Puerto Rico Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

Judge Pérez-Giménez Rules on Attorney's Fees Inquiry

I strongly suggest reading Judge Pérez-Giménez's Opinion and Order in U.S. v.  Angel González-Méndez, 352 F.Supp.2d 173, 66 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 301 (D.Puerto Rico January 14, 2005) concerning the Government's interest in inquiring as to the source of attorneys fees --pretrial-- in a case involving the robbery of a financial institution and in which none of the stolen funds have been recovered. Defendants apparently have no legitimate income either.  Judge Pérez-Giménez tells the Government that they cannot use the procedure set forth for so-called "Nebbia hearings" (after US v. Nebbia, 357 F.2d 303 (2d Cir. 1966)) for this sort of pretrial investigation. However, and this is important, take a careful look at n. 3 of the opinion.

PRACDL Lawyer's Assistance Strike Force in Action

PRACDL's Lawyer's Assistance Strike Force moved into action a few days ago in the case of US v. Adalberto Brito, Crim. No. 03-146 (DRD). Attorney Juan R. Acevedo-Cruz filed PRACDL's Motion to Intervene, and attorneys Linda Backiel and Rachel Brill filed a Motion to Vacate Order for Hearing and for Other Relief on behalf of counsel Esther Castro-Schmidt. Both motions have been added to the sidebar under "PRACDL Lawyer's Assistance Strike Force" and the background facts are detailed in the Motion to Vacate Order for Hearing and for Other Relief.

You will realize that the Government is simply acting improperly in seeking this investigation, and has -in my view- abused the Court's trust by misleading it and seeking an unfounded and vindictive investigation. The matters raised involve not only the Government's obviously vindictive purpose, but also -and likely more important- the defendant's right to counsel of his choice.

Note: If you have trouble opening the Motion to Vacate Court Order for Hearing and for Other Relief, just try reloading the page, and if that does not work, email PRACDL  and we will send you a copy. For some reason I was able to open it in Acrobat Reader when I got it, but had a hard time opening it from the link after uploading it.