posts helpful.
We love hearing from our readers, so keep the comments/questions/complaints coming. On second thought, I have teenagers and don’t need any more complaints. Please keep the complaints to yourself, thx.
There were plenty of big white-collar cases this past year. The Sam Bankman-Fried/FTX matter ended in a conviction but is on appeal. After the guilty verdicts in the New York state case against Donald Trump, the federal cases against Donald Trump came to a grinding halt following the November election. There were other high-profile public corruption cases against George Santos and Robert Menendez and Hunter Biden. DOJ and defense counsel had a busy year. It will be interesting to see what the new year and new administration brings.
And now, on to our list of our ten most-read posts. Our goal is to defend our clients from government overreach and protect them from overzealous prosecutors. We hope—as always—that our blog is helpful to people under investigation and to the lawyers who are defending them.
#10 Government Employees At Risk: Conflicts of Interest May Be Crimes, Not Just Ethics Violations
As the Trump administration begins later this month, federal employees may be one target of its enforcement effort. This post explores the broad language of the federal criminal conflict of interest statute and how it can be weaponized against federal employees.
This post explores the fundamental contradiction between saying that a plea agreement is a “knowing” agreement and the fact that the defendant decides to plea without having all the relevant information about the strength of the case against him.
#8 OIG Investigations in the Time of Coronavirus: Time and Attendance Fraud by Federal Employees
This is still a hot topic for readers and for the OIG agents, too. We’re still seeing lots of OIG cases about time and attendance, though not as closely linked to Covid-19.
#7 DOJ Lawyer Charged with Violating Six Rules of Professional Conduct: This One Feels Personal
This post describes ethics charges against a former DC Assistant United States Attorney.
#6 What is an FBI 302? The Problematic Nature of FBI Agents’ Interview Memos
There is always a lot of interest in how the FBI conducts its interviews, and how it records those interviews. This post describes how an FBI interview memo can be the start of a world of hurt for the target of an investigation. This is always a popular post, mostly because I think there is a dearth of writing about this topic, even though every criminal defense lawyer will tell you how important 302s are to a criminal prosecution.
#5 Reciprocal Discovery for Defense Lawyers – The Dangers of Rule 26.2 or “Reverse Jencks”
There has not been much written about defense-side discovery obligations, but we’ve seen an increase in the aggressiveness of prosecutors asking for reverse Jencks material. Defense lawyers should be aware of how this rule works and the dangers of getting it wrong.
#4 By Search Warrant or Subpoena, the Government Will Get Your Gmail (and the Numbers Are on the Rise)
This post uses statistics from five years ago (40,000+ subpoenas and search warrants in 2019 to Google alone) and the numbers are on the rise. If there’s a Checklist for Investigations somewhere at DOJ, then one item is “subpoena target’s Gmail account.” We’re seeing an increase in search warrants to Microsoft, Google, Dropbox, Box, and Slack—the government (correctly) realizes that companies and individuals use cloud storage for everything. Physical search warrants are likely not as fruitful as cloud-based ones. And since the tech companies seem particularly unlikely to push back on the new administration’s subpoenas, there is a lot less friction to obtaining vast amount of information.
#3 Can a Defendant Get Attorney’s Fees If He’s Acquitted and There’s Prosecutorial Misconduct?
We continue to see some high-profile examples of prosecutors not following all the rules. Sadly, this post explains the near impossibility of recovering attorney’s fees, even if you were wrongly prosecuted in the first place.
#2 What’s the Deal with a Year-and-a-Day Sentences? Or, Why Defendants Welcome the Extra Day
This post explains why that extra day on a sentence can mean getting out of prison weeks earlier. It’s a small gift from a federal judge.
AND DRUMROLL PLEASE….
#1 How Many Times Can DOJ Try a Case After a Hung Jury? DOJ “Jury Shopping” for a Conviction
This post covers the basics of why a hung jury does not always mean the end of a prosecution. This is always one of the more surprising things that nonlawyers learn about the criminal justice system. DOJ almost always gets a second bite at the apple.
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!