Matt Kezhaya (Kezhaya Law PLC) wrote an amicus brief on my behalf in this case (U.S. v. Cherwitz & Daedone) a few weeks ago—many thanks to him for all his work on it!—and I thought I'd pass it along:
Summary of Argument
Under the Government's theory of spiritual coercion, people who at one point believed that volunteering for a religious organization is the path to enlightenment or salvation, but who later become disillusioned with their former beliefs, can be found to have been retroactively "coerced" into providing that labor. The same logic could apply to nuns who had felt religious pressure to do the educational or nursing work that their order was known for, or to monks who had felt religious pressure to do agricultural work that supports the monastery. Any religious organization that runs a monastery, convent, or any other institution where adherents are expected to work as part of their religious vocation could likewise face felony prosecutions.
Such a theory of criminal liability violates the Free Exercise Clause because it is not "neutral." Governments depart from neutrality not just when legislators pass laws designed to suppress religion, but also when courts enforce otherwise-neutral laws in ways that suppress religion precisely because of spiritual or religious qualities. Liability in this case turned precisely on the religious nature of the allegedly coercive conduct, and was imposed in the absence of any secular coercion such as violence or the threat of violence.
The sexual subject matter and conduct inherent within OneTaste's beliefs and practices is beside the point. The forced labor statute is not limited to sexual labor. 18 U.S.C. § 1589. Rather, it generally prohibits any "labor" obtained through "threats of serious harm." 18 U.S.C. § 1589(a)(3). Indeed, the "labor" subject of this charge was ordinary, non-sexual administrative work entailed in running a religious organization that features events and communal living.
To be sure, laws that restrict sexual labor will usually be neutral and generally applicable, precisely because they do not turn on any claims of religious or spiritual coercion. If any business, religious or not, offers its employees' sexual services in exchange for money, that might well violate generally applicable bans on prostitution or pandering. Likewise, if any business, religious or not, conditions employment on the employee's performing sexual services, that will usually constitute civilly actionable quid pro quo sexual harassment. And enforcing such laws would not jeopardize ordinary religious labor, precisely because they are focused on a narrow range of secularly-defined behavior that is seen as harmful (the exchange of sex for money or employment) rather than on a theory of spiritual coercion that can apply to a wide range of labor.
But such laws were not used in this case. The essence of this charge was punishing a particular religious group. The Court should vacate the convictions, or at least reverse and remand for a new trial with proper limiting instructions.
Argument
[I.] A theory of "spiritual coercion" violates the Free Exercise Clause.
The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment prohibits governments from targeting specific religious beliefs or practices as such. Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993). That prohibition bars more than just legislative enactments expressly targeting religion; it extends to criminal prosecutions that apply facially neutral laws in ways that target disfavored religious beliefs. Fowler v. State of R.I., 345 U.S. 67 (1953).
Of course, as Part III will discuss, "neutral" and "generally applicable" criminal statutes may be applied to religious behavior precisely the same way they are applied to secular behavior; otherwise, each of us would "become a law unto himself." Emp. Div., Dep't of Hum. Res. of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 885 (1990); see also Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 167 (1878). But this power cannot be used to target religious actions because of their religious or spiritual character.
The threshold inquiry is whether the ideas are, within OneTaste's scheme of things, "religious." See Patrick v. LeFevre, 745 F.2d 153, 158-59 (2d Cir. 1984). Indisputably, Defendants, OneTaste, and adherents of OneTaste (including the so-called victims) all considered the doctrines subject of this criminal trial to be "religious." See A-977 ("We believed that … your path to God was through your orgasm") (emphasis added); see also A-1053 (adherents of OneTaste seek "something more" beyond ordinary existence believe "Our most potent biological drive, Orgasm, is the key to unlocking this power.").
OneTaste's doctrines addressed distinctions between the physical and spiritual realms in a dichotomy between the "third dimension" and the "fourth dimension." See A-694. They addressed issues of worldly suffering and promised both enlightenment and transcendence through ceremonial rites. A-1114 (orgasm "was more about energy," borrowing from "Buddhist principles like the concept of qi"); see also A-1446 ("OneTaste teachings integrate the principles of mindfulness with the practice of orgasm"); A-1089 (OneTaste teachings included sex "as a ritual practice" and "Magic School … where we had sort of like priests and priestesses of orgasm"); see also A-1426-1427 (PowerPoint presentation outlining "Alchemize shadow into power through orgasm" and "Orgasm Magic: Bringing out the elements of magic [and] Put the principles of OM into practice in creating what you want … [including] Rituals and ceremonies"). Specific ceremonies described in the record include a marriage ceremony at A-891, a foot soaking ritual at A-1085, and a shower ritual at A-1152. The central ritualtenet of OneTaste was ritualistic sexual activity is, OMing, or "Orgasmic Meditation," which adherents of OneTaste regard as a mindfulness practice, a "meditation on sensation without a goal," A-577, A-785.
The Government made much of the sexual nature of those beliefs and practices. E.g., A-1229. But it is no business of the government, including the courts, to "prescribe what shall be orthodox in … religion." W. Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943). Because OneTaste and its adherents considered these beliefs and practices to be "religious" within their scheme of things, the Free Exercise Clause protects their beliefs and practices from governmental targeting.
And the Government did not seriously contest OneTaste's religiosity; instead, it acknowledged, and even stressed, the spiritual and religious nature of OneTaste's activities. According to the Government's closing arguments, the essence of the charge was that "the defendants indoctrinated the victims to believe that Nicole Daedone was a guru and that her teachings were the path to enlightenment and spiritual growth." A-1222. Prosecutors took issue that "Nicole Daedone taught that orgasm was God." A-1232. And "[n]early all of them [victims] lived in OneTaste housing and were subjected to these teachings incessantly." A-1234. The complained-of "indoctrination" and "teachings" is the very essence of religion: leading adherents to accept doctrines as spiritual truths. That these supposed victims ordered their lives in accordance with OneTaste's beliefs and practices is evidence of spiritual and religious belief, not of criminally punishable coercion.
Had there been evidence these "victims" were physically coerced into accepting OneTaste's religious doctrines, such physical coercion would certainly have been illegal. But that was not the Government's theory. Each of these so-called victims freely admitted that they voluntarily joined the organization. A-267-268; A-872-873; A-939; A-1152-1153. And they freely admitted that they voluntarily left it. A-882; A-939; A-1107. The "indoctrination" and "teachings" for which Defendants stood trial only describes proselytization, the very essence of religion, which cannot be criminally punished.
Likewise, the prosecution argued that Defendants "disrupted victims' personal relationships and isolated them from their friends and family." A-1222; see also A-1235 (victims "felt like OneTaste was all they had"). More particularly, Defendants did so by encouraging some of their adherents, including these "victims," to live in a commune with other like-minded believers. A-262, 359-60, 775, 893-894, 1004-06. But this disruption likewise stemmed not from physical coercion or threats of violence, of deportation, or of other secular harm. Rather, it stemmed from the adherents' sense of the spiritual value of participating in a particular religious and spiritual community. A-872; A-1008-1009 (Ms. Kandell, particularly, described her time at the commune as "one of the greatest experiences of my life," partly because of "the sense of community" and "the focus of the communal living"); A-1138-1139.
This is a commonplace practice among many religious orders. By definition, any follower of any monastic tradition could be described as having their personal relationships "disrupted" or becoming "isolated" from their less committed friends and family. Volokh, Addiction, 75 Emory L. J. at 1190. Nor does it say anything that a religion discourages association with non-adherents, as many religious groups do. E.g., Paul v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc'y of N.Y., Inc., 819 F.2d 875, 883 (9th Cir. 1987) ("The harms suffered by Paul as a result of her shunning by the Jehovah's Witnesses are clearly not of the type that would justify the imposition of tort liability for religious conduct. No physical assault or battery occurred.").
The Government also invited the jury to convict because Defendants "financially harmed victims by driving them into debt and not paying them for their labor." A-1222. More specifically, the Government stressed that Defendants accepted, and even encouraged, these "victims" to volunteer their services to their chosen religious organization. A‑908‑910; A‑1028‑1030; A‑1095-1103. But these "victims" were not coerced or defrauded into performing these volunteer services; they knew full well that their services would be unpaid, and they still chose to volunteer their efforts. A-947-48; A-1152-53; A872-76. This too is commonplace among religions: Under our constitutional tradition, it is a defining feature of religion that it relies on charitable contributions of money, goods, and services from its adherents. See generally James Madison et al., Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (reproduced in full at Everson v. Bd. of Ed. of Ewing Twp., 330 U.S. 1, 63–72 (1947)). Indeed, many religions call for participants to tithe 10% of all their secular income. See Volokh, Addiction, 75 Emory L. J. at 1180 n. 5. But for First Amendment protections, a hostile jury could punish that practice as extortion because of religious pressure constituting "the threat of social ostracism or eternal damnation, or from the promise of community or of eternal." Id., at 1180.
The crux of the Government's charge was that the Defendants "forced" the purported victims to perform voluntary services through religious indoctrination and, more generally, made them feel reliant on OneTaste. See A-1236 (victims "felt like their whole world was OneTaste. It was their community, their friends, where they worked, and where they lived. And the defendants did all of this by design"). But such feelings of deliberately induced reliance on a religious community are entirely unremarkable in the religious context. See Volokh, Addiction, 75 Emory L. J. at 1183 (observing that a common technique among many religions is to "slowly lur[e] people into a community and a belief system that they may eventually find emotionally hard to leave, even if they feel some desire to leave").
Many Christians preach eternal damnation without Christ. Buddhists preach eternal suffering without dharma. Latter-day Saints encourage extensive participation in church callings, missionary service, and a tightly integrated congregational life. Countless religious traditions promise spiritual fulfillment, enlightenment, or eternal happiness through faithful adherence to their beliefs and practices. See Volokh, Addiction, 75 Emory L. J. at 1180, 1190. Many religions cause each of us to act and believe in ways non-adherents of our chosen path would find to be irrational or even "rank heresy." See United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, 86 (1944).
It is no answer for the Government to charge that these so-called victims felt "compelled" to perform the subject services because that compulsion was the product of religious conviction. If each of us are to be entrusted with the right to enter and exit our chosen religions at will, then each of us must also accept the risk that our chosen religions may cause us to donate time, money, or goods. The Court should find that the Free Exercise Clause prohibits this conviction.
[II.] The trial itself was not religiously "neutral."
Government's enforcement action, even under a facially religion-neutral generally applicable statute, violates the Free Exercise Clause when the enforcement of the statute is itself not "neutral," See Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado C.R. Comm'n, 584 U.S. 617, 634 (2018). In Masterpiece Cakeshop, the government sought to enforce Colorado's public accommodations statute in part because of the religious motivations of a baker. Commissioners departed from neutrality by describing the baker's religious beliefs as "despicable" and characterized them as merely rhetorical. Id., at 635. Even "subtle departures from neutrality" on matters of religion are prohibited, not just when a legislative branch enacts a law but also when the executive branch enforces it. See id., at 638.
Just as in Masterpiece Cakeshop, the record in this case is replete with denigration of this particular religion. Ms. Gupta invited the jury to scrutinize OneTaste's vocabulary and the specific doctrines as evidence of wrongdoing. A-1232. She emphasized the specialized use of words or phrases "TurnON" (which seemed [synonymous] with the yoga phrase "state of flow"), "muggles" (meaning non-adherents of OneTaste), "matrix" (referring to "my fake reality of problems"), and "tumescence" (in the specialized spiritual sense of "bad energy that you were holding onto"), and the dichotomy between the "third dimension" (the "concrete world") and the "fourth dimension" ("the higher plane"), and asserted these words or phrases were being used to "indoctrinate the victims." A-1232, A-1235. This argument directly invited the jury to judge unfamiliar or strange religious concepts as proof of religious illegitimacy, which neither prosecutors nor jurors may do. See Masterpiece Cakeshop, 584 U.S. at 639; Fowler, 345 U.S. at 70.
Religions routinely use specialized phrasing like "saved," "possessed," "called," or "enlightened," which may appear unacceptable or incomprehensible to outsiders. That strangeness does not deprive OneTaste of First Amendment protections and certainly cannot underlie a felony criminal conviction, especially when the phrasing refers to spiritual or transcendental concepts. See Thomas v. Rev. Bd. of Indiana Emp. Sec. Div., 450 U.S. 707, 714 (1981). Quite the opposite: Our natural aversion to other religions is why we have tolerance protections enshrined in the First Amendment to begin with. See Ballard, 322 U.S. at 87; see also Marsh v. Chambers, 468 U.S. 783, 792 (1983).
The prosecutor also described OneTaste as a "sex cult." A-1223, A-1264. That label was inherently pejorative. See United States v. Helbrans, No. S219CR497NSR0102, 2021 WL 4778525, *17 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 12, 2021) (prohibiting the Government from referring to defendants as being part of a "cult," prohibiting insinuations that "leaders brainwash or force members of the community to behave in or observe their religion in a certain way," and prohibiting "incendiary and irrelevant references" to the religious organization). The prosecutor was using this label as a rhetorical device to persuade jurors that OneTaste's teaching should be regarded with suspicion because they were unconventional. Just like in Masterpiece Cakeshop, this label was employed with the impermissible goal of suggesting the illegitimacy of a particular set of religious beliefs and practices. See 584 U.S. at 635.
The prosecutor argued, "that's not because OMing was actually spiritual. They connected OMing to spirituality for legal protection, and so people would follow Nicole Daedone's teachings." A-1233; see also A-1381 ("They [Defendants] whittled them [victims] down by … indoctrinating them with so-called spiritual teachings and practices."). But what forms of meditation are "actually" spiritual and what are just "so-called" spiritual is not for secular courts to decide. It is no business of our secular government to "prescribe what shall be orthodox in … religion." Barnette, 319 U.S. at 642. The Government simply cannot put the legitimacy of religious or spiritual ideas on trial. Ballard, 322 U.S. at 86-88. Yet the Government did exactly that by arguing:
It is not okay to teach your employees that their spiritual purpose is to fuck the war out of men and that if they stray from the [path] set by OneTaste and by Nicole Daedone, they will be spiritually ruined.
A-1284.
And while there is a narrow zone in which a properly instructed jury can determine whether people's religious beliefs are sincerely held, United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163, 165 (1965), no such instruction was given to the jury in this case. Quite the contrary, the District Court declined to provide jury instructions that any "alleged threats were covered by the First Amendment." A-1211. The District Court even warned defense counsel against referencing Defendants' First Amendment rights: "I'm not going to let you instruct the jury or even come close to instructing the jury on the First Amendment." A-1212. And the District Court refused to order a mistrial despite that the Government "ask[ed] the jury to hold their spiritual beliefs against them." A-1315-1316 (argument); A-1318 (denial).
The Government's rhetorical devices are a far cry from the neutrality required by Masterpiece Cakeshop. The Government was overtly hostile to Defendants' religion in itself and openly invited the jury to judge the legitimacy of OneTaste's religious doctrines and practices. It is no answer that the jury accepted the Government's invitation because the highest law of the land removes that power from legislator, judge, juror, and prosecutor alike. "If one could be sent to jail because a jury in a hostile environment found those teachings to be false, little indeed would be left of religious freedom." Ballard, 322 U.S. at 87.
[III.] Defendants were not charged with commercial sexual practices.
To be sure, nothing in this argument precludes the application of genuinely neutral laws to regulate commercial sexual behavior. For instance, an organization that sells members' or employees' sexual services for money can still be subject, under Employment Division v. Smith, to neutral and generally applicable bans on prostitution. Such laws can be applied without resorting to arguments about spiritual coercion, or claims that the defendant supposedly "indoctrinat[ed people] to believe that [she] was a guru and that her teachings were the path to enlightenment and spiritual growth." A-1222. It would not matter whether the defendant "taught that orgasm was God." A-977. Commercial sale of certain services that lead to orgasm would be the crime, with no need to address the spiritual significance of the orgasm itself.
Likewise, if an employee claims that an employer required sexual services as a condition of employment, the employee could sue for quid pro quo sexual harassment, again a matter that is entirely religion-neutral. Indeed, the government could even criminalize such quid pro quo sexual harassment. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 39.03 (criminalizing sexual harassment under color of public office).
Unlike with the Government's expansive reading of the coerced labor statute, none of this would threaten religions that have a tradition of monasticism, or of religious labor as a calling. None of this would treat religious or spiritual teachings as "coercion." And none of this would treat such teachings as crimes when they lead people to feel moved, or even spiritually or religiously obligated, to perform certain tasks that are given to them by a spiritual or religious community.
Of course, in this case the Government chose not to prosecute under statutes banning commercial sale of sexual services—perhaps because there was no evidence that money was being exchanged in return for sexual activity. But these laws exist, and deal with genuine commercialization of sex. Likewise, laws banning rape and sexual assault exist, and deal with genuine physical coercion of sexual acts. There is no reason for a concern about possible commercialization of sex to be used to justify an overbroad reading of coerced labor statutes, which would apply far more broadly than just to sex.
Conclusion
Because the Government's theory of coercion rested in part on "indoctrination" into religious and spiritual beliefs and threats of excommunication from a religious and spiritual community, these criminal convictions cannot withstand Free Exercise Clause scrutiny….
The post Amicus Brief in OneTaste Criminal Prosecution appeared first on Reason Magazine.
Eljay Crisp-Carr, 20, spent five months behind bars before prosecutors asked to dismiss charges
Ohio prosecutors on Friday dropped charges against a man arrested in connection with the 6 June shooting at Toledo’s Old West End festival that injured 12 people.
Eljay Crisp-Carr, 20, had faced more than 50 felony charges stemming from the shooting, including 25 counts of attempted murder. He was released after spending about five months behind bars.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Rebecca Benson/The Blade/AP
© Photograph: Rebecca Benson/The Blade/AP
© Photograph: Rebecca Benson/The Blade/AP
Novaya Gazeta will turn off its servers and leave its office on Moscow's Potapovsky Lane on 9 November, ending more than 30 years of work, the editorial staff said in a statement published on 30 October. The paper will publish one final issue.
The closure removes what The Economist called Russia's "last free newspaper." Novaya Gazeta had repeatedly exposed evidence of Russia's aggression against Ukraine: in 2015, it published a memo that, it said, apparently reached Putin's administration in February 2014 with a plan to annex Crimea and eastern Ukraine, and in 2017 it published a witness account backing the identification of a Russian colonel linked to the downing of MH17. Some 1,500 journalists have left Russia since the full-scale invasion, and over 100 independent media projects now work from exile, according to a CEPA report. Novaya Gazeta kept working in Moscow through the war, until pressure rose sharply this year and, the paper says, left it with no office and no money.
The eviction became public on 29 October, when The Insider reported a letter to readers from editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov and journalist Irina Gordienko. The newsroom had worked in the Potapovsky Lane building for 29 years, according to The Insider, or 30, according to the paper. The letter said the paper had very little time to leave and had no new office. The reasons for the eviction and the position of the building's owner have not been made public.
According to the statement, the platform the paper used to collect reader donations was shut down at the same time as the eviction letter arrived. Banks cited internal corporate rules, but the editors called this a coordinated campaign and blamed the FSB, the Justice Ministry, and the Prosecutor's Office.
The museum of Anna Politkovskaya, set up in 2021 in her former office in the same building, will also close, according to The Insider. On 7 October, the 20th anniversary of her murder, the museum received the restored memorial plaque from the Moscow building where she was shot.
The statement lists six colleagues killed for their work: Igor Domnikov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, Stas Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, and Natalya Estemirova. It also recalls the attack on Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, who nearly lost his sight, and says no criminal case was opened. Columnist Elena Milashina was abducted and beaten in Chechnya in 2023.
Earlier this year, in April, security officers raided the newsroom for 13 hours, and Oleg Roldugin, whom the paper calls its managing editor, was detained in a criminal case over the alleged illegal use of personal data, The Insider reported. The paper says Roldugin was in effect taken hostage for working as a journalist and that his trial is coming. In mid-October, Sokolov's apartment was searched. In early September, the Justice Ministry added Novaya Gazeta to its "foreign agents" register, listing more than 100 journalists and contributors, according to the statement.
Novaya Gazeta suspended publication in March 2022 after warnings from the media regulator Roskomnadzor. In September 2022, a Moscow court stripped the paper of its media license, Reuters reported. Then-editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov called the ruling "a political hit job, without the slightest legal basis."
Meanwhile, staff who left Russia launched Novaya Gazeta Europe in Riga, according to RFE/RL.
Euromaidan Press has drawn on Novaya Gazeta's reporting, including its interview with Oleg Sentsov, and marked Politkovskaya's legacy in 2019.
Scraping copyrighted material from internet could ‘potentially’ amount to acquisition of property by government, Anne Twomey says
Get our daily political email, free app or daily news podcast
Altering copyright law to allow AI companies to scrape music, books and journalism could trigger a constitutional breach, Coalition senators and the recording industry have warned, as they raise new fears it could open Australia to massive legal action and compensation claims from rights holders worldwide.
The attorney general’s department admitted it was “extremely alive” to the issue, and Australia’s leading constitutional expert, Anne Twomey, agreed there was “potentially” a concern – depending how legislation was drafted – that granting AI companies permission to scrape copyrighted material from the internet could amount to an acquisition of property by the government.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
© Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
© Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
In November 2023, three engineers left a South Korean semiconductor testing-components company for a Chinese employer offering twice their previous salaries. According to South Korea’s Intellectual Property Office, they allegedly took proprietary probe-card designs, arranged for a Korean design firm to modify them, and used the technology to develop products in China. By December 2025, […]
The post What Taiwan can teach South Korea about China’s chip tech theft appeared first on Asia Times.
Paul Nowak says ‘hundreds, if not thousands’ of employers could sign access agreements as ‘transformative’ rules come into force
The TUC general secretary, Paul Nowak, is predicting a wave of union recognition deals in the private sector over the next year as “transformative” rules on accessing workplaces come into force.
From Friday, as part of Labour’s Employment Rights Act, unions will have the right to enter workplaces or communicate with staff electronically. From January, employers will be obliged to inform workers of their right to join a union.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
© Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
© Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
© KMazur (WireImage)
© Stephanie Augello (Variety via Getty Images)
© Robert Marquardt (Getty Images)
© Michael Tran (FilmMagic)
© Mauricio Santana (Getty Images)
© Gregg DeGuire (WireImage)
© EL PAÍS
© Getty
© Getty
© Dave Benett (Getty Images)
© Europa Press Entertainment (Europa Press via Getty Images)
© Getty
© Chris Weeks (FilmMagic)
© Steve Granitz (WireImage)
© WWD (Penske Media via Getty Images)
© Getty
© David Livingston (Getty Images)
© Michael Kovac (Getty Images for Baby2Baby)
© Getty
South Korean Special Prosecutor Cho Eun-suk on Thursday demanded the death penalty for former president Yeon Suk-yeol, who touched off a national crisis by declaring martial law in December 2024.
The post South Korean Prosecutor Seeks Death Penalty for Conservative Ex-President appeared first on Breitbart.
A Sullivan County judge heard oral arguments Thursday to determine whether New York Attorney General Letitia James should be removed as special prosecutor in the reopened criminal investigation into an alleged gang rape at Cornell University.
The proceeding ended without an immediate ruling from Judge James Farrell.
The hearing stems from a challenge filed by defense attorney Andrew Miltenberg, who represents Gillio Lopes, one of the men accused in the case.
Lopes is one of seven former Chi Phi fraternity brothers who are accused in a lawsuit of drugging and raping a female Cornell student at their fraternity house in October 2024.
LETITIA JAMES FACES NEW PUSH TO BOOT HER FROM CORNELL RAPE PROBE OVER ALLEGED BIAS: COURT DOCUMENTS
Defense counsel argued that social media comments posted by James prior to her official appointment as "special prosecutor" demonstrate a pre-existing bias and a presumption of guilt that undermines the prosecution's neutrality.
"What this young woman has been forced to endure is horrific and unacceptable," James had posted on social media. "I’m holding her in my heart and in my prayers. To her, and to all survivors: you’re not alone. We stand with you."
TISH JAMES CONFRONTED ON CAMERA OVER TRUMP'S ACCUSATION OF BIAS IN CORNELL RAPE CASE
Arguing before the court, Miltenberg pointed to those public declarations of support as proof of a pre-determined bias.
"Whether it affects all or just one, either the court determines the statements made by AG James take her out of contention to be neutral party reviewing case or not," Miltenberg argued, calling the initial public statements an "original sin" for the case.
FOLLOW THE FOX TRUE CRIME TEAM ON X
SIGN UP TO GET THE LATEST TRUE CRIME NEWS
In a statement sent to Fox News on Thursday, a spokesperson for James' office said, "As indicated in our motion before the court, these claims are without merit. The Office of the Attorney General remains committed to conducting an investigation guided only by the facts, the evidence, and the law."
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE FOX TRUE CRIME HUB
Representing the state, Assistant Attorney General Kaitlin Vigars defended Gov. Kathy Hochul's appointment of James and pushed back against the disqualification effort, emphasizing that public statements alone do not meet the legal threshold for removal.
Vigars argued that to warrant disqualification, there needs to be a showing of actual prejudice rather than speculative claims of bias.
CORNELL SEXUAL ASSAULT CASE REVIVES SCRUTINY OF A LITTLE-KNOWN NEW YORK LAW ON INTOXICATED VICTIMS
Farrell peppered Vigars with questions about the circumstances leading up to James’ appointment, including if Hochul was aware of James’ social media comment, if James and Hochul were standing together when the governor made remarks about the "brave young woman," if that runs afoul of professional conduct, and if the purpose of appointing the AG was to avoid bias.
Farrell also raised broader procedural concerns during the arguments, noting the potential for conflicting legal rulings if challenges proceed piecemeal across jurisdictions.
LISTEN TO THE NEW 'CRIME & JUSTICE WITH DONNA ROTUNNO' PODCAST
"If multiple judges come down with decisions that’s chaos," Farrell said from the bench, "and the court should not fashion chaos."
Hochul appointed James as special prosecutor on Oct. 1 after stepping in to bypass the local Tompkins County district attorney, who had previously declined to bring charges.
CORNELL RAPE ACCUSER CAN REMAIN 'JANE DOE'; JUDGE WARNS THREATS COULD LEAD TO FEDERAL CHARGES
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
With no decision rendered at the conclusion of Thursday's arguments, the judge is expected to issue a formal written ruling in the coming days on whether James will remain as special prosecutor or if the investigation must be reassigned.
Hochul later said on Thursday that all sexual offense complaints at Cornell University are now being referred to New York State Police, rather than Cornell University Police, unless otherwise requested by that individual.
"Every student deserves to feel safe on their campus," she said in a statement, in part. "And when someone reports sexual assault, they deserve to be heard, treated with compassion, and know their allegations will be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated by law enforcement trained to support survivors.
"What Jane Doe described is horrifying. Survivors should be able to trust the institutions responsible for protecting them. We cannot afford to let them down."
Research finds 55% of lawyers are using AI in legal practices, up from 37% last year, though efficiency gains aren’t as high as expected
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
More than half of Victoria’s lawyers have reported using AI in their work, according to a new study, but just over a quarter say they have reduced fees as a result of efficiency gains.
They also say clients seeking advice from chatbots have added to their workload, forcing them to correct errors made by AI.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Posed by models; Jacob Wackerhausen/Getty Images
© Photograph: Posed by models; Jacob Wackerhausen/Getty Images
© Photograph: Posed by models; Jacob Wackerhausen/Getty Images
Login