I have to hand it to Hunter Biden’s legal team: They up the entertainment quotient considerably. In late June, we told you about their novel grounds for requesting a new trial for the First Son following his conviction in Delaware District Court on federal gun charges.
Bold Strategy, Cotton: Hunter Biden’s Legal Team Requests New Trial in Gun Case…on Interesting Grounds
In a nutshell, Biden is claiming that because the Third Circuit Court of Appeals had not formally issued a mandate (the document that closes out the appeal and transfers jurisdiction back to the lower court with instructions) following its dismissal of his two (interlocutory) appeals on the case, the appeals remained pending, thus preventing the district court from having/reassuming proper jurisdiction over the matter before it went to trial.
Now, the Government has responded to Biden’s motion, and hoo boy, did they pants Abbe Lowell and Co. with this one. It seems Biden’s legal team forgot that reading is fundamental. For, while they argued that District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika did not have proper jurisdiction of the case when it was tried because the Court of Appeals hadn’t yet formally issued a mandate after denying Biden’s interlocutory appeals, they apparently overlooked not only standard Third Circuit practice regarding mandates but also the actual language contained in the court’s certified orders dismissing the appeals.
The response includes a highlighted screenshot of the order:
You can review the entire response below, but I’m excerpting a few of the pointiest barbs from it here:
- The defendant’s motion is meritless and is based on his apparent misunderstanding of appellate practice and his failure to read the Third Circuit’s Orders, issued before trial, which clearly stated “in Lieu of Mandate.” His motion should be denied.
- While the defendant repeatedly insisted before trial that his appeals divested this Court of jurisdiction, this is the first time he has spun this laughable tale of the mystery of the missing mandates. But both dismissal orders are plainly stamped “Issued in Lieu of Mandate” and provide no basis for this Court to reconsider its earlier rulings with respect to jurisdiction when non-appealable orders are appealed.
- Contrary to the defendant’s claim, the Third Circuit will not “ultimately issue a mandate” because its certified orders were issued “in Lieu of Mandate.” It is unclear why the defendant believes he is waiting for the issuance of some additional, superfluous document, when the orders he received clearly indicate no further mandate will issue.
- His argument reveals a misunderstanding of the mechanics of the mandate process or the possibility that he failed to fully read the Third Circuit’s dismissal orders.
- The defendant’s failure even to place on the record his uncertainty regarding the issuance
or format of the mandate at any point before the start of trial reveals the weakness of his argument. If he had a genuine belief that the court lacked jurisdiction before trial began, it would have been inexcusable to proceed to trial without so much as asking this Court to consider the mandate issue further, let alone wait to raise the issue until two weeks after the jury convicted him. Because his “missing mandate” claim is an invented fiction, his Rule 33 motion is effectively a motion for reconsideration without any justification for such relief.
RELATED: Hunter Biden’s Legal Team Makes Swift Use of Supreme Court Decision
Can’t Make This Stuff Up: Hunter Biden Is Suing Fox Over ‘Revenge Porn’
As I observed in the initial article re: Biden’s legal team’s rather…creative approach to the motion, “It’s a bold strategy, Cotton…let’s see if it pays off for ’em.”
Something tells me that’s going to be a no.
RHB – De – Govt Response to Motion for New Trial – 7-8-24 by Susie Moore on Scribd
