Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller and maybe even Tangerine 2.0 hisself likely sent texts about Abrego’s temerity, in simply asserting his Constitutional and statutory rights. That is what makes out the selective / vindictive prosecution claim. And we will see much of it, unsealed, probably a week before the next federal hearings — in downtown Nashville.
Here’s Mr. Hecker’s six pages of fine argument, of this afternoon — and a bit:
…Going back decades, courts have singled out preservation of the integrity of court proceedings — particularly in criminal cases — as a key reason for the strong presumption in favor of public access. In Richmond Newspapers, the Supreme Court observed that proceedings conducted in private may “undermine public confidence,” because the public will not understand the result and thus may “cause a reaction that the system at best has failed and at worst has been corrupted.” Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555, 571 (1980).
Instead, “[t]o work effectively, it is important that society’s criminal process satisfy the appearance of justice… and the appearance of justice can best be provided by allowing people to observe it.” Id. at 571-72 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted); see also Brown & Williamson, 710 F.2d at 1180 (observing that “secrecy insulates the participants, masking impropriety, obscuring incompetence, and concealing corruption”).
There is an even stronger public interest in proceedings and court records when they address potential government misconduct. See, e.g., Wash. Post v. Robinson, 935 F.2d 282, 288 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (access to judicial proceedings “serves an important function of monitoring prosecutorial misconduct”); Gannett Media Corp. v. United States, No. 22-2160, 2022 WL 17818626, at *3 (2d Cir. Dec. 20, 2022) (“[T]here is a strong public interest in the manner in which criminal cases are conducted, including the handling of any allegations of prosecutorial misconduct during the discovery phase of the case.”).
And the intense public interest in this case further underscores the strength of the presumption in favor of access to the Court’s order. See In re Special Proceedings, 842 F. Supp. 2d 232, 235 (D.D.C. 2012) (observing that the government, after trying “the defendant in the most public manner possible,” cannot seek to “turn this public proceeding into a private one” during ensuing ethics investigation of the prosecutors (emphasis omitted))….
Yep. Buckle up buttercup — the doo-doo’s ’bout to hit the fan. And I’ll be there in mid-January, in Music City… when it does. Onward, resolutely.
नमस्ते
