You should jump over to Civil Beat to read my story posted today concerning the impact of Miske’s death on the whole Miske Enterprise racketeering case (“The Case Against Mike Miske Could Be About To Disappear As If It Never Happened / A federal legal doctrine requires all actions be vacated if a defendant dies before being sentenced or if any appeals remain“).
The immediate unanswered question is what legal effect his unexpected death has on the criminal case.
The answer is simple, straightforward and startling.
Miske’s death means the case against him will disappear.
All of it. From the original indictment in 2019 through the three subsequent updates, the six months of complex trial proceedings, the jury’s repeated verdict of guilty on 13 charges, and the jury verdict requiring him for forfeit his home, vehicles, bank accounts and other assets.
Miske’s indictments, trial, convictions and forfeitures will all disappear in a legal sense, as if they had never happened.
I wrote the story yesterday (Monday), and submitted it to Civil Beat around 4 p.m. Later that evening, around 7:30 p.m., Miske’s attorneys filed a motion to vacate the jury’s verdicts along with the indictments, as my story had predicted.
My story should have made clear that none of this impacts the cases of Miske’s twelve co-defendants or the other Miske associates who were charged separately who entered into plea deals with prosecutors. All told, about 20 former Miske associates took those deals. Some are still awaiting sentencing, while at least one has already served their sentence.
I ran into the information about abatement ab initio over breakfast on Saturday with friends visiting from California. She is one of Meda’s longtime criminology colleagues and he is trained as an attorney. We had talked about some issues surrounding my coverage of the Miske case several times before, and so it was natural that I filled them in on Miske’s death while awaiting trial.
He almost immediately said the words. Abatement ab initio. I had no idea what he was talking about, so he went on to explain. The whole case will disappear, at least as it regards Mike Miske. I was very surprised because it had not been discussed publicly in the aftermath of Miske’s death.
Later in the day, I started checking online for information about this legal doctrine, and then waiting until Monday to make a few telephone calls to get comments, and to hastily write the story.
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That’s wild. It makes me wonder if Miske was aware of Abatement ab initio and killed himself as an attempt to give a final middle finger to the State and his victims.
The most complete investigative reporting in Hawaii by Ian Lind deserves true recognition to which no other source can compare!
My earlier speculation on Miske’s Beneficiary being His beloved Granddaughter were correct.
The fact that Mike’s brother John Stancil was His cell mate and may have been so during His death is incredible intriguing.
It’s unfortunate that Hawaii Federal Attorney Claire Connors represented that The Miske case would continue after His death as a simple “conversion to a Civil Case and continued forfeiture process”. This was a legal abomination. As we’re talking about over $25 Million Dollars in assets.
The incentive for death was an easy decision for someone pending a life sentence and eraser of His fortune. Preservation of His entire corpus for His lone remaining bloodling a minor child.
Weather Mike Miske was poisoned by a perpetrator or committed the ultimate sin of suicide, will likely never be proven. The City Coroner’s exhaustive prison site investigation that bore no results in His cause of death.
Natural causes is not applicable. The appropriate term would be unknown. No further testing information has been revealed to date.
In conclusion John Stancil named one of His Estate Trustee’s adds fuel to the conspiracy fire and the Federal Bureau of Prison allowance of sibling cell mates is highly questionable, when the two brothers were thick as thieves. Mike Miske “did it His way”.
The question now is whether the doctrine applies to the forfeiture proceedings and judgment.
Is the forfeiture order still intact?
Did Miske off himself to try to invalidate the forfeiture order?
The forfeiture verdict has been challenged and will likely be vacated. The government can file a new civil forfeiture lawsuit to press their claim.