[U: 24 Page PDF Filing Linked] Friday Filing — Probably Should Accept Conviction On “Overwhelming” Evidence Of Wire Frauds.

As it happens, in a news hole Friday night on a holiday weekend filing, her defense team made a motion to void / overturn her convictions — for (wait for it!)… lack of evidence.

Read Business Insider on it — I won’t bother to quote it, but you may download, the 24 page PDF of the Team Holmes filing (as it is a certain loser):

…Because no rational juror could have found the elements of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud beyond a reasonable doubt on this record, the Court should grant Ms. Holmes’ motion for judgment of acquittal….”

Uh-huh. I might observe that no rational juror could have found against the counts on which she saw convictions.

So it goes. She will be sentenced in mid-September. Thus, this is likely to be her last summer of freedom, with her little son Will — in many, many years — maybe even… decades.

Out.

Essentially All Of Ms. Holmes’ Previously-Sealed Documents/Filings Will Be… Unsealed.

With the exception of direct doctors’ reports, since she did not put her medical diagnosis formally in issue at trial — and with respect to juror questionnaires filled out by the jurors (the sealing of which no one opposed)…

Essentially all the formerly sealed documents will now be unsealed promptly, on the public docket.

Her specific medical / private identifying information will remain redacted — but the press will now have access to… all of it.

Thank you, Dow Jones.

[O/T] There Was A Time… When The Real GOP At Least Claimed To Frown On Direct Bribes — In National Election Runs. No More, Apparently. Cruz Decision Published At SCOTUS, 6-3.

Just go ahead and read it. I’ll explain the context at the end.

…Serious dangers of actual and apparent quid pro quo corruption attend the transactions Section 304 regulates—again, the use of post-election contributions to repay a candidate’s personal loans. Consider a simple comparison.

When a campaign uses a donation to fund routine electoral activities (including speech), the money marginally aids the candidate’s electoral odds, but in no way adds to his personal wealth. By contrast, when a campaign uses a donation to repay the candidate’s loan, every dollar given goes straight into the candidate’s pocket. With each such contribution, his assets increase; he can now buy a car or make tuition payments or join a country club—all with his donors’ dollars. So contributions going to loan repayment have exceptional value to the candidate which his donors of course realize. And when the contributions occur after the election, their corrupting potential further increases. At that time, a campaign can use donations only to repay loans, of which some 97% come from candidates. See 11 CFR 110.1(b)(3)(i) (2017); A. Ovtchinnikov & P. Valta, SelfFunding of Political Campaigns, Management Science, Articles in Advance 5 (Apr. 7, 2022) (Ovtchinnikov, Self-Funding).

So post-election donors can be confident their money will enrich a candidate personally. And those donors have of course learned which candidate won. When they give money to repay the victor’s loan, they know—not merely hope—he will be in a position to perform official favors. The recipe for quid pro quo corruption is thus in place: a donation to enhance the candidate’s own wealth (the quid), made when he has become able to use the power of public office to the donor’s advantage (the quo). The heightened threat of corruption—and, even more, of its appearance—is self-evident (except, it seems, to observers allergic to all campaign finance regulation).

In addressing that special danger, Section 304 is anything but a “prophylaxis-upon prophylaxis,” as the majority labels it. Ante, at 14. The idea behind that fancy-sounding epithet is just that the statute is a needless precaution: The $2,900 contribution ceiling, the majority asserts, already provides generous protection against the corrupting potential of donations, so the loan repayment provision is unnecessary. See ibid. But that claim ignores that Section 304 targets only a subset of contributions, which raise (as just described) unique corruption risks. When an added protection addresses an added danger, the existence of a basic protection (however ordinarily ample) fails to show the supplement’s pointlessness. Regular seatbelts might suffice to protect drivers on the interstate, but special belts—and roll cages to boot—are essential measures on the racetrack. So too, a $2,900 cap might suffice to prevent corruption from normal campaign contributions—but not from post-election contributions to repay a candidate’s loan, and thus to enrich him personally. When Congress, as here, responds to a heightened threat with a heightened safeguard, the majority has no call to “greet” it “with a measure of skepticism….”

So here, in favor of Ted Cruz’s open, knowing and willful violation of federal statutes regulating using direct bribes to handle post election day unpaid personal loans to a campaign from a candidate… the majority (not this able three Justice dissent I’ve quoted above) finds it a burden on speech, too great to be borne, and rewrites a Congressional statute specifically against paying quid pro quo bribes. For this court majority… direct bribes are… just speech.

The conservative Justices want direct bribery to be the norm in national elections. There can be no other understanding of the line by line “rewriting” of what Congress decided was “conduct” — a crime — (not speech).

Just… damn. This, because there is no Elizabeth / Martin litigation news, today. Cheers.

Dow Jones’ Hearing To Unseal Ms. Holmes Trial Records, Is Thursday — We May Live Blog From The Courtroom.

We will listen in at 6 pm Eastern, on Thursday. If we hear anything really good, we may open a live blog of it:

…CLERK’S NOTICE. PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that the Hearing on [1353] Motion to Unseal Documents is set for 5/19/2022 at 3:00 PM in San Jose, Courtroom 4, 5th Floor before Judge Edward J. Davila….

That is all. Go, now — and be excellent to one another.

Dow Jones’ Motion Hearing — In A Few Days: May 19 @ 3 PM PDT…

Dow Jones has a hearing, on getting the bulk of Ms. Holmes’ trial materials unsealed, later this month.

Ms. Holmes has waived being present for that hearing — so we won’t cover it.

But we should see a whole lot more of the trial documents shortly after it, in at least redacted form.

That was implicit in the able USDC Judge Davila’s prior orders.

Onward, smiling… into a warm breezy spring night.

The revised masthead makes plain that Ms. Holmes’ freedom likely ends on September 26, 2022. Be excellent to one another — and enjoy your freedom. Out.