Archive | conflict of interest

United States v. Ventry, No. 06-3104-pr (2d Cir. August 15, 2008) (Cabranes, Wesley, CJJ, Castel, DJ).

In this appeal from the denial of a 2255 motion, the circuit faulted the district court’s finding that Ventry’s counsel did not suffer from a conflict of interest. It remanded the case for further proceedings to determine the nature of the conflict and consideration of whether Ventry was prejudiced by it.

Background

Ventry was a suspect in robbery in the Niagara Falls area. After he received a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury, he confessed to his girlfriend, Christine Janik. When Janik was interviewed by an FBI agent, she told the agent when Ventry had said, and signed a written statement, although she later testified that she had felt pressured to make the statement. Janik then told Ventry what she had done and, that same day, broke up with him.

Ventry’s father …

United States v. Hasarafally, No. 06-4239-cr (2d Cir. June 12, 2008) (Cardamone, Sotomayor, Raggi, CJJ)

The defendant moved in the circuit to disqualify the entire justice department from representing the government on this appeal, because the judgment under review was rendered by Judge Mukasey, who is now Attorney General.

The court denied the motion. It began by noting that there was “very little precedent” on the “potential conflict of interest created by the transition from judge to prosecutor.” The court surveyed a few possible areas of conflict, but skipped the most obvious one: A prosecutor will be unlikely to confess error on appeal if he was the trial judge in the case.

In any event, here there is no possibility for conflict because, the government advises, the attorney general has recused himself “from all matters in which he participated as a United States District Judge.” Thus, he will play no …