“Is it within the jurisdiction of the US Department of Justice to transfer the location of the classified documents case from the Florida US Judicial District to the Washington, DC District based on the premise that the case involves national security at the highest level and therefore requires that the judge assigned to the case be very familiar with such matters and be able to make judicial decisions without the baggage of having been assigned the task of federal judge by the defendant in the case?”
—James Sturniolo, Lopez Island, Washington.
Hi James,
No. The Justice Department brought the case in Florida, so the case should continue in Florida.
The fact that Judge Aileen Cannon has no experience and was appointed by the defendant, Donald Trump, is legally irrelevant to the progress of the case. Whether the government will ultimately try to appoint a new judge in Florida because of Cannon’s apparent bias is an open question. But given the legal problems I have explained in excluding judges, we should not count on a new one here. This will be an ongoing issue to monitor, however, as Cannon seemingly does Trump’s bidding in a manner that falls within a judge’s broad discretion.
As for the location question, keep in mind that before a grand jury indicted Trump in the Sunshine State, there was also a grand jury in DC. That led to speculation about which federal district (if any) would see an indictment in the classified documents case. The answer turned out to be Florida — specifically the Southern District of Florida, home to both the alleged Mar-a-Lago crime scene and Cannon, who bungled previous civil lawsuits in the case before Trump was indicted.
When the scene unfolded in South Florida, Cannon was a candidate for random selection for president. She was scarred. Thus, the status quo stems in part from the Justice Department’s decision—and, relatedly, from the fact that Florida is the site of the alleged unlawful retention of national defense information and obstruction. (Trump has pleaded not guilty.)
There has been criticism of Smith’s decision to take the case to Florida instead of DC, but I think that criticism (wrongly) assumes he had a big choice. A former federal prosecutor recently called the location decision the special counsel’s “original sin.” But Smith’s choice was more prosaic than biblical. It probably came down to the reality that Florida is where the alleged crimes occurred. Despite any DC connections, the special prosecutor probably didn’t want to risk losing a lawsuit (and time) by choosing a potentially illegal location.
Location is no small matter. Indeed, it is a suspect’s constitutional right to be tried in the place where his alleged crimes occurred. Smith may have preferred D.C. – because of better judges, juries, or both for the government in that district – but the law puts location requirements above these strategic concerns. A greater sin would have been to place them above the Constitution.
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This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
