Wilkes Will Get an Enemy Combatant Lawyer for His Extraordinary Rendition-Related Trial

by emptywheel

At least that's what I infer from the comments of the lawyer from the public defender's nonprofit that will now take on Wilkes' defense in one of two cases (thanks to chrisc for sending this on) he has been charged on.

A lawyer from Federal Defenders of San Diego Inc., a nonprofit that represents indigent people accused of federal crimes, will represent Wilkes in the criminal case with co-defendant Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, the former third-highest-ranking official at the CIA.

[snip]

Federal Defenders of San Diego has several experienced lawyers who have cleared stringent background checks, Frank Mangan, the nonprofit's senior litigator said in an interview. The attorneys have worked on cases of enemy combatants accused of terrorism and who are being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Mangan said.

One of the office's 40 lawyers will appear with Wilkes at a hearing scheduled for next month. At that point, Burns is expected to set a new trial date in 2008.

At issue is that Wilkes' selected lawyer, Mark Geragos, refused to get a security clearance in a case in which one of the charged crimes has to do with Wilkes and Foggo setting up an air service of the type the CIA uses to conduct its extraordinary renditions. The judge in the case, Larry Burns, threw Geragos off the case and, after reviewing Wilkes' financial declaration, decided that Wilkes is now indigent and will have a government-paid lawyer. I kind of like the karma that Wilkes will likely be defended by a guy that has also defended the kinds of people Wilkes aspired to deliver unto torture.

The prosecutors in the case asked--but were refused--to see Wilkes' financial declaration. I gotta say I'd like to see it, too. I bet you a quarter that Wilkes has stashed some funds off in a foreign bank account somewhere, for after he gets out of prison.  Burns seemed unwilling to show the declaration to prosecutors not least because the prosecutors are trying to prevent the hearing transcripts concerning Tommy Kontiagiannis' plea deal from being unsealed. As we saw over the weekend, there's a good deal of evidence floating around showing that Kontogiannis has loads of illicit money lying around, so the effect of both financial declarations would likely be the same.

One more, unfortunate, detail. I'm going to be at a conference with Geragos at the end of September--originally, Wilkes' first trial (the one involving John Michael, which has been a genuine leak-fest on all sides) was supposed to start before then. Unfortunately, that's been moved to October 1, which means Geragos won't have any trial-related doozies to share at the conference. Well, not from this trial, anyway.

Comments

[bmaz]

There are some fantastic lawyers in the SD Alt Defenders, as there are in most all Federal Defender groups. Wilkes will be in capable hands. Does this really mean that Geragos is totally off the case; or is just no longer the named counsel of record? I could be full of it, but I didn't recall Burns' order totally making that clear.

[emptywheel]

Oh, I don't doubt that lawyers at SD Alt Defenders are capable. So capable, in fact, that any animosity they might have for Wilkes--for his willingness to fly people away so they can be tortured in places that have no respect for human dignity, all in the name of making a buck--will not prevent them from giving him a really healthy defense.

As to Geragos, he's still on teh Michael/Cunningham side of the case. So He's likely to remain involved. I'm just curious how Wilkes is paying him, thetn.

[Mary]

There are some interesting overlaps in the prosecution's efforts in Kontiagiannis' case and in the ACLUs FISA requests. When does a court get to decide what of the judicial "workproduct" is classified and when does Congress or the Executive set the standard.

Still, this is kind of odd: "The prosecutors in the case asked--but were refused--to see Wilkes' financial declaration" How can they object if they don't have the info. OTOH, who wants them to go roaming through the courthouse with their little classified stamp, retroactively trying to make any info big brother wants suppressed "classified" no matter what its source, origin or use.

I still think the truly classic case was the very wealthy pilot guy who wouldn't provide info and got charged and the prosecutors had the nerve to stand before the court and say that there WAS a law that required that he provide the info, but the law was classified and the court would just have to trust and believe them that such a law existed and that it wasn't necessary for the court to see the secret law to apply it the way the prosecutors said it should be applied.

Or no, wait, the classic might be where the Prosecutor's argued that Padilla was not authorized to see his own interrogation responses that he generated himself, because his own words were too classified for him to see them.

Or no, wait . . .

I could get behind that "English only" thing of the Republicans if it meant that they would agree to drop the K from Amerika.

[bmaz]

As to payment; I don't know about Mark, but my partner and I never signed on to a huge criminal defense case without having a big chunk paid up front and non-refundable. That way, if you never get any further payment, you are at least minimally protected. Once even took a nice airplane as the up front non- refundable retainer....

[bmaz]

Heh heh; Mary you are on a roll...... don't stop!

[emptywheel]

bmaz

Ahhh. Wilkes was moving his assets around (and divorcing his wife--or at least legally separating) last December into May time frame. So it's possible Wilkes paid Geragos at that point and made the rest of his assets unavailable to himself.

Of course, one interesting tidbit is that--as far as we know--Foggo remains the trustee on at least one of the insurance policies on Wilkes.

[bmaz]

Criminal defense is one of the few areas of the law that permits this type of fee structure, i.e. flat fee or flat fee plus.

[do-si-do]

Geragos is probably not bothered by getting kicked off the case, he's a bit of a publicity hound. I don't know what he brings to the party other than a charming personality. Just an observation. It might be impolite to bring up Scott Peterson, Winona Ryder, Michael Jackson, just to name a few...But I'll bet you all know this already!