Defending Our Client in the United States Supreme Court

We are proud to file, for our client, a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari in the Supreme Court of the United States of America. The Supreme Court annually receives more than 7000 such petitions, which are requests to review decisions from the appellate court below it.  The Supreme Court agrees to review only approximately 100-150 such lower appellate court decisions. We have only petitioned the Supreme Court once before and weren’t successful. We hope that it will be different this time around. 

Our client’s case impacts fairness and due process for all criminal defendants because the trial judge refused to allow our client’s trial attorneys to review the judge’s instructions before giving them to the jury. The lack of review created confusion for the jurors and deprived our client of his due process because the instructions given to the jury were different than what the judge originally had said he’d deliver. The different jury instructions led to our client’s conviction and his eventual seven-year prison sentence. 

The lower appellate court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, denied our request for a retrial. Thus, we have asked the Supreme Court to review the Second Circuit’s decision denying our request for a retrial. 

We hope the Supreme Court will agree to hear this matter because it impacts fundamental fairness. If a trial court judge can change jury instructions without notifying the parties beforehand—it is our position that doing so without notification is fundamentally unfair and deprives criminal defendants of their due process. In a criminal case, where the stakes are of the ultimate variety—loss of freedom—such due process violations can’t be forgiven. 

Click here for a link to our Petition in the Supreme Court of the United States of America.