Category Archives/Archivos de la categoría: Articles

Dr. Zapp, My husband is requested by the Southern District of New York for charges of conspiracy to launder money. The only evidence mentioned in the Indictment is phone conversations that took place in Colombia. My husband has never been to the United States. The wiretaps are illegal in Colombia because they were not obtained by […]

By David Zapp

In 2009 a group of Colombians were arrested for extradition and were sent to Combita. The group held a meeting and they agreed that they would not discuss any pre-indictment criminal activity. But as soon as the group trickled up to the United States, one by one, the members of the group folded […]

By Angela Davis

Angela J. Davis is a professor of law at American University. She is a former director of the D.C. Public Defender Service and the author of “Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor.”

Published in The New York Times on August 19, 2012

Prosecutors are the most powerful officials in the criminal justice system. […]

By Nancy Gertner

Nancy Gertner, a former U.S. federal judge, is a law professor at Harvard Law School.

Published August 19, 2012

As The New York Times editorial noted, even in our uber-market economy, certain things should be beyond bargaining, but are not. You can waive your right to a trial by pleading guilty in exchange for concessions […]

By Benjamin Weiser Published by The New York Times

on August 30, 2012

A federal appeals court in Manhattan ruled on Thursday that a man convicted of weapons possession should have been able to tell the jury that the main witness against him, a New York City police detective, had been found to have testified untruthfully in […]

By Paul Cassell Published in The New York Times

on August 19, 2012

Paul Cassell, a former federal prosecutor and federal district court judge, is a professor of law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah.

Under our constitutional system, federal prosecutors will always wield vast power that is essentially unreviewable in court […]

Published in The New York Times on August 19, 2012

Rachel E. Barkow is the Segal Family professor of regulatory law and policy and the faculty director at the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at New York University.

By almost any measure, federal prosecutors wield too much power. Because many federal laws govern similar behavior and […]

Published in The New York Times on August 21, 2012

Federal law allows federal courts to award attorneys’ fees and other expenses to criminal defendants who prove gross misconduct on the part of federal prosecutors. The law — a 1997 amendment sponsored by Representative Henry Hyde, a Republican — is a valuable deterrent to prosecutorial abuse, […]

Defendants should hire lawyers from districts where their cases are pending. If they want to see their lawyers they can in a matter of hours. If they want to see their out of district lawyers, it may take a day or two, maybe even a week.

Of course no defendant thinks of that when he is […]

By David Zapp

“I have already sought out the advice of Gen. Oscar Naranjo, who recently retired as Colombia’s national police chief and is one of the world’s top crime fighters” said Enrique Pena Nieto, Mexico’s president-elect.

Well if the president did that and wants to follow Naranjo’s advice then he knows that to win he has […]

Dear Mr. Zapp,

I am an inmate awaiting extradition in the Picota-Eron jail, Patio 15. I am being detained on conspiracy to commit trafficking of drugs destined to New York State. I am being requested by the Southern District of New York.

I am someone who lacks the means to hire an attorney; I cannot even do […]

Defendant: What is a “Pimentel letter” and what is the difference between that letter and a regular plea agreement?

David Zapp (DZ): The “Pimentel Letter” (called that after the case that talks about the responsibility of the prosecutor to send a letter to the judge when there is no plea agreement but the defendant is pleading […]

By David Zapp

There was a time when criminal defense lawyers advised their clients after reviewing the evidence against him. Now some lawyers and “friends” of lawyers simply advise clients before reviewing the evidence to surrender, plead guilty, and cooperate. Some of these clients don’t even have pending charges. They have to plead to informations, informal […]

Published by The New York Times June 18, 2012

By Peter Lattman

For Goldman Sachs, the insider trading case against a former board member, Rajat K. Gupta, which ended in a conviction on Friday, was distracting and discomforting.

At least until now, it has also been very expensive.

Goldman Sachs has paid for the bulk of Mr. Gupta’s legal defense, which […]

By Juliet Macur of The New York Times

June 18, 2012

Roger Clemens, who intimidated even the toughest batters while becoming one of the best pitchers in baseball history, was acquitted Monday of all charges that he lied to Congress in 2008 when he insisted he never used steroids or human growth hormone during his long career.

The verdict, […]

By William Alden and Azam Ahmed of The New York Times

June 15, 2012

The jury for the insider trading trial of Rajat K. Gupta took only two days to reach its verdict. But the process was not easy, with several jurors saying they felt conflicted.

After fewer than 10 hours of deliberations, the jury found Mr. Gupta, […]

In an editorial in The New York Times earlier this year, the newspaper endorsed a Supreme Court opinion that confirms what many deportees and deportable individuals have always known: deportation law is arbitrary and unfair not to mention heartbreaking.

January 2, 2012
A stinging opinion by Justice Elena Kagan for a unanimous Supreme Court reinforced last […]

What follows is a portion of an opinion by Judge Gerard Lynch, a Court of Appeals judge for the Second Circuit who is one of the finest judges in the country.  He is certainly one of our brightest. It is unfortunate he was appointed to the Second Circuit only because it limits his chances of […]

Below is another portion of an opinion by Judge Lynch, this time on the issue of non bis idem, a subject of much controversy among extradited defendants. On this and many other legal issues, Judge Lynch’s opinions are the last word. Again, I have taken the liberty to condense the decision and edit it to […]

New York Times, March 21, 2012

Criminal defendants have a constitutional right to effective lawyers during plea negotiations the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.

The cases decided Wednesday answered the question: What is to be done in cases in which a lawyer’s incompetence caused the client to reject a favorable plea bargain?

Some 97 percent of convictions in […]