No new criminal decisions out of the Second Circuit today. But there was one interesting argument that focused on prosecutorial overreach.
The Second Circuit heard argument today in the case of former Connecticut governor, John Rowland, who was sentenced last year to 30 months for trying to conceal his role as a paid consultant in two separate congressional campaigns in Connecticut. It was his second conviction in a decade relating to corruption. Today before the panel (Chin, Winter and Carney), his lawyer accused the government of arguing for an “unprecedented expansion” of a financial accountability law to criminalize legal consulting work that Rowland undertook during the 2012 campaign season. Rowland’s lawyer, Andrew Fish, (embed: http://www.lockelord.com/professionals/f/fish-andrew-l) a former S.D.N.Y federal prosecutor, made prosecutorial over-zealousness a centerpiece of his brief and argument in the case. Read more about the case here: http://www.courant.com/politics/hc-gov-john-rowland-appeal-0316-20160318-story.html.
-Thea Johnson
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