Crime and punishment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

• On Wednesday, Smith reported that Sowers said in an interview that “he deposited the cash he’d made in the increments in which it had been earned. If the deposited amounts often ended up being a little under $10,001, he explained, that’s just the way it worked out and he [had] no intention of breaking the law.”

  On the other hand, according to Smith’s summary of the federal complaint yesterday, Sowers is said to have told federal investigators during a February 29 interview “that ‘during the farmers’ market “season,” his weekly cash receipts were on the order of $12,000 to $14,000,’ yet ‘he kept his cash deposits under $10,000 intentionally so as not to “throw up red flags.”‘ He also told the agents that ‘he was advised by a teller at the bank that the deposit of more than $10,000 in cash would lead to the filing of a form, and that he decided from that point forward not to make deposits in excess of $10,000,’ according to the complaint.”

• “Historically, the anti-structuring statute has been used by prosecutors as an ancillary charge with other accusations of nefarious behavior, such as drug dealing or terrorism. And it still is. But over the last few years, prosecutors have started to use it more regularly as a standalone charge — an observation noted by defense attorneys that Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein confirms. Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data center about federal court cases, reports that in fiscal year 2011 Maryland brought 14 of the nation’s 99 structuring cases, making it the top state for such prosecutions. Nationally, the numbers have been rising; the 2011 figures are up 8.8 percent from the year before and up 57.1 percent from five years ago.”
• Targets in Bank Secrecy Act forfeiture cases — which, to repeat, need not be premised on any suspicion of tax evasion or other criminality unrelated to the Act — have included Maryland “gas stations, liquor stores, and used-car dealerships.” “South Mountain is not the first seasonal-produce market to find itself targeted for structuring recently. Taylor’s Produce Stand, on the Eastern Shore, was stung last year after the feds seized about $90,000 from its bank accounts. In December, pursuant to a civil-forfeiture settlement agreement after no criminal charges were filed, the stand’s owners got back about half of the seized money.”
• And this clue as to why the U.S. Attorney’s office in Maryland might be outperforming its colleagues nationwide in pushing BSA forfeitures: the forfeiture complaint against the Sowerses was “signed by assistant U.S. attorney Stefan Cassella – who literally wrote the book on federal forfeiture law.”

Update: Baltimore City Paper on South Mountain Creamery case is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Follow-up from the Post on the Justice Department’s lack of transparency; and see my colleague Tim Lynch’s post at Cato.

Hair-raising is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“We know only one category as prosecutors, and that is a ‘V.’…It’s ‘V,’ for victim”. is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Relatedly, Tom Maguire at Just One Minute explains his reasons for doubting that Corey has developed breakthrough evidence in the investigation so far. David French and Andrew McCarthy at NRO take sharply different views of how well the prosecution affidavit supports its charge.

And Ken at Popehat isn’t impressed at all by the prosecution’s handiwork so far: “The affidavit is argumentative, it’s conclusory, and it lacks attribution. … This is not the worst affidavit I’ve ever seen — but it’s damn close, and the decision to proceed based on it in such a high-profile case is stunning. … There’s no way that a judge reading this affidavit can make an intelligent or informed decision about the sufficiency of the evidence — even for the low hurdle of probable cause.”

More: Jeralyn Merritt on the affidavit’s unsupported assertions [via Balko] And via Steele, Legal Ethics Forum: George Conk “sensed trouble when Florida Special Prosecutor Angela Corey announced she would not convene a grand jury, skipping the first means of testing one’s evidence and demonstrating recognition of the citizenry’s right to [gauge] the conduct of prosecutors.” “Zimmerman should not be charged, nor sitting in a county detention, based on this document; yet there he is.” [Empty Wheel] Yet more: Radley Balko on the unchecked charging power of prosecutor [HuffPo]

Martin/Zimmerman: the Murder Two rap is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

P.S.: WSJ editorial on the subject; responsive letter from former prosecutor Richard Beckler.

Gun shows are nests of lawbreaking! Or maybe not is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

America as “prosecutocracy” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Labor and employment law roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Trees are ubiquitous, are transformed into thousands of byproducts, and pass through dozens of countries. Whereas even a small U.S. importer would know not to import a tiger skin, tracking a sliver of wood (now transformed into a toy, or an umbrella) through this maze of countries and manufacturing laws back to the tree it came from, would be impossible.

Furniture maker Ikea noted that even if it could comply with the change, the “administrative costs and record-keeping requirements” would cause furniture prices to “skyrocket.” The wood chips that go into its particleboard alone could require tracking back and reporting on more than 100 different tree species.

Which is exactly what the Lacey expanders wanted.

The WSJ also recently interviewed Gibson Guitar CEO Henry Juszkiewicz [related, Reuters; earlier] while Pat Nolan points out how the feds’ raid on the facility points up many evils of unbridled prosecution power [NRO] Musicians and others held a “We stand with Gibson” rally and concert [Mark Perry, rally pics] As for press coverage, Andrew Revkin at the NYT notes that outrage over the raid is energizing those horrid “anti-regulatory campaigners” ["DotEarth"] while an op-ed contributor at the paper explains that (not to sound like those same awful campaigners!) the operation of the Lacey Act does indeed menace innocent artisans who make musical instruments [Kathryn Marie Dudley] Tim Cavanaugh finds the L.A.Times strumming a derivative ideological tune, while Radley Balko notes, in a police-restraint-for-me-but-not-for-thee vein, that a reporter arrested at Occupy Nashville had mocked concern over the gun-toting Gibson raid. More: ABA Journal.

Kim Strassel: “Stringing Up Gibson Guitar” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Prosecution roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system