NYCBA Members Newsletter

Vol. 3, No. 6 March, 2006

Welcome to the March 2006 issue of our Newsletter.

President's Message:

As Winter is about over (officially), I hope that you will picture yourself on a warm evening this coming June at Tavern on the Green, enjoying our outdoor reception, followed by dinner in the glass-enclosed dining room, looking out on Central Park.

This year we will be honoring Gerald Shargel as the distinguished criminal defense lawyer of the year. Justice Michael Corriero will be our guest speaker. And, we will be presenting a special award to Donna Newman and Andrew Patel for their work in one of the most important “terrorism” cases of our time.

I hope you will plan to attend.

Annual Dinner:

The annual dinner will be held on Monday evening, June 5, 2006 at Tavern on the Green, and invitations will be mailed to you in the near future. In the meantime, reservations may be made by sending a check made payable to the “New York Criminal Bar Association,” to Michael K. Bachrach, NYCBA Treasurer, 1040 Avenue of the Americas, 24th Floor, New York, New York, 10018. Payments may also be made by faxing or emailing your credit card authorization to (866) 328-1630 or mbach2000@yahoo.com. The cost of the annual dinner is as follows:

$150/each for Members and their non-attorney guests

$175/each for Non-Members

$1350 for a table for 10, if purchased prior to May 15, 2006

 

Annual Dues:

As a reminder to those who have not yet paid their 2006 membership dues, annual membership runs from January 1st through December 31st each year, and as such membership payments were due to the New York Criminal Bar Association on January 1, 2006. If you have not already paid your membership dues, please do so immediately. Annual dues are $100, and a copy of our Membership Application/Renewal Form is attached to this newsletter for your convenience.

CJA Panel  Application  Period Now  Open:

Please note that the deadline for appointment and reappointment to the Second Circuit's Criminal Justice Act (CJA) Panel ends on April 24, 2006. If you are interested, click here for a copy of the relevant Instructions; and click here for a copy of the Application Form that must be received by the Clerk of the Court no later than 5:00 p.m. on Monday, April 24, 2006.

 

Citing Non-Precedential Decisions:

A major, and somewhat controversial, rule change in the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure is scheduled to take place before the end of this year. The new Rule 32.1 will specifically authorize the citation to non–precedential federal appellate court rulings in briefs filed in all of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, a practice which is presently prohibited by § 0.23 of the Local Rules of the Second Circuit.

The new Rule reads, in pertinent part:

Rule 32.1. Citing Judicial Dispositions.

a) Citation Permitted. A Court may not prohibit or restrict the citation of federal judicial opinions, orders, judgments or other written dispositions that have been:

(i) designated as "unpublished," "not for publication," "non-precedential," "not precedent," or the like; and

(ii) issued after January 1, 2007.

For a more detailed description of this rule change, see "To Cite or Not to Cite to Non-Precedential Opinions," by Howard J. Bashman, New York Law Journal, March 6, 2006.

PACER Now Offering District Court Decisions Free of Charge:

PACER has announced that it has started offering free access to federal district court opinions. This only applies to courts that have installed version 2.4 of the CM/ECF software, and to opinions filed after that version of the software has been installed on the court sites. Federal district courts are still the only place where it's very hard to search for opinions online - and hopefully new feature will allow lawyers to search more easily for recent district court opinions.

 

NYCBA Web Site Features:

Each month, we try to point out some of the latest resources that we have posted on our Website at www.nycrimbar.org/. In keeping with that tradition, we note the following items:

  • Under the Decisions section of our Website, we have posted the transcript of the proceedings in U.S. v. Chapman, No.2:03-CR-00347-JCM-PAL (D.Nev. Feb. 27, 2006), in which Judge Mahan dismissed an indictment due to the Government's flagrant misconduct in its delay in producing over 600 pages of discovery material. The discovery materials were first provided 12 days into the trial. The decision begins on page 38 of the transcript. New York attorney Maranda Fritz represented one of the defendants in that case, Herbert Jacobi, an attorney.



  • On the What's New section of our Website, we have posted a number of new and interesting articles including the following:


    "Use Caution in Negotiating Deferred Prosecution Agreements," by Danial R. Alonso, Esq., that was published in the New York Law Journal on March 1, 2006.


    "New York Federal Judges Among Most Adventurous in Sentencing," by Mark Hamblett, that was published in the New York Law Journal on March 1, 2006.


    "Criminal Law and Procedure," by Abraham Abramovsky, that was published in the New York Law Journal on March 2, 2006.



    News From the Web


    • Comments and Newsletter Contributions Welcome

    Comments on this and future issues of this Newsletter are most welcome, as are your own stories about cases, issues, arguments, events. etc. - whether just a sentence or a paragraph to alert us to a recent development, or a longer piece. Please send your material to Scott Tulman, Chair of the Internet and Newsletter Committee at Tel.: (212) 867-3600 or email: stulman@aol.com - or send your comments by email directly to our committee at: nycrimbar@nyc.rr.com.


    Yours for a better defense,

    Henry J. Steinglass
    President
    (212) 406-7700

    Internet and Newsletter Committee:
    Scott Tulman, Chair
    Harvey Fishbein
     Michael K. Bachrach
    Peter G. Schmidt