Headlines that Matter for Companies and Executives in Regulated Industries
On June 27, a Houston federal district court judge indicated that a $140 million healthcare fraud case, which ended in mistrial in December 2022 due to allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, would be retried. Judge Alfred Bennett denied motions from the defendants seeking to bar retrial and rejected their arguments that allowing the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to retry the case would violate the prohibition against double jeopardy. The court also ruled that misconduct by the DOJ — the omission of evidence during trial — was not malicious or intentionally fraudulent.
Judge Bennett found that the DOJ’s failure to make Brady disclosures for a third of its witnesses made it clear that a mistrial was “manifestly necessary.” Manifest necessity refers to circumstances where having a fair trial is impossible. According to Judge Bennett, various forms of relief proposed by defendants to address the DOJ’s omissions, including ordering the jury to disregard tainted evidence or admonishing the DOJ in the jury’s presence, would not result in a fair trial, and a mistrial was the only option.
In his order, Judge Bennett noted that he was “greatly dissatisfied” with the prosecutors’ conduct but granting defendants’ double jeopardy motions would eliminate the DOJ’s opportunity to hold defendants accountable for their actions, which a grand jury found were potentially criminal.
A copy of the order can be found...
WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s years-long campaign to undermine faith in U.S. elections has gained broad traction with the American public, a Reuters/Ipsos poll shows, p...