The Justice Department wants to bar Jody Owens' expert witnesses from testifying in his trial next month.
A federal grand jury indicted Hinds County Attorney Jody Owens, former Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, and former Jackson City Councilman Aaron Banks on public corruption charges in 2024. The trial is scheduled to start July 13.
Prosecutors filed a motion to exclude Owen's expert testimony because of a failure to comply with the rules. The expert witnesses and their areas of expertise are:
Caleb Burns: laws, regulations, and practices governing campaign contributions.
Robert King and Jen Sparks: FBI procedures, policies, and strategy
Charles King: Significance of deadlines in government contracting for RFP's and RFQ's
Dr. Mark Webb (M.D.) of Carly Gregg fame: Psychiatric and psychological effects of alcohol on Owens.
The motion claims the defense did not include any opinions with the list of experts. There was no list of cases where said experts testified in the last four years. There are no identifiers for Burns thus the government has no clue where Burns works or lives.
The Justice Department argues it has no idea what expert testimony will be presented in court. The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure require attorneys to provide a complete statement of the expert testimony that will be offered in court. the expert's qualifications, prior testimony, and a list of publications the expert has appeared as an author.
The submission of Burns as an expert witness should be rejected because the "distinctions between lawful campaign contributions" and conduct involving bribery is an "inadmissible legal conclusion." The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held in Marshand Crisler's appeal that campaign contributions can indeed be used to bribe public officials. Such is a question of fact for the jury, not expert witnesses.
Prosecutors argue testimony about FBI policies and practices are not relevant and thus are inadmissible.
Dr. Webb's testiomony should be barred as well:
Rule 704(b) states that “In a criminal case, an expert witness must not state an opinion about whether the defendant did or did not have a mental state or condition that constitutes an element of the crime charged or of a defense. Those matters are for the trier of fact alone.” That appears to be exactly what Mark Webb’s proposed testimony would attempt to do. Furthermore, Fed.R.Crim.P. 12.2(b) requires a defendant to provide notice of expert evidence of a mental condition. “If a defendant intends to introduce expert evidence relating to a mental disease or defect or any other mental condition of the defendant bearing on either (1) the issue of guilt …. the defendant must—within the time provided for filing a pretrial motion or at any later time the court sets—notify an attorney for the government in writing of this intention and file a copy of the notice with the clerk.”
The government concludes the motion by stating the "significance of deadlines" for RPS's and RFQ's is irrelevant to the charges of bribery since neither wire fraud or bribery require the suspect to "achieve the intended goal."
24 comments:
Here we go. Everyone knows the appellate courts don’t really require criminal defense attorneys to play by the rules. Here is a rule, but the criminals don’t have to abide by the rule. Only upside is the appeal will be to the 5th circuit not the ms appellate court of criminal defense attorneys.
What are you smoking @3;14 PM? The MS Appellate Court of Criminal Defense Attorneys? Which one, the Court of Appeals or the Mississippi Supreme Court? Not that it really matters since neither one of them are criminal defendant friendly these days.
The defense should be able to put up any expert they like. Its the prosecutor's job to discredit them. Bring em all.
The crooked D.A. should stick his head between his legs, and start practicing kissing his ass goodbye.
What Sister R doin?!
My GOSH! They got video of the whole thing. A picture is worth a thousand words! These waggly worms on trial just need to plead guilty and save taxpayers money that can be put toward filling potholes!
Sullivan, Ishee, King, McDonald, McCarty, Westbrooks
An effort not even worthy of a "nice try" pat on the back.
Feds filed a good motion. Hopefully judge will agree.
Maybe his strategy is to introduce enough irrelevant testimony and irrelevant facts that is obfuscates the whole ordeal enough to get one juror to get confused???
It's all billable hours. Run meter, run.
4:26, So 1/3 of the appellate court justices and judges have practiced criminal defense at some point in their careers, in addition to being prosecutors, trial judges, plaintiff’s attorneys, insurance defense, family law, and just about everything else involving the practice of law.
I call that well-rounded. But I guess it doesn’t pass your purity test. Take a look at their other 2/3. You’d probably like them better.
They were tricked into taking the money. Even though everything is on video they were tricked, just ask Marion Berry! They tricked him into smoking that crack.
5:15
If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bulls¥!£. Works much of the time.
5:53
Prosecutors get a salary. They don’t have billable hours.
Baxter and Dave are send them to Max Fed in Colorado with Mr. Kozinski!
Why should the defense (or the prosecution) be allowed to do so? That ain't what the rules say; but sounds like you are a defense attorney who doesn't feel like rules are made to be followed.
As the pleadings state, fairly clearly - there are rules about who can be an expert and what has to be provided to 'show' that they really are an expert; that they have something of value to assist the jury in evaluating the evidence.
The reason for those rules are simple - to keep from tainting the jury with crap that has nothing to do with the case, or with the law.
Jody's alcoholism rendered him incapable of reason but he's A-ok to operate as the DA
Billable hours for defense attorneys bright spark.
But only a "part-time" DA.
Jody got it done as Shad's TANF huckleberry.
Where is the money for this expensive defense coming from? They seem to have MADE a lot of money somewhere.
Right? These humble Civil Servants made a killing the same way Bennie Thompson and AOC types become millionaires.
There is a BOATLOAD of $$$ being spent on this defense. Where is it coming from?
Sounds like Jody is approaching this with the same intellectual and professional capacity he practices as DA. Hinds County and Jackson are lost.
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