As a lifelong student of law, I am trained to check everything thrice and still leave myself wiggle room.

I am, therefore, surprised by people’s chutzpah in holding forth about (even specialised) matters about which they have zero knowledge or experience –or qualifications: +

FIERY OPEN by @JudgeJeanine 🔥“When 100M people vote before an election & a huge portion are mail-in ballots, extraordinary regulatory oversight is required. When election laws are changed for a Presidential Election on the eve of that election, in violation of the

2/ Constitution, extraordinary regulatory oversight is required. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures and leaders. Unfortunately, the AG Bill Barr has proven himself to be anything other than extraordinary. This week, Bill Barr has said that he has not seen fraud

3/ on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election. Really? It’s curious Barr, the head of the DOJ, would affirmatively make a statement on a pending investigation. As a former prosecutor for over 3 decades, I, and virtually everyone similarly situated

4/ know that the DOJ guidelines DO NOT allow comment on investigations. They neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigation, yet Barr actually goes beyond that, and takes it upon himself, in the midst of a presidential election before some states have certified, as

5/ affidavits alleging fraud continue to come in, before electors have even voted, that there is not sufficient evidence. So why would Barr do that? Why would he not continue an investigation as the evidence continues to come in? Why would he even share information on a pending

#BombayHighCourt begins hearing the plea of Lawyers Collective challenging the summons issued by ED for appearance of Sr Adv Anand Grover before them in the capacity of the trustee of the NGO.

@LCHIVWRI
@IJaising
@dir_ed

Bench of Justices SS Shinde and MS Karnik ask ASG Anil Singh where the other Sr Advs are.

ASG: Milords had this been physical hearing, I would have located them, it is difficult during virtual hearing.

All Laugh.

Court states that the officers of ED are willing to come to Mumbai to carry out interrogation and they can proceed with the interrogation subject to the outcome of the plea.

Sr Adv Amit Desai asks the court to note certain facts from the plea.

Desai submits that ED has claimed they do not have certain documents with them. We have submitted those records, these are public records, but we will provide them with whatever additional documents they want.

Desai: So I am submitting that those documents can be sent to the ED, they can go through the documents and then take further course of action.

How about a brief refresher on federal bail, since everyone's got opinions on it this week? Yes?

Okay, here we go. In federal criminal cases, bail is governed by the Bail Reform

/2 Under the Bail Reform Act, a defendant MUST BE RELEASED ON BAIL unless the judicial officer (usually a federal magistrate judge) finds that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure (1) them appearing for trial or (2) the safety of the community.

/3 It's the burden of the government -- the federal prosecutor - to PROVE by CLEAR AND CONVINCING EVIDENCE that the danger element applies, and no conditions can reasonably control it, if the government wants someone detained without bail. Preponderance burden for flight risk.

/4 HOWEVER there are certain statutory categories of crimes where there is a rebuttable presumption that no conditions will prevent flight or danger -- in other words, for those crimes, the burden shifts to the defendant.

/5 The Federal Rules of Evidence don't govern detention hearings and they can and do proceed by "proffer" -- that is, the government saying what they will prove if necessary.

Tonight we have dissents from both Sotomayor and Breyer in the last instance of the Supreme Court waving the matador's cape for Trump's machinery of death without so much as a word of reasoned justification

Trump's DOJ has moved with unseemly haste in order to preempt credible legal challenges, and the Court has happily gone along

"This is not justice"

The Supreme Court did not meet the standard required to grant cert before a judgment by the lower court

The actual reason for the extraordinary haste is that the people have chosen a president who opposes the death penalty, and the 6 bloodthirsty Republican-nominated justices want the executions to happen. But this is not a *legal* reason.