"And because Ms. Halligan had no lawful authority to present the indictment, I will grant Ms. James’s motion and dismiss the indictment without prejudice.
That’s a big issue. It should certainly be with prejudice, especially for Comey, because the statute of limitations has run on his actions. A fake prosecutor can’t reset the clock on the statute, can it? That’s not a reasonable legal position.
… However, later language leaves the statute of limitations question open. “I will invalidate the ultra vires acts performed by Ms. Halligan and dismiss the indictment without prejudice, returning Ms. James to the status she occupied before being indicted.” … If that is taken at face value, then the statute wouldn’t get reset.
Disagree. The answer is to dismiss without prejudice. The issue before the judge was, at its heart, whether the prosecutor had the legal authority to bring the indictment. The answer was no. As such, it’s not up to the court to tell the government they cannot bring the case again in a proper manner from qualified prosecutor.
The beauty of the decision is that – by issuing the order in this manner – the government is screwed anyway because (unless they successfully appeal this decision) the statute of limitations has tolled on Comey’s case,so even if Halligan or some other prosecutor were able to bring charges, the window to do so has closed. Case dismissed.
This is essentially dismissing with prejudice without prejudice. The case is over, at least for Comey, unless government is successful on appeal.
That photo looks like she’s trying to escalate to the second level of Starbucks manager.
lol. Those Wikipedia editors are fast.
Edit: now it’s a less spicy “disputed”
They are fairly well known for their distinct lack of fucking around. That is until they decide to fuck around, which is another matter all to itself.
Looks like it was tweaked to say “disputed” instead of “unlawful,” since I imagine the Trump admin will try to fight this.
I mean the “editors” are everyone including me and possibly you and my 8-year old and…
They’re volunteers but they have a big group of editors that maintain and fact check several pages. And you can’t discredit the effectiveness of volunteers because literally every admin/mod on Lemmy are volunteers
I’m not discrediting. I think it works absolutely amazingly well and I think it is one of the wonders/gems of the world. Wikipedia is fantastic, and my point is that it’s because of all of us.
…gun wielding furries who serve their local communities and grant miracles to the needy?
Maybe but I feel like food not bombs aee busy with the food thing
Yes!
Who had Justice by Sheer Stupidity on their Bingo card for 2025?
It’s not entirely surprising. This administration has some of the worst representation that I have ever seen.
The vast majority of their victories in the courts have been due to corruption.
Everyone
Ya I thought that was the free space
U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, appointed by Bill Clinton, so expect that to be their next angle of attack.
Trump always hires C and D tier lawyers because they are the only ones that are willing to work with him. Given that he is president, this carnival of mediocrity often works against weak or unprepared victims. Taking on law experts at the top of their field, who can call on friends who are also the very best at their craft, and assigning someone with no prosecutorial experience just because she makes his peen feel funny, seems ill advised.
the A list attourneys used to work for him, but you see, he has a terrible habit of refusing to pay people for their work (unless they are connected to the russian mob, at least, whom he always pays on time and in full), so most of the top tier lawfirms basically said fuck trump and stopped offering to represent him.
not out of some moral duty, but simply because his documented history of not paying.
The C and D lawyers, though, they are ambulance chasing scumbag scammers. Just being near him and getting on Camera is enough payment for them, so they go through the motions dutifully doing everything he wants… secure in the knowledge once he collapses, They’ll be able to use their association for the next 10+ years to fuck over the everyday idiots that come to them.
The cases were dismissed without prejudice, meaning they can be refiled at a later date.
Five days after the post, Halligan, who had no prosecutorial experience, presented the Comey case to a grand jury. The presentation came days before a five-year statute of limitations on the charges was set to expire.
How does the statute of limitations work after a case is dismissed? Are they still allowed to refile?
IIRC, an indictment that’s thrown out for procedural errors has 6 months from the SoL expiration to fix the indictment, so long as the original indictment was made before the SoL expired.
With the question of whether or not the grand jury actually agreed to indict or just the foreman, the more interesting question is whether or not there even is an original indictment to be fixed.
As with many issues surrounding this administration, I don’t know if we have precedent on something like this. The way they stack up their fuckups on top of each other and make everything legally hazy means they’re either the worst attorneys in America or are really clever. Or, more likely, someone really clever knows how to use one of the worst attorneys in America in an attempt to buy 6 more months to come up with something to justify charging Comey.
Also, they can also now pretend he did something wrong but got off on a technicality. Now that it’s thrown out on procedural grounds, they don’t have to show their lack of evidence.
There was no true bill returned by the grand jury, and nobody in charge with legitimate authority to bring an indictment anyway, so that’s two reasons that there was no indictment. So in the case of Comey, since the statute of limitations was two days from expiring when the non-charges were brought, DOJ is shit out of luck.
They’ll probably take another run at Tish James, though.
That’s probably accurate that there wasn’t a true bill, but it’s one of those things that I don’t think has actually been tested.
The specific circumstances where the foreman signed off on the second indictment with 2 charges instead of 3 without the rest of the grand jury suing the exact bill is really weird. But if it weren’t for the statue of limitations it would be an easy remedy - just take it back to the grand jury.
And if it were a different technical error, there’s a 6- month period after the SoL in which an indictment that’s thrown out of techical grounds can be corrected.
But the combination of the 2 is unprecedented as far as I know, and there’s a legitimate legal question as to whether it’s a bad indictment that should be thrown on on technical grounds (giving 6 months to re-file) or if it simply wasn’t an indictment at all.
And now with the whole thing being thrown out because Halligan isn’t actually a US Attorney, it’s even more confusing - especially when it comes to prosecutorial misconduct she may not have committed since she wasn’t actually a prosecutor.
It’s a fascinating train-wreck.
I am still confused why the judge didn’t clarify the matter. They said to roll back the situation to before the effort was made, but if we take that literally, then basic math says Comey is safe now, and if he is, then his dismissal was effectively with prejudice.
I agree that they won’t be refiled, and that MAGA will probably act like it’s some conspiracy, that the rulings were fake or something, just like any election that MAGA doesn’t win must be fake.
One other reason that they won’t be refiled is that these cases have now been analyzed in public pretty thoroughly now. Any lawyer who is offered the job now knows for sure how high profile it is, and as a result, how likely they are to face some consequences for their actions.
Now now. One big reason they might still be refiled is the need for a distraction. ^Trump diddle little kids^ NEW GRAND JURY PULLED IN COMEY CASE!!
You’re giving way too much credit to the reasoning behind these moves.
These are just about ego of one man, and control.
It really depends on whether Trump remembers he hates Comey and James and starts barking orders to just get it done and if he remembers later that he barked those orders.
I would think statute of limitations refers to date of infraction so it shouldn’t matter. This would be refilling so therefore not allowed. At least that was my take from the LegalEagle episode about it.
I believe they still have to abide by the SoL. So… By Monday or something?
Correct. Bringing the charge didn’t reset the timer or a criminal case could be near perpetual by simply being dismissed and refiled.
Good question. There must be some limit, otherwise you could use refiling as a loophole to keep extending the limitations forever.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that loophole is in our laws
Obligatory I am not a lawyer, but in my reading of the applicable statute, the indictment can be refiled within 6 months of the dismissal, and not an additional 6 months after the statute of limitations expires. While this might seem similar to what the other posters said, this allows prosecutors to prepare on a much longer timescale (6 months vs the ~week they had for the original indictment after Trump fired the AG for the District) AND also allows them to continue to refile even if the indictment is dismissed again (e.g., their incompetence results in another dismissal).
The bigger point is whether there was an indictment at all, if the person who brought it had no legal authority to do so, and if the whole of the grand jury didn’t actually vote on it anyway.
There are about eight grounds for dismissing the whole case. There won’t be coming back from all of them.
Time to disbar Halligan.
Actually, I bet this saves her from any consequences. She wasn’t supposed to have the job in there first place, so all of her unforced errors don’t matter.
They should, but she has the magic ® after her name. So it’s just “Oopsies!”, and then she can go on with her day.
If she knew she wasn’t legally appointed, and did the job anyway, that’d be a major ethics violation.
So are the illegal jury instructions, the tampering with the indictment, the lying to the trial judge (Bondi did that too), and probably a few more.
Ha ha!
