War Room: 31 SEALED v. SEALED cases in US Dist. Court (DC) since 01/06

[BurtWorm]

For what it's worth. :shrug:

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/06/12/rove/index.html

Leopold writes: "When told about the 'Sealed vs. Sealed' indictment ... legal experts became intrigued about the case because they say that most federal criminal indictments are filed under 'U.S. vs. Sealed,' and that they rarely come across federal criminal indictments titled 'Sealed vs. Sealed,' which to them suggests the prosecutor felt it necessary to add an extra layer of secrecy to an indictment to keep it out of public view."

Leopold proceeds to quote a "former federal criminal attorney" as saying: "The question here is that nobody who I have spoken to -- top criminal attorneys, law professors, etc. -- is aware of the left part of the case title having been sealed."

Oh, really?

We checked the U.S. District Court's database this morning. Approximately 158 criminal cases have been filed since the beginning of the year, and approximately 31 of them -- or one out of every five -- have been styled "Sealed v. Sealed." And each and every one of these "Sealed v. Sealed" cases contains exactly the same description -- "Case is not available to the public" -- as the one provided for 1-06-cr-128, the case that Leopold suggests may be Rove's.

We asked Truthout's Marc Ash whether he was aware that 30 other 2006 cases carry the "Sealed v. Sealed" designation and whether the existence of such cases doesn't undercut Leopold's latest story. "Well, I think we're into semantics," he said in an e-mail response. "We say 'unusual,' you say 'about one out of every five.' Obviously we've taken a keen interest in '06 cr 128.'"

[kstewart33]

1. Could we just stop posting Leopold pieces until

Fitz makes a decision about rove in the case? I'm tired of reading his nonsense, and of seeing DU get all excited again on the basis of what is arguably bogus reporting.

[originalpckelly]

3. I agree with you.

This is getting ridiculous. What does it take for someone to be discredited? My God, Leopold made us all look like a bunch of idiots, and not just before the freepers, but normal Americans who saw it on CNN and MSNBC.

Leopold has not come forward with any hard evidence to support his story. He simply does not have the credibility anymore to quote anonymous sources.

[Catherine Vincent]

11. Speak for yourself. Leopold didn't make me look like an idiot.

[Warpy]

17. Me either

because a reading of my prior posts will show that my first one on the subject said to wait for confirmation from the MSM.

It's quite likely Leopold's information was correct, but jumping the gun without confirmation and acting like it's a done deal was a mistake.

A sealed indictment can be a powerful tool to make a powerful sleazeball start to sing like a birdie. We'll have to see just how long Fitzgerald is willing to wait as well as just how much of a fanatic Rove is.

In any case, I'm still considering this whole thing a coverup until the indictments are splashed all over the press.

[lyonn]

21. Leo isn't the only one that has been "had" by leakers

Too many so called leaks end up being from the ones who are so against leaks. Plame and Dan Rather are some good examples. It is hard to get too concerned with a blogger than got had when it happens to the MSM all the time.

[Maddy McCall]

25. No, you did that all by yourself.

With a little help from your friends.

[BurtWorm]

9. Many here think Fitzgerald already made the decision.

The point of this post is to suggest that the appearance of a "Sealed v. Sealed" the week prior to the "ROVE HAS BEEN INDICTED" story is not proof positive either that Rove "has been" indicted or that he "hasn't been."

It's a bit odd to sell a piece of circumstantial evidence as a news story, though, isn't it? Especially if you're confident in the big story you're selling...

[durrrty libby]

2. Oh My!!! n/t

[Maddy McCall]

4. I believe. I BELIEVE!!!

K/R

[Karmakaze]

5. Yeah I posted about this earlier...

In fact from my quick Google research, I came up with quite a few dating back many years, so it's not even a new thing. In fact apparently it is used a lot in civil cases.

Now notice something clever Leopold is pulling, something that makes me believe he has been lying all along even more:

The "Sealed V Sealed" comes from the court docket. Of course being a sealed case there is no information about it apart from the docket number. How exactly does Leopold know that this sealed case is actually an indictment? It could be anything. It could be the continuation of an earlier case filed under "Sealed V Sealed".

But to make it fit his story, this hearing has to become the filing of an indictment, even though there would be no way to know that simply becuse the case is sealed!

[leveymg]

6. If Jason's source is someone inside the Court, or even a lawyer

who practices before the DC District Court, he had ought to get himself a new source.

This is embarrassing.

[The Witch]

7. thanks, i couldn't get access to the files...

was really curious about this.

[gratuitous]

8. Okay, less than 1 in 5 since the beginning of 2006

What are the numbers of cases styled "Sealed v. Sealed" prior to 2006? We know for a fact that the Bush administration, in addition to being bungling and incompetent, has been since its very first day in office one of the most secretive. They've overturned sunshine laws by executive fiat, conducted public policy by meetings so secret we're not even allowed to know who attended them (Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force), and even re-classified documents after they were in the public domain. So a sampling of sealed cases that only surveys the first 5½ months of 2006 can hardly be trusted to be representative.

What are the numbers for 2005? 2004? The last three years of the Clinton administration? To say that 31 out of 158 sealed-title cases is sealed for both plaintiff and defendant during 2006 isn't very revealing. Is the just under one in five ratio a big jump? Is it higher or lower as a ratio or a percentage of sealed-title cases that have been filed historically? 158 sealed-titled cases of all kinds in 5½ months sounds like a lot to me, but that's just a gut feeling. How many sealed-title cases are typically filed in a year or half a year?

If Leopold is right, this tactic of filing cases as "Sealed v. Sealed" may be quite new, but once having hit on this novel tactic to hide even more of the public's business, the administration decided to start using on a wider basis, so that now one out of every five sealed-title cases is sealed on both ends. The administration has a track record here, too. Once they figured out that by issuing a signing statement, Bush could sign any bill into law and then overturn or negate it administratively by issuing a signing statement that said he wasn't going to follow the new law.

I'd like a lot more information about sealed-title cases before jumping on Leopold for characterizing "Sealed v. Sealed" cases as "rare" or even unheard-of.

[BurtWorm]

10. Isn't this info in Leopold's story?

If not, why not? After all, he's the guy claiming the existence of "sealed v. sealed" is news.

[gratuitous]

12. I dunno, that's why I'm asking

Can someone enlighten me? Is "Sealed v. Sealed" a long-standing, time-honored practice in federal court, or is it a relatively new phenomenon, one that could reasonably be seen as a logical extension of the Bush administration's obsession with conducting the public's business out of sight of the public's eye?

[BurtWorm]

14. It's not new this year.

I don't know much more about it. I do know that it's odd when a journalist who has claimed to present an accurate story backed up by numerous rock solid sources writes a new piece all about one bit of flimsy circumstantial evidence in an apparent effort to back up his original story.

[onenote]

15. relative common practice in DC Federal court

From a 1998 case: "In this Circuit, proceedings concerning compliance with grand jury subpoenas and objections to subpoenas on the ground of privilege are sealed in the district court. See Sealed v. Sealed, No. 95-446 (D.D.C. filed Dec. 12, 1995), rev'd and remanded, In re Sealed Case, 326 U.S. App. D.C. 317, 124 F.3d 230 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (motion to quash on grounds of attorney-client and work-product privileges), cert. granted sub nom. Swidler & Berlin v. United States, 118 S. Ct. 1358, 140 L. Ed. 2d 509 (1998); Sealed v. Sealed, No. 95-377 (D.D.C. filed Nov. 6, 1995), rev'd and remanded, In re Sealed Case, 323 U.S. App. D.C. 233, 107 F.3d 46 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (action to compel production of subpoenaed documents which were withheld on basis of attorney-client privilege and work product immunity)."

[DancingBear]

13. Well, I'm shocked

Not.

"Semantics."

"24 business hours."

"What we believe..."

What's it gonna take, folks?

What's it gonna take?

[Tin Man]

20. yep, Leopold has really been stretching to keep his big story propped-up

The indictment will become public in 24 hours. No, I meant 24 business hours, i.e. 3 days. Wait, I meant to say it's a sealed indictment. And the Sealed vs Sealed, case 06 cr 128, filed on the day I originally claimed the indictment would be handed down, is almost unprecidented and could only be Gonzales v. Fitz - and that musta been what prevented Fitz from indicting Rove.

In the immortal words of GWB, "Fool me once, shame on you... Fool me twice... err... can't get fooled again!"

[evermind]

22. Um, the line about Gonzales v Fitz was Wayne Madsen's, not Leopold's

The latest truthout article seems to be hinting that 06 cr 128 is really "US vs Rove", if anything.

AFAIK Leopold/truthout hasn't made any reference to a "Gonzales vs Fitz" scenario at all.

[NYC]

16. Thanks. I was wondering how many cases

were filed as Sealed vs. Sealed. You provided the answer of 20%. :)

I had just read the Leopold article, so was curious how often this happens.

[NYC]

18. Interesting essay on Sealed vs. Sealed:

http://www.rcfp.org/secretjustice/secretdockets/pg1.html

...On appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, the court held that the "maintenance of a public and a sealed docket is inconsistent with affording the various interests of the public and the press meaningful access to criminal proceedings."

...However, while the law disfavors secret dockets, they are still used by federal and state courts to hide sealed cases. When an entire case is sealed, rather than individual documents, federal courts either remove the case from the public docket or replace the parties' names with anonymous pseudonyms such as "Sealed v. Sealed." At least 46 U.S. district courts across the country allow for these types of secret docketing procedures. Such a system makes it virtually impossible for the public and press to know what types of cases are being sealed or to challenge the constitutionality of the sealing orders...

From Secret Dockets, The Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press.

I thought it was informative, worth reading.

[leveymg]

19. Thanks for that resource.

Jason might have couched his argument a bit more convincingly if he hadn't focused on the Sealed v. Sealed aspect. That appears to have been an error of ignorance of the basic legal procedure. Makes one wonder if he's getting any competent help at this point.

I'm embarrassed for him.

[alcibiades_mystery]

24. I'm embarrassed for the people that still cling to his bullshit

Just sayin'...

[BurtWorm]

26. I'm really embarrassed for them today.

Unless THIS story is total bullshit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/13/washington/13cnd-leak.html?hp&ex=1150257600&en=e40da3e03155858f&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[BurtWorm]

23. kick