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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosseo from Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 2: There have been fifteen government shutdowns in the last forty

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Speaker 2: four years, but no president has ever used a shutdown

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Speaker 2: to fire large numbers of federal employees until Donald Trump.

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Speaker 2: Even before the shutdown began, Trump threatened to fire federal workers,

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Speaker 2: and he's made good on those threats. According to court filings,

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Speaker 2: at least four thousand federal workers across different agencies have

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Speaker 2: already been fired. Trump blames it on the Democrats.

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Speaker 3: Take your place right now, and it's all because of

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Speaker 3: the Democrats. The Democrats are causing the loss of a

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Speaker 3: lot of jobs with their Uh, it's a shutdown. It's

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Speaker 3: their shutdown, not our shutdown. It's their shutdown.

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Speaker 2: To be clear, the firings are different from the furloughs

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Speaker 2: that always occur when government funding runs out, and this

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Speaker 2: unprecedented action by the Trump administration puts the government in

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Speaker 2: unsharted legal territory because there's no law, rule, or regulation

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Speaker 2: that gives the president licensed to fire federal employees just

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Speaker 2: because funding has lapsed. Joining me is constitutional law expert

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Speaker 2: David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law. He's written about

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Speaker 2: the firings in the Balkanization, a blog of constitutional law

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Speaker 2: scholars David No administration has ever engaged in large scale

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Speaker 2: firings of federal workers during a shutdown before, so there'll

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Speaker 2: be no legal case directly on point. But is it legal.

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Speaker 1: It pretty clearly is not legal for them to do it.

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Speaker 1: For one thing, there's a lapse in appropriations right now,

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Speaker 1: so laying people off requires government activity that is not funded.

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Speaker 1: So simply we think of a layoff as a negative thing,

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Speaker 1: but it takes positive action to figure out who you're

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Speaker 1: going to lay off, what date you're going to lay

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Speaker 1: them off, send them a message, and so on. Those

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Speaker 1: are all non emergency actions that the government can't do

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Speaker 1: when it's unfunded. So right there, that makes it illegal.

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Speaker 2: The first challenge is likely to be based on the

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Speaker 2: Anti Deficiency Act, So tell us what the Anti Deficiency

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Speaker 2: Act is.

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Speaker 1: Well, the Constitution says that no funds shall be drawn

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Speaker 1: from the treasury except if appropriated by Congress, and the

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Speaker 1: Anti Deficiency Act is a law Congress has passed and

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Speaker 1: revised many times to implement the appropriation's clause to make

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Speaker 1: sure that people aren't just spending public money or committing

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Speaker 1: public money on their own. The Anti Deficiency Act basically

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Speaker 1: says that it is a crime for a government official

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Speaker 1: to spend public money without an appropriation. It also says

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Speaker 1: it's a crime to accept voluntary service. The reason it

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Speaker 1: says it's a crime to accept voluntary service is because

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Speaker 1: Congress has been around that game plenty of times, where

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Speaker 1: someone works supposedly for free and then turns around and

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Speaker 1: wants to be paid, so they said, no, we don't

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Speaker 1: even allow you to take volunteer labor unless there's an

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Speaker 1: appropriation to cover the cost.

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Speaker 2: Has anyone ever been prosecuted under that law.

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Speaker 1: There hasn't been, perhaps not surprisingly because the people who

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Speaker 1: would violate it would be members of the same administration

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Speaker 1: as the Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department,

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Speaker 1: but also frankly because people take it very seriously. And

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Speaker 1: I have been involved in a number of cases where

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Speaker 1: government lawyers will do just about anything except something that

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Speaker 1: looks like it might be a violation of the Anti

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Speaker 1: Deficiency Act, and they will dig in their heels and

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Speaker 1: stand on their head to avoid being seen as going

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Speaker 1: crosswise to that which I admire.

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Speaker 2: So what might the administration's response be to lawsuits challenging

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Speaker 2: the firings under the Anti Deficiency Act.

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Speaker 1: It's a little unclear, but they seem to be saying

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Speaker 1: that this is an inherent power of the president, which

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Speaker 1: is pretty strange, because everything the government does, particularly under

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Speaker 1: their unified executive theory, is a power of the president.

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Speaker 1: So does that mean that this inherent power of the president,

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Speaker 1: which they can't locate anywhere in the Constitution, overrides the

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Speaker 1: appropriation's clause, which absolutely does appear in the text of

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Speaker 1: the Constitution. It's a very strange argument.

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Speaker 2: The second possible problem here some of the firings might

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Speaker 2: be illegal impoundments of appropriated funds where unexpired appropriations remain

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Speaker 2: available to pay the terminated employees.

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Speaker 1: Yes, the Supreme Court in nineteen seventy five ruled unanimously

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Speaker 1: that President Nixon could not refuse to spend money that

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Speaker 1: Congress had appropriated, that that's not within the powers of

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Speaker 1: the president. Justice Rnquist signed on to that. Justice Douglas

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Speaker 1: agreed with that result. Everybody of all perspectives on the

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Speaker 1: Court said, no, the president cannot overrule a congressional appropriation

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Speaker 1: unless Congress makes the spending conditional on the president's choice.

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Speaker 1: So when Congress has, for example, provided funding for the

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Speaker 1: Cenators for Disease Control or the Office of Special Education

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Speaker 1: or Community Economic Development. Those funds must be spent by

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Speaker 1: the president. You can't spend money on the Centers for

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Speaker 1: Disease Controls staff if the staff are gone. So he

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Speaker 1: is effectively setting himself up to refusing to spend money

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Speaker 1: that Congress appropriated. That's not appropriate.

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Speaker 2: And in some of these lawsuits that have been brought

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Speaker 2: about the massive federal layoffs initially initiated by Elon Musk,

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Speaker 2: has a Supreme Court taken a position on this.

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Speaker 1: The Supreme Court has not reached the merits of any

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Speaker 1: of these cases. They have indicated that they don't want

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Speaker 1: the government order to spend money until a case has

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Speaker 1: been firmly resolved. But that's not based on the merits

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Speaker 1: of the case, but just on the sense that if

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Speaker 1: the government spends the money, it could never get it

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Speaker 1: back if it ultimately wins the case. So, the only

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Speaker 1: decisions we really have from the Supreme Court or the

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Speaker 1: unanimous decision from nineteen seventy five that says the president

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Speaker 1: has no inherent authority to impound money and a six y'

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Speaker 1: to three decision from nineteen ninety eight that said that

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Speaker 1: even when Congress allowed hell the president to impound money,

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Speaker 1: he still can't do it.

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Speaker 2: But neither of those are from the Roberts Court, which,

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Speaker 2: as you know, has expanded presidential authority in ways that

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Speaker 2: most scholars thought they never would. So is the Roberts

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Speaker 2: Court perhaps going to be different?

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Speaker 1: Well, there's only one justice currently sitting who is sitting

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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight, and that's Justice Thomas, and he

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Speaker 1: voted with the majority that even when authorized by Congress,

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Speaker 1: the president may not impound money. The Court, in the

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Speaker 1: opinion that Justice Thomas signed on to, said that's effectively

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Speaker 1: giving the president the power to amend the law, and

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Speaker 1: under our constitution, only Congress can amend laws.

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Speaker 2: The third ground to challenge the firings that you mentioned

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Speaker 2: in your article is that the action likely violates permanent

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Speaker 2: laws creating and assigning duties to the agencies affected. Explain

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Speaker 2: that argument.

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Speaker 1: Certainly, we don't just come upon these government agencies by chance.

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Speaker 1: They're generally created by Congress. So the Congress has passed

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Speaker 1: a law calling for the Center for Disease Control saying

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Speaker 1: that it is vitally important to the nation's protection against

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Speaker 1: disease and needs to have the resources to respond. You

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Speaker 1: don't have the resource to respond if all your staff

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Speaker 1: is at the Unemployment Office. So this is effectively a

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Speaker 1: violation of the law creating the Centers for Disease Control. Similarly,

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Speaker 1: there's a law creating the Office of Special Education at

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Speaker 1: the Department of Education, giving it a lot of very

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Speaker 1: heavy responsibilities. It can't perform that if it doesn't have

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Speaker 1: any people, and that's true for pretty much all of

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Speaker 1: the agencies affected here. Congress has told the president is

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Speaker 1: to get this done. It has provided the money to

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Speaker 1: get this done, and the president's refusing to get this done.

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Speaker 2: In some of the preliminary cases, though I can think

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Speaker 2: of the Department of Education cases, the Supreme Court has

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Speaker 2: allowed the President to keep doing what he's doing, though

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Speaker 2: right they haven't put a stop on his firing people

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Speaker 2: or not using funds.

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Speaker 1: They haven't, again, not because they've said it's legally correct,

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Speaker 1: but because they've said that they don't want any interim

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Speaker 1: orders to the president compelling this, because the president wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be able to get the money back if the case

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Speaker 1: was ultimately decided in the president's favor. Once these cases

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Speaker 1: have worked their way through the system, which I think

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Speaker 1: is very possible in the current Supreme Court term. We'll

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Speaker 1: now know what the current court thinks about all these things,

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Speaker 1: and at that point, I think it'll be very easy

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Speaker 1: to get emergency orders against them from doing something that

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Speaker 1: we've recently been told to is illegal.

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Speaker 2: That would certainly be a change from the emergency docket. Okay,

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Speaker 2: stay with me. Coming up next, I'll continue this conversation

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Speaker 2: with constitutional law professor David Super of Georgetown Law. After

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Speaker 2: the shutdown, what legal action can federal workers who were

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Speaker 2: fired take? Hundreds of thousands of government workers have been

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Speaker 2: furloughed in recent days, and in a court filing on Friday,

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Speaker 2: the Office of Management and Budget said well over four

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Speaker 2: thousand federal employees would soon be fired in conjunction with

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Speaker 2: the shutdown. Labor unions have already filed a lawsuit to

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Speaker 2: stop the move by President Trump's budget office, which goes

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Speaker 2: far beyond what usually happens in a government shutdown. No

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Speaker 2: president before has used a shutdown to fire large numbers

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Speaker 2: of federal employees. I've been talking to constitutional law professor

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Speaker 2: David Super of Georgetown Law, who's written about the various

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Speaker 2: ways the shutdown can be challenged. A final ground you

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Speaker 2: mentioned in your article is that this action and likely

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Speaker 2: violates several civil service laws, because the Trump administration may

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Speaker 2: not have complied with every single requirement in civil service laws,

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Speaker 2: and there must be a lot of civil service laws

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Speaker 2: about this.

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Speaker 1: There are, and there are very detailed laws about prioritizing

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Speaker 1: who gets laid off when there is a layoff. There's

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Speaker 1: no clear evidence that they've followed that. There are laws

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Speaker 1: about giving people who are more senior the opportunity to

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Speaker 1: bid for other jobs in the government. Nothing that I've

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Speaker 1: seen in the layoff notices that have been shared with me,

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Speaker 1: or that I've read in news accounts suggests they're doing

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Speaker 1: anything of that. And most fundamentally, there is very extensive

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Speaker 1: civil service law against politicizing the civil service. And the

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Speaker 1: President has said he's laying people off from Democrat agencies.

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Speaker 1: I thought they United States agencies, but apparently he considers

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Speaker 1: them Democrat agencies and laying people off on the basis

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Speaker 1: of their political beliefs because they're perceived to be Democrats

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Speaker 1: and Democrat agencies violate several provisions of civil service law

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Speaker 1: against politicizing our civil service.

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Speaker 2: The main government workers' unions filed a lawsuit on September thirtieth,

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Speaker 2: even before the shutdown began, and also the AFLCIO did.

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Speaker 2: Has the Supreme Court rejected the idea of standing by

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Speaker 2: unions in this kind of situation.

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Speaker 1: It's said very little. But there was a case brought

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Speaker 1: by unions and nonprofits against layoffs in the spring and

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court stayed. It froze the lower court's injunction

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Speaker 1: and said that it had concerns about the standing of

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Speaker 1: the plaintiffs. Like so many of these shadow docat descis,

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Speaker 1: it didn't say what those concerns were. It didn't give

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Speaker 1: us any sense as to whether it thinks these plaintiffs

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Speaker 1: are hopeless or whether it thinks their lawyers just filled

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Speaker 1: out the paperwork wrong.

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Speaker 2: In this case, you had Russell Vought on social media saying,

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Speaker 2: you know the rifts are coming. And as you mentioned before,

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Speaker 2: the Anti Deficiency Act is pretty well known to government officials.

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Speaker 2: So is it the case that the career officials are

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Speaker 2: gone or are not advising against actions that will clearly

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Speaker 2: lead to lawsuits where the government is not in the

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Speaker 2: best position.

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Speaker 1: A lot of Queer people are gone, fired or encouraged

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Speaker 1: to retire or to leave by various waves of actions

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Speaker 1: in departments and by those generally, others have been made

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Speaker 1: very clear that their opinions are unwelcome. Indeed, when you

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Speaker 1: see someone raising concerns about violations of law and that

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Speaker 1: person is promptly fired, you don't raise them yourself. And

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Speaker 1: that's completely contrary to the system we've had for a

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Speaker 1: long time. The courts have trusted the United States government

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Speaker 1: precisely because there was a corps of career people, lawyers

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Speaker 1: and others who were very careful that they always followed

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Speaker 1: the law. Political officials can make the policy choices, that's

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Speaker 1: why we have elections, but the law is permanent until

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Speaker 1: someone changes it, and career people have quite properly refused

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Speaker 1: to do illegal things throughout the years. That safety net

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Speaker 1: of honorable career people has been ripped apart.

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Speaker 2: Do you think this is President Trump once again testing

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Speaker 2: and trying to expand his powers or is it just

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Speaker 2: his theme of there's too much federal government, too many workers,

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Speaker 2: and I want to cut it down.

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Speaker 1: He's suggested that this is political retribution, that he's doing

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Speaker 1: this to punish Senate Democrats for not agreeing to the

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Speaker 1: legislation that his administration wrote without changes. So I have

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Speaker 1: to assume that this is an effort to play politics

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Speaker 1: and put pressure on the Democrats to fold in the

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Speaker 1: current standoffs.

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Speaker 2: Now, if federal workers are fired during the shutdown afterwards,

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Speaker 2: what's their avenue of appeal? Do they try to go

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Speaker 2: to the Merit System's Protection Board.

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Speaker 1: There have been courts that say that if they believe

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Speaker 1: they've been fired improperly, they must go to the Merit

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Speaker 1: System's Protection Board. But that's not going to work very well.

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Speaker 1: Because President Trump I legally fired the only Democratic member

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Speaker 1: of the board, it now doesn't have a quorum and

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Speaker 1: can't hear their cases. President Trump could have appointed a

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Speaker 1: replacement for that person he fired, but he's not chosen

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Speaker 1: to do so, so he has effectively disabled the body

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Speaker 1: responsible for policing his own actions.

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Speaker 2: What about the civil service laws? It seems likely that

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Speaker 2: the Trump administration did not follow the civil service law?

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Speaker 2: So is that an avenue of appealing their termination or

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Speaker 2: getting back pay?

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Speaker 1: In theory, they would go to the Merit Systems Protection

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Speaker 1: Board and if it ruled against them, they could take

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Speaker 1: that to court. But in practice they're not getting any

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Speaker 1: rulings favorable or unfavorable from the Merit System Protection Board

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Speaker 1: because it can't function without a quorum thanks to President

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Speaker 1: Trump's illegal firing of its Democratic member, so they're really

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Speaker 1: stuck in a tramp. In past times, the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: has said, if appealing to an administrative body would be

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Speaker 1: clearly feudle, you don't have to do it. You can

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Speaker 1: go straight to court. This Supreme Court seems less likely

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Speaker 1: to go in that direction.

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Speaker 2: So much these days seems to depend on the Supreme Court,

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Speaker 2: and we will watch how this litigation unfolds. Thanks so much, David.

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Speaker 2: As always, that's Professor David super of Georgetown Law. Luigi

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Speaker 2: Mangioni's lawyers are asking a New York federal judge to

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Speaker 2: dismiss some criminal charges, including the only count for which

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Speaker 2: he could face the death penalty. His lawyers also said

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Speaker 2: that prosecutors should be prevented from using at trial his

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Speaker 2: statements to law enforcement officers and his backpack where a

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Speaker 2: gun and ammunition were found. They say Mangioni was not

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Speaker 2: read his rights before he was questioned by law enforcement officers.

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Speaker 2: They added that the officers did not obtain a warrant

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Speaker 2: before searching Mangioni's backpack. The twenty seven year old has

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Speaker 2: pleaded not guilty to state in federal charges in the

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Speaker 2: fatal shooting of healthcare executive Brian Thompson on December fourth,

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Speaker 2: as he arrived at a Manhattan hotel for his company's

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Speaker 2: annual investor conference. Pat tell us about the charges that

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Speaker 2: the defenses asking the judge to drop against Mangoni.

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Speaker 4: These two counts, especially count three, murder using a firearm,

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Speaker 4: is the death penalty eligible count. It makes sense for

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Speaker 4: Luigi's Mangion's criminal defense lawyers to make this argument because

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Speaker 4: that would basically stop the government or block the government

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Speaker 4: from putting him to death if a jury would find

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Speaker 4: him guilty and then decide that he should face the

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Speaker 4: death penalty. It's always a two part thing, of course,

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Speaker 4: you know that. So basically that's the effort to try

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Speaker 4: to hamper the government from proceeding with the two gun charges.

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Speaker 4: Count four is using a firearm. But basically Mangion's lawyers

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Speaker 4: are saying, you know, he's accused of stalking, and one

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Speaker 4: of them is cyber stalking, and his lawyers are saying

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Speaker 4: there's no evidence. So these things don't feed into each other.

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Speaker 4: So it's sort of like a natural chain of failing

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Speaker 4: to prove their case, prove it up to support the

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Speaker 4: counts three and four.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's saying stalking isn't a crime of violence, right right.

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Speaker 4: And it shouldn't trigger automatically the capital punishment, which is

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Speaker 4: what the DOJ and Pam Bondi has said. The defense

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Speaker 4: has gone on overdrive to try to assail the way

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Speaker 4: the government came upon the death penalty. I mean, typically

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Speaker 4: what has happened. I mean, not only did Joe Biden's

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Speaker 4: administration put a pause on the death penalty for a

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Speaker 4: while there, and of course when Trump came back in,

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Speaker 4: he took it off in his attorney general did not

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Speaker 4: use We've talked about this before. There's a death panel,

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Speaker 4: which basically at DOJ hears a presentation from the defense

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Speaker 4: about whether or not they're mitigating circumstances that the person

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Speaker 4: should not face the death penalty. So these were skipped over,

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Speaker 4: according to Mangione's lawyers, And now they're basically attacking the

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Speaker 4: way the government came upon this indictment, that it's flawed.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, now, something I found this very They're saying that

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Speaker 2: prosecutors should be barred from using some statements he made

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Speaker 2: to police before he was arrested, and evidence found inside

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Speaker 2: his backpack, which includes a gun and ammunition, because the

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Speaker 2: police didn't read his miranda rights to him before questioning

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Speaker 2: him and didn't get a warrant before searching his backpack.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, they described it. It's incredible. I mean, so the

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Speaker 4: scenario we've all heard is, you know that here he

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Speaker 4: was and Manjion was, you know, approached by Altuna police

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Speaker 4: and you know, immediately they found his backpack and they

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Speaker 4: arrested him. And you know, it's a story that his

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Speaker 4: lawyers challenge, saying that they had video bodycam footage as well,

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Speaker 4: and they showed outtakes that they have. But one of

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Speaker 4: the female officers, she picks up his backpack, She doesn't

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Speaker 4: ask for it, She just grabs it, picks it up

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Speaker 4: and takes it away from him and starts rooting around

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Speaker 4: in it and looking around and picking through it, and

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Speaker 4: she finds things such as the gun and the ammunition,

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Speaker 4: as well as his alleged diary, which the prosecution is

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Speaker 4: called a manifesto. But all this evidence was done before

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Speaker 4: they ever got a search warrant, and the female officer

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Speaker 4: claimed that she was worried about him having a bomb,

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Speaker 4: so she has to basically take action to stop this

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Speaker 4: potential bomb from going off, but she never gets a

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Speaker 4: warrant and they don't get it according to the defense,

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Speaker 4: for seven hours.

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Speaker 2: Seven hours is a long time by any standard, and

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Speaker 2: they wouldn't let him leave. They even later took him

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Speaker 2: into custody. They questioned him, but they didn't read him

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Speaker 2: his Miranda rights until later.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it is pretty incredible because apparently hours

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Speaker 4: go by that he was questioned and they got comments

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Speaker 4: from him, but they said that he wasn't under arrest.

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Speaker 4: They said, like, don't worry, you're not under arrest. But

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Speaker 4: then bodycam footage shows that he's initially approached by one

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Speaker 4: of them. He's asked if he's the shooter. He asks

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Speaker 4: him his name, he gives a different name, and then

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Speaker 4: they don't tell him anything. An officer telling him he

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Speaker 4: was one hundred percent sure that man Gion matched the suspect,

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Speaker 4: but he never said you're under arrest. And then they

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Speaker 4: surround him, according to the video, and block him from leaving,

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Speaker 4: and they start questioning him, and I think he'd already

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Speaker 4: been sitting there, and they said that he provoked concern

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Speaker 4: because he was there for forty minutes and that he

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Speaker 4: could be charged with loitery. But then they wouldn't let

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Speaker 4: him leave, and then one of the officers, another officer,

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Speaker 4: tells one of the patrol men, you should mirandize him,

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Speaker 4: and they still didn't mirandize him until it seems much

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Speaker 4: later when they got to the station.

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Speaker 2: I mean, they're stopping him from leaving, they have him

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Speaker 2: in custody, they're questioning him. It seems like there are

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Speaker 2: several points at which they should have mirandized him.

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Speaker 4: Right And then basically he'd been sitting there and they

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Speaker 4: questioned him and they started looking at his material and

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Speaker 4: all of this happens. So without a warrant and without

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Speaker 4: being mirandized, they wouldn't let him leave. And yet they

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Speaker 4: took him into custody. But they never said you're under

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Speaker 4: arrest and you have the right to remain silent. So

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Speaker 4: he may have said incriminating statements, but the defense is

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Speaker 4: saying that they knew they were going to get these

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Speaker 4: statements and they never bothered to mirandize him.

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Speaker 2: I'm surprised that this hasn't come out before.

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Speaker 4: Well, I guess what they're also getting now is they

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Speaker 4: have copies of the body cam footage and in real

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Speaker 4: time they can see how it transpired, and then they

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Speaker 4: can have to re engineer backwards what happened, like the

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Speaker 4: TikTok of what happened.

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Speaker 2: Suppose the judge doesn't allow in the evidence from the back,

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Speaker 2: how much would that hurt the case.

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Speaker 4: It's quite an ask by Luigiman Jion's lawyers to do this,

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Speaker 4: but it does seem like the fruits of an attainted search,

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Speaker 4: right and then if you questioned someone and didn't mirandize them.

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Speaker 4: There are cases that defense sites where this has actually

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Speaker 4: happened that there are other cases where courts have thrown

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Speaker 4: out charges based on the fact that it wasn't what

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Speaker 4: the cops used to say when I covered them a

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Speaker 4: homicide cops. It wasn't righteous. So I'm clear if they'll

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Speaker 4: get this request granted by the court, but they have

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Speaker 4: a pretty strong argument whether or not this judge will

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Speaker 4: do that. Also, remember they're dealing with this extraordinary circumstance

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Speaker 4: that you have the President of the United States and

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Speaker 4: high ranking Justice Department officials making comments, So you know,

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Speaker 4: all of this might come together as a package of

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Speaker 4: troubling questions the judge has.

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Speaker 2: And Patty just remind us about what the Judge instructed

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Speaker 2: Justice Department officials last month about making those kind of

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Speaker 2: incendiary statements.

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Speaker 4: The judge has basically ordered the government to explain how

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Speaker 4: these statements got to be made. And to remind you,

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Speaker 4: there was a statement by President Trump who said, man

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Speaker 4: gie own quote shot someone in the back as clear

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Speaker 4: as you're looking at me, as he told Fox News.

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Speaker 4: And then a White House affiliated x account retweeted what

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Speaker 4: Trump said in a screenshot, posting with photo with Fox

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Speaker 4: News and quoting Trump. And then that post was retweeted

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Speaker 4: by the deputy director of the Department of Justice of

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Speaker 4: Public Affairs, and that person said, you know, potus is

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Speaker 4: absolutely right on X. So then another person, the White

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Speaker 4: House Press Secretary, again repeated that she called him a

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Speaker 4: left wing assassin who shot United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson

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Speaker 4: in the back. And she says that from a White

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Speaker 4: House briefing at the White House. So you know, his

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Speaker 4: lawyers are saying all these statements is a confluence of

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Speaker 4: negative statements that are basically poisoning any potential jury, and

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Speaker 4: it's farming his rights to right to get a fair

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Speaker 4: trial because everyone will be so prejudiced because, look, the

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Speaker 4: President of the United States is saying these things. The

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Speaker 4: judges asked for an explanation, and the government has answered

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Speaker 4: in a recent reply. Federal prosecutors in the Southern District

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Speaker 4: in Manhattan have said, it's nothing to see here because

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Speaker 4: technically the people who made these comments are not prosecutors

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Speaker 4: on the case, so they're not addressing what Donald Trump

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Speaker 4: or anyone a DOJ or anybody in the White House

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Speaker 4: Press secretary said.

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Speaker 2: In a case as big as this, you know, with

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Speaker 2: so much publicity on this case, it would take a

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Speaker 2: lot for the judge to, for example, dismiss a charge

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Speaker 2: or suppress some of that crucial evidence like the gun

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Speaker 2: and ammunition. Although I have to say it does seem

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Speaker 2: like the police didn't follow proper procedures, you know, the

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Speaker 2: basics of mirandizing him. And if you think there's a

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Speaker 2: bomb in a backpack, don't you call the bomb squad

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Speaker 2: or do you just rifle through the backpack? But still,

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Speaker 2: despite that, this is a huge case, and I'm not

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Speaker 2: sure what the judge would be willing to do.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely an attempt by the defense

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Speaker 4: to hamper whatever the government's doing, and whether that means

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Speaker 4: carving out two charges, including one that's death penalty eligible,

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Speaker 4: that obviously is this latest request. Right, they've already asked

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Speaker 4: to dismiss the indictmentment. They're saying they're targeting specifically these

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Speaker 4: two counts, especially the death penalty eligible count, which is

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Speaker 4: Count three. And then you know, it's a big ask.

438
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 4: And I mean, aside from those cases rare cases cided

439
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:08,000
Speaker 4: by the defense, it does seem extraordinary that the judge

440
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:10,720
Speaker 4: would grant it, but I think it's what their defense

441
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:13,119
Speaker 4: is trying to do. They'd give their best shot, so

442
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 4: to speak.

443
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 2: You know, if this were law in order, the judge

444
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 2: would grant it, though very quickly. So this is the

445
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 2: federal case. We also have the state case, which is

446
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 2: going to go to trial first.

447
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 4: It's odd, but the state case, even though it's allegedly

448
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:32,959
Speaker 4: going first, and the state prosecutors have told the judge

449
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 4: and the state case they're going to have the first trial,

450
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 4: it seems like all systems are go with the defense

451
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:44,240
Speaker 4: focusing on the federal case. Whether that's because they're trying

452
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 4: to attack that first, because they think that's the best

453
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 4: paths to take. It's unclear.

454
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 2: It could be because they're focusing on the death penalty

455
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 2: and trying to knock that out of the federal case.

456
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 2: But I guess we'll find out as it goes along.

457
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, pat. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Patricia Hurtado,

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00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 2: and that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show.

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Speaker 2: Remember you can always get the latest legal news on

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00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:11,640
Speaker 2: our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

461
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 2: and at www dot bloomberg dot com, slash podcast Slash Law,

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00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 2: And remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every

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00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 2: weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso,

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00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 2: and you're listening to Bloomberg