{"id":1593,"date":"2017-02-12T00:07:44","date_gmt":"2017-02-12T00:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sentencing.net\/?p=1593"},"modified":"2019-11-08T14:15:44","modified_gmt":"2019-11-08T19:15:44","slug":"ex-parte-communications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sentencing.net\/trial\/ex-parte-communications","title":{"rendered":"Ex Parte Communications By Judge With Jury Required Reversal Of Convictions"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

At Martin Bradley III\u2019s trial for racketeering, mail fraud, wire fraud<\/a>, and money laundering<\/a>, the district court had two ex parte<\/em> communications with the jury. Bradley\u2019s defense lawyers did not become aware of notes until after his appeal. Bradley filed a 2255 motion<\/a> arguing, in addition to other things, that the court had violated Rule 43(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure by communicating with the jury without his knowledge. Under Rule 43(a) \u201ca criminal defendant is entitled to be present at all stages of his trial, including the stage when the court responds to notes from the jury.\u201d Fed. R. Crim. P. 43(a).<\/p>\r\n

The Eleventh Circuit agreed with Bradley that the court had erred in communicating with the jury ex parte<\/em>. However, the Government countered that Bradley\u2019s claim was procedurally defaulted because he could not \u201ccause\u201d and \u201cprejudice\u201d for not raising the claim earlier. Under the “procedural default” rule, a defendant is required to raise claim at sentencing and on direct appeal for the claim to be considered later\u00a0in a habeas proceeding (tip: if a claim is raised and decided on direct appeal, however, the claim will likely be barred from consideration in habeas on “relitigation” grounds).<\/p>\r\n

The court of appeals disagreed and found \u201ccause\u201d because, while the jury notes were filed on the docket after trial, defense counsel \u201chad no reason to suspect substantive ex parte<\/em> communications by the district court as a result of non-disclosed jury notes and therefore had no reason to scour the docket for evidence of such communications.\u201d In many ways, the court gave Bradley’s attorney “a pass” for lack of diligence that is rarely afforded to\u00a0pro se<\/em> federal prisoners.<\/p>\r\n

Nevertheless, the appeals court only found \u201cprejudice\u201d with respect to Counts 1-53 of the charges. The court ordered that Bradley be re-sentenced if the Government chose not to retry these counts. United States v. Bradley<\/a> III, No. 14-10463 (11th Cir. 2017).<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At Martin Bradley III\u2019s trial for racketeering, mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering, the district court had two ex parte communications with the jury. Bradley\u2019s defense lawyers did not become aware of notes until after his appeal. Bradley filed a 2255 motion arguing, in addition to other things, that the court had violated Rule…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[321],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nEx Parte Communications | Reversal of Convictions<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ex parte communications by judge with jury required reversal of defendant's convictions, the Eleventh Circuit recently held.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sentencing.net\/trial\/ex-parte-communications\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ex Parte Communications | Reversal of Convictions\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" 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