"Regulatory Arbitrage" == "Forum Shopping".
Cheers,
RAH
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Delivered-To: rah@shipwright.com
Delivered-To: clips@philodox.com
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 15:47:23 -0500
To: Philodox Clips List
From: "R.A. Hettinga"
Subject: [Clips] Internet's Ubiquity Multiplies Venues To Try Web Crimes
Reply-To: clips-chat@philodox.com
Sender: clips-bounces@philodox.com
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB117124525768805398.html
The Wall Street Journal
Internet's Ubiquity
Multiplies Venues
To Try Web Crimes
By LAURIE P. COHEN
February 12, 2007; Page B1
Nathan Littlefield, a 32-year-old father of two in Methuen, Mass., had
never set foot in Buffalo, N.Y., but that didn't stop prosecutors there
from charging him with downloading child pornography.
David Carruthers, a British citizen, ran a company based in Costa Rica, yet
he was charged in an Internet-gambling case -- in St. Louis. And Rob Zicari
and his wife, Janet Romano, owners of a California-based pornography
company, were indicted for distribution of obscenity across state lines --
in Pittsburgh.
Unlike many crimes with relatively limited geographic scope, Internet
abuses cross every border, giving the government enormous leeway these days
to pick jurisdictions where it brings cases. The Sixth Amendment of the
U.S. Constitution holds that federal criminal cases should be tried in the
state and district in which an offense was committed. And venues count:
Pittsburgh and St. Louis, for example, are viewed by lawyers as much more
legally conservative than, say, Boston and San Francisco.
To some critics, the process smacks of "forum shopping," a once-common
practice by plaintiffs' attorneys seeking the most hospitable venues to
bring civil suits.
"The big concern is that the government can pick a jurisdiction where the
jury will be most sympathetic," says Orin Kerr, a computer-crime expert at
George Washington University's law school. Because the Internet is
everywhere, he says, "federal law allows the government to pick whatever
jurisdiction it wants in an Internet crime case."
The government denies it is seeking a home-court advantage. Prosecutors may
pick venues based on the locale of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
office that initiates a case, says bureau spokesman Paul Bresson. "In
situations where a Buffalo agent is talking to a subject in Florida," he
says, the case would likely be brought in Buffalo.
In Internet child-pornography cases, he says the FBI often originates cases
against far-flung defendants. "It is very easy to establish venue if a
subject from New Mexico sends an image to" Maryland. "We would have venue"
in Maryland, Mr. Bresson says.
What is indisputable is that Internet-crime complaints are rising. In 2005,
the most recent year for which numbers are available, there were 231,493
complaints about alleged Internet crimes, an 11.6% increase from 2004,
according to the FBI, and a nearly fivefold increase over 2001. While not
all of those complaints turn into criminal cases, "there's been a pretty
exponential increase from year to year" in cybercrime cases, says Mr.
Bresson, the FBI spokesman.
Whatever the statistics, Ellen Podgor, a law professor at Stetson
University in Florida, is against trying cases far from a defendant's home.
"The government can get jurisdiction everywhere," she says. "All they have
to show is that there was a person -- often an FBI agent -- who uploaded
documents" far away from the defendant.
Ms. Podgor maintains that jurisdiction ought to be based on the locale of
alleged perpetrators, to make it more convenient for them to go to trial.
But "inconvenience isn't a defense," says Miami lawyer Frank Rubino, who
says he has represented about eight defendants in the past 18 months in
Internet cases brought far from their homes. "People are being brought to
areas where they've never been in their lives," he says.
Last July's indictment of Mr. Carruthers of Costa Rica and other defendants
in Internet-gambling company BetOnSports PLC was brought in St. Louis. New
York attorney Robert Katzberg, representing one of the defendants, recently
told a St. Louis federal court in a filing that the locale of the federal
prosecution has "no real significance other than the fact that the
undercover [FBI] agents decided to conduct their sting" there.
Mr. Katzberg has asked that the case be moved to Miami, where most of the
defendants reside. The court hasn't yet ruled on the request.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in St. Louis says the
BetOnSports indictment "was the result of illegal activity that occurred in
our district."
In the past, courts have often denied defendants' motions to transfer cases
because of inconvenience. In what is believed to be the first case to make
such a challenge, a federal appeals court ruled in 1996 that a California
couple who ran an electronic bulletin board there could be charged in
Tennessee because "venue lies in any district in which the offense was
committed."
In an Internet child-pornography case in New York, a federal appeals court
similarly ruled in 2005 that the defendant, Larry Rowe, who lived in
Pikeville, Ky., was properly tried in Manhattan.
But last April, a federal judge in Alexandria, Va., said defendants in a
criminal securities-fraud case involving American International Group Inc.
could have their case tried in Connecticut, where most of them lived, to
avoid inconvenience to them.
The government had argued that the case should remain in Alexandria because
that is home to the Securities and Exchange Commission's "Edgar" computer
server, which the defendants allegedly used to commit their crime.
In the case of Mr. Zicari and Ms. Romano, the Californians tried in
Pittsburgh, Mary Beth Buchanan, U.S. attorney in that city, says the case
was brought there because it was where the product -- pornography -- was
sold.
"The case could have been brought in any district in which the product was
sold," said Ms. Buchanan. She acknowledged that her district "may be
considered by some to be more conservative" than some others, but that the
case was her idea.
Of the several men indicted in Buffalo last September on charges of
downloading child pornography, one resides in California, another in North
Carolina, and another in Ohio.
Mr. Littlefield, for his part, was indicted last July in Massachusetts of
charges of "Destruction or removal of property to prevent seizure."
Federal authorities allege that he fled his home with his computer, which
he smashed, after an FBI agent left him alone to find a lightbulb.
The Buffalo child-pornography case came later, and the government is
seeking to dismiss the property-destruction case in his home state and to
try him instead in Buffalo
William Fick, the Boston public defender representing Mr. Littlefield
there, recently told the court that "the only connection" between Mr.
Littlefield's conduct and Buffalo is "that the agent happened to be sitting
in Buffalo." The agent could "just as easily have been sitting in Alaska or
Guam."
The government has opposed his motion to keep the case in Massachusetts.
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-----------------
R. A. Hettinga
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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--
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'