Details of Appeals Hearing‏

Dear Subscriber,

I have the details of the oral arguments which will occur in theappeal of my conviction. Again, it will be happening at the federalcourthouse (844 N. King Street) in downtown Wilmington, Delaware(NOT in Philadelphia*). The case is U.S. v. Larken Rose (casenumber 05-5199), and the hearing will begin at 10:00 a.m., onThursday, September 27th, in courtroom 6A (on the sixth floor).

The hearing should be fairly short. The court has given each side15 minutes for argument, though if the court wants to hear more, itoften goes longer than that. And again, only the search warrantissues (First and Fourth Amendments) will be addressed at thehearing, though my appeal raises other issues in the writtenmotions. As I understand it, a ruling in the case should happen within a few days of the hearing.

So if you want to come along, feel free. As in any appeal, the onlyquestion before the appellate court is whether the trial courtjudge (Judge Michael Baylson) did what he was supposed to do. We'rearguing that he should have granted my motion to suppress, which hedidn't. While I'm at it, let me mention a few more points whichpeople have asked about:

1) If the appeal is successful, I get "unconvicted," but thegovernment could try to prosecute me again. Since I've alreadyserved the sentence, they wouldn't have much to gain by doing so,except for the "making an example" propaganda routine. (On theother hand, they'd have a lot to lose if they tried again and lost.)

2) There are several issues raised in my appeal, any one of whichcan be the basis for the conviction to be thrown out. If we win onthe issue of suppression, however, the government wouldn't beallowed to use anything they got from the 2003 raid of my house(including e-mails in which I say nasty things about the IRS--as ifthat is proof of a crime). In theory the government could still tryme again, but they could use almost nothing they introduced at thefirst trial.

3) If I win (either the government doesn't take it to trial again,or I get acquitted the second time), my conviction disappears, butall I get for the year of wrongful imprisonment is an official"oops." Only very rarely does is a suit for wrongful incarcerationsuccessful. (In addition to the wrongful imprisonment, the courtalso fined me $10,000, which I'm almost finished paying off. If Iwon I'd get that back.)

4) If I win the appeal, am tried again, and convicted again, Iexpect I would just get sentenced to "time served" (what I alreadydid). Since I was coerced into giving them returns pretending Iowed the tax, and giving them lots and lots of money I didn't owe(and entering an installment agreement for what's left), I can'timagine why the sentence would go up the second time around. So the second time around I'd pretty much have nothing to lose.

Sincerely,

Larken Rose
http://www.larkenrose.com

(* Apparently the Philadelphia appeals court is so backlogged thatsome cases, including mine, are being sent to other courthouses.That's why my appeal is happening in Delaware, and it's also why ittook so long to happen at all.)