Feds charge Boosie again after 9th Circuit vacates controversial gun ruling
Boosie was the first felon to have his gun charge dropped under a new 9th Circuit ruling, but the court vacated that ruling pending en banc review.
Federal prosecutors in San Diego have secured another criminal indictment against rapper Torrence “Boosie Badazz” Hatch after the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals vacated the opinion that ended his previous gun case.
Boosie is to be arraigned next week on one count of felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition and one count of unlawful user/addict in possession of a firearm and ammunition.
On July 12, he became the first felon to have his gun charge dismissed under a 9th Circuit decision that said nonviolent felons can lawfully possess firearms under a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
At the time, the 9th Circuit hadn’t decided whether to review the case, United States v. Steven “Shorty” Duarte, en banc, meaning 11 judges decide the opinion instead of three, but U.S. District Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo said it didn’t matter because the 2-1 Duarte ruling still was valid.
That changed on July 17, when the 9th Circuit judges voted to rehear the case en banc and vacated the original opinion. In a rare move, Judge Lawrence Van Dyke, a 2020 Donald Trump appointee who concurred with first opinion as a member of the three-judge panel, wrote a 12-page dissent that said, “In the Ninth Circuit, if a panel upholds a party’s Second Amendment rights, it follows automatically that the case will be taken en banc.”
“I continue to dissent from this court’s Groundhog Day approach to the Second Amendment,” Van Dyke wrote, adding that “perhaps no single Second Amendment issue has divided the lower courts more than the constitutionality” of gun restrictions on certain nonviolent felons in the wake of the 2023 Supreme Court ruling
Boosie’s lawyers knew en banc review was likely, but they didn’t expect prosecutors to charge him again unless the Duarte ruling changes to say that nonviolent felons can be restricted from possessing guns. Oral argument is scheduled the week of Sept. 23 in San Francisco, but the case also could go to the Supreme Court.
However, two days after the 9th Circuit vacated Duarte, prosecutors filed a new grand jury indictment against Boosie that includes the gun charge and a new charge alleging he possessed the gun while addicted to drugs. The second charge is seldom seen in U.S. District Court, but it drew widespread attention recently because it was among President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden’s three felony convictions in his Delaware trial.
Boosie said on social media that he learned of the new charges from his lawyer while he was vacationing with his family.
“THIS SHOWS HOW FAR THESE DEVILS WILL GO TO TRY N STOP A SUCCESSFUL BLACK MAN WITH a VOICE .THIS MAN HAS A SERIOUS VENDETTA OF HATE AGAINST ME,” he wrote on X.
His lawyer Meghan Blanco said she’s “frankly just shocked by the fact that the government decided to move forward with charges now.”
“They refused to wait until the end of 2024, when we’re going to get clear guidance from an en banc entire 9th Circuit panel on this specific issue, as applied to Mr. Hatch,” Blanco told me in a live interview on my YouTube channel. “Why they decided to move forward in this manner, you can all make your own assumptions just given, you know, what’s been going on.”
Prosecutors wanted Boosie jailed on a new arrest warrant, but Judge Bencivengo recalled it at Blanco’s request and ordered him to appear in her courtroom on Aug. 2 at 10:30 a.m.
Boosie was in San Diego for a concert on May 6, 2023, and was filming a music video when San Diego police saw him on Instagram with a handgun in his back waistband while accompanied by Crips gang members. A police helicopter tracked him through the city, and officers stopped the black Mercedes SUV he was in riding in and found a Glock 19 pistol loaded with nine rounds of ammunition and one in the chamber.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Wheat indicated in January that Boosie could face more charges, and he objected to the rapper being allowed to communicate with his girlfriend. Judge Bencivengo extended the no-contact order for 60 days, but she lifted it after 60 days passed with no action from prosecutors.
Then on May 9, the 9th Circuit issued the Duarte ruling, triggering the dismissal motion that the judge granted on July 12. Wheat did not attend the hearing, and he’d spent the several months in Hawaii trying a major public corruption case that ended in a full acquittal for all defendants. But he never withdrew from Boosie’s case, and on Wednesday, he filed a notice of appearance in Boosie’s new case.
The new charge along with the gun charge accuses Boosie of knowingly possessing a gun and ammunition while also knowingly being a user of a controlled substance and being addicted to a controlled substance. It does not specify the drug, but San Diego police said they found a “suspected marijuana joint” in the SUV Boosie was in.
Blanco said Boosie was regularly tested for drugs as part of his release conditions in the previous case.
“And at no point during any of those tests did Mr. Hatch test dirty,” she said.
Previous articles:
Rapper Boosie is first felon to have gun case dropped under new 9th Circuit ruling
SAN DIEGO — Rapper Torrence “Boosie Badazz” Hatch had someone other than his lawyers and the judge to thank on Friday after his federal gun case was dismissed in San Diego: Steven “Shorty” Duarte, a Los Angeles felon whose …
Boosie tells federal judge about April 1 wedding date as no-contact order with fiancée remains
SAN DIEGO — Rapper Boosie Badazz can’t contact his fiancée for the next 60 days after a prosecutor persuaded the judge in his federal gun case that the restriction may not be the unnecessary intrusion on his rights that she initially said it was. Joining the hearing via telephone, Boosie interjected after U.S. District Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo issued her order on Friday at the federal courthouse in San Diego.
Girardi apologizes to judge after cell phone rings
Disbarred lawyer Tom Girardi made his first public court appearance since January on Friday as his lawyers prepare for his wire fraud trial that begins next month.
The 85-year-old said little in court outside of apologizing to U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton after his cell phone rang during the hearing. He’ll return to Staton’s courtroom on Aug. 6 for jury selection.
Prospective jurors are due at the courthouse next to fill out a questionnaire that will ask about their knowledge of Girardi and his wife, “Real Housewives of beverly Hills” star Erika Jayne. The questionnaire will warn the potential jurors that attorneys may know of their public social media postings.
Judge Staton said Friday that attorneys “may be entitled” to research potential jurors online after Assistant U.S. Attorney Ali Moghaddas asked if she allowed it.
Deputy Federal Defender Charles Snyder said Main Justice filed a brief in “I believe it was the Trump D.C. Case” about the importance of researching jurors on social media. Not all judges allow it: In March, Staton’s colleague U.S. District Judge John F. Walter barred attorneys from researching potential jurors on social media in the public corruption trial of former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan.
Prosecutors also agreed on Friday to instruct their witnesses not to read social media coverage of the trial before they testify after Snyder warned that some “very talented reporters” report near transcripts of trial testimony. He referenced my Twitter coverage of Michael Avenatti’s fraud trial in 2021 and said the testimony was “reported in real time.”
“Whether it’s happening in real time, or whether it’s happening at the end of the day, it is not uncommon to get essentially a quasi transcript of what’s happening in court,” said Snyder, who’s defending Girardi with Deputy Federal Defenders J. Alejandro Barrientos and Samuel Cross.
Girardi’s co-defendant, former law firm accountant Christopher Kamon, was in court today, also. He’s been in federal custody since December 2022, and will be tried separately after Staton granted Girardi’s severance request. He’s scheduled for trial in October in a separate fraud case, and his lawyer, Pasadena sole practitioner Michael Severo, told Staton he and prosecutors agreed to a Jan. 21 trial date in Girardi’s case.
The severance means prosecutors no longer plan to call Kamon’s former girlfriend to testify about gifts and her knowledge of his attempt to flee to the Bahamas, but she could still testify in trial because Girardi’s lawyers plan to call her as part of their defense, which will blame Kamon for the stolen money. Before Friday’s hearing began, Staton finalized a written order that says Girardi' can’t get into the “nature of the expenditures” by Kamon, but she said in court “I’m going to back off of that a little bit” and potentially allow some testimony based on a defense offer of proof.
Staton also on Friday rejected a defense request to exclude testimony from Ryan Darby, an assistant professor of neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who testified in Girardi’s mental compentecy hearing. The judge said Darby’s testimony about Girardi’s faking or exaggerating his mental condition is “appropriate rebuttal” to defense expert Helen Chui’s testimony, a University of Southern California neurology professor who testified in his compentecy hearing that she “accepted….[his] presentation at face value.”
“It’s relevant to challenging her opinion,” Staton said.
Snyder also told Staton the defense plans “to ask the court throughout the trial to make ongoing inquiries of our client,” apparently referring to Girardi’s competence for trial. He said they’ll propose questions because “it's our belief that the court has a duty to continuously assure itself that things are fine.”
“OK. Provide me with authority and questions that you think I should ask. I’ll give it some thought,” Staton said.
Previous coverage:
Judge Wu tentatively stays Conception captain’s sentence
U.S. District Judge George H. Wu on Friday issued a tentative ruling allowing Conception captain Jerry Boylan to stay out of prison as he appeals his manslaughter conviction for the fire that killed 34 people on Labor Day Weekend 2019.
A jury convicted Boylan in November. Wu rejected a motion for new trial, but he said in his seven-page tentative on Friday that Boylan’s appeal presents a “substantial question of law” regarding the absence of a “but for” causation element in his manslaughter charge.
You can read the full ruling here.
The judge will hear oral argument at a hearing scheduled for Monday at 10:30 a.m. in Los Angeles.
Previous coverage:
Will the Young Thug / YSL trial continue?
The mistrial motions from defense attorneys have been filed in the Young Thug / YSL trial in Atlanta in the wake of the unusual recusal of Judge Ural Glanville.
At the same time, prosecutors are requesting the new judge, Judge Paige Reese Whitaker, issue a gag order, and they’re citing public statements from defense attorneys, including during interviews with me.
Doug Weinstein, who represents Deamonte Kendrick, filed an opposition on Friday that quotes Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ discussing the case at a press conference in August 2022.
“Having smeared Kendrick and his reputation, the State wants to silence him: initially, by placing a burden on his free speech rights to write about the world in which he lives and the tragedies and injustices around him; and now, by holding press conferences denouncing him and his writing, while subsequently seeking to bar him from defending himself in the court of public opinion,” according to the filing.
Weinstein also said the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct allow attorneys to discuss information already in the public arena, which is what he’s doing.
As I told Weinstein in a recent interview, the YSL trial has gotten a lot more legally intriguing lately. A few months ago, we were hearing seemingly endless testimony about a Nissan crashing into an Atlanta laundromat in 2013. Now we’re waiting to see how the trial can possibly proceed with a new judge at the helm. One mistrial motion, filed by veteran criminal defense attorney Bruce Harvey, focuses on the impossibility of continuing such a complex trial under a new judge.
I was already hooked on the YSL trial, and I’m even more committed now. I’ll be streaming live on YouTube when Judge Whitaker takes the bench next week to begin sorting through these motions. The days of Judge Glanville’s marathon comfort breaks are over. Whitaker says she’s starting at 8:45 a.m., and she actually means it. 8:45 a.m. in Atlanta is 5:45 a.m. in Los Angeles, which is early. You can follow my coverage on YouTube and TikTok.
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