Category Archives: Law

“With sound mind….”

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“I Michael Miske Jr…With sound mind effectively make the following edits to my trust….”

Less than three months before he died, convicted racketeering boss Michael J. Miske Jr. sat at a computer in Honolulu’s Federal Detention Center to get his affairs in order, and typed out four pages of changes to the trust he had created back in 2008 to hold title to his personal and business assets. His instructions were then printed, notarized by a mobile notary, and mailed to San Francisco-based criminal defense lawyer Christopher J. Cannon, who was representing several Miske companies since 2017.

Copies of these last amendments to the Michael J. Miske Revokeable Living Trust, as amended, along with the the full text of three earlier versions (2008, 2014, and 2016) were filed in federal court by another San Francisco attorney, Edward M. Burch, representing the current trustees of the Miske Trust in opposition to the government’s lawsuit seeking the forfeiture of all of Miske’s property. It is the first time that the provisions of Miske’s trust have been made public.

Miske’s new instructions started off relatively routinely. He confirmed the trust’s primary beneficiary–his granddaughter, the daughter of Miske’s only son, Caleb, who died in March 2016 from complications of injuries received when a vintage 1993 Honda he was driving collided at high speed into a pickup truck turning left across traffic just outside of Windward City Shopping Center.

The girl’s name is redacted in court records, where she is identified only by her initials because she is a minor.

Miske also changed the roster of trustees who he wanted to control the trust after his death. At the time, Miske, then age 50, could look forward to a long natural life, although likely to be lived out in federal custody. But he felt compelled to update his trustee list as if dwelling on his own demise.

The new trustees named by Miske are Honolulu attorney Alen Kaneshiro, who frequently represented Miske, Caleb, and several other Miske associates, including Lance Bermudez, who had Kaneshiro’s telephone number tattood on his arm; Russel Mascoto (“Russel Boy”) who was identified in the trial as a “ghost employee” of Kamaaina Termite who didn’t really work there, but provided “muscle” to Miske; and Jon T. Dahl, owner of companies providing transportation services to the film production industry, a longtime friend and former business partner of Miske.

He also gave instructions regarding his remaining real estate, contingent on regaining control of the assets being held by the government.

“Shall the assets be returned (in full) my wish is to immediately sell 6 Lumahai Honolulu, Hl 96825 for fair market value by a qualified Realtor with experience in marketing and negotiating high-end property,” Miske directed.

In addition, he directed that the mortgate on his second property, a home in Enchanted Lakes, be paid off and the home rented out for fair market value.

In another change of questionable legality, Miske directed his attorney to remove the boilerplate language that empowered the trustees to pay “legally enforceable claims against me or my estate.”

“My trustee does not have my authority to make such payments,” Miske wrote, apparently hoping to increase the time and cost for anyone seeking to collect a debt owed by Miske or his trust.

Then Miske dropped the hammer
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John Oliver on the great debate over trans athletes

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Oliver devoted this entire 42-minute episode of “Last Week Tonight” to digging into the issue of trans athletes in women’s sports.

Beyond his jokes, Oliver and his staff did a lot of digging into some of the most highly publicized examples that have fueled the public outcry, and the data that Oliver cites just don’t support the hysteria and the rush to anti-trans legislation.

I’m going to see if there’s a transcript available, which would lend itself to some bullet points highlighting the main points in this episode.

Judge orders the White House to immediate restore access for Associate Press reporters

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Federal Judge Trevor McFadden issued an order on Tuesday granting a preliminary injunction and ordering the White House to immediately rescind its denial of access to press events by Associated Press reporters.

About two months ago, President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. The Associated Press did not follow suit. For that editorial choice, the White House sharply curtailed the AP’s access to coveted, tightly controlled media events with the President. The AP now sues the White House chief of staff, her communications deputy, and the press secretary (collectively, “the Government”), seeking a preliminary injunction enjoining the Government from excluding it because of its viewpoint.

Today, the Court grants that relief.

…the Court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints. The Constitution requires no less.”

McFadden was nominated to the District Court for the District of Columbia in 2017 by President Trump during his first term in office.

Judge McFadden found strong legal precedent for the view that access restrictions must be reasonable and not viewpoint based.

“So while the AP does not have a constitutional right to enter the Oval Office, it does have a right to not be excluded because of its
viewpoint. And the AP says that is exactly what is happening,” the order found.

The judge’s order requires the defendants to “immediately rescind the denial of the AP’s access to the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other limited spaces based on the AP’s viewpoint when such spaces are made open to other members of the White House press pool,” as well as to events that are open to “all credentialed White House journalists.”

The full 41-page order follows. It is definitely worth at least skimming the sections on the history of the First Amendment and freedom of the press, as well as the discussion of how the White House press corps works.

Order for Preliminary Injunction, Associated Press v. Taylor Budowich by Ian Lind

The MAGA blitzkrieg

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We are living through a remarkable period in both U.S. and world history as this Republican administration carries out a blitzkrieg assault on 250-year old building blocks of American government and governance, and global society as a whole, making major headway at transforming our fuctioning democracy into a full-on dictatorship.

While Hitler’s WWII Blitzkrieg successfully crossed borders and led to the German occupation of most of Europe, the Republican version has erased our basic constitutional frameworks, from the separation of powers to the rule of law. While whining about imagined corruption, the administration has eliminated significant barriers to corruption, from the civil service system to the federal agency inspectors general. The administration is ordering attorneys to defend baseless policy decisions, firing those who decline to lie to judges to make their cases, and then stonewalling by refusing to abide by direct court orders, while simultaneously issuing aggressive calls to impeach judges who have ruled against the administration.

The move that I fear the most is the purge underway within the branches of the U.S. military, the abrupt firing of top admirals and generals to instill fear and obedience among the ranks of those remaining, and erasing decades of institutional memory and, to an unknown degree, the traditional military commitment to the constitution. One scenario is that after successfully declaring bogus “emergencies” to justify policies that trample legal boundaries, the administration will deploy military forces within the country to enforce its dismantling of large swaths of public institutions and services. During this president’s first term, it was top military officers within his orbit that helped to rein in his most dangerous impulses. Now he’s decimating that layer of the officer corps, putting in place those answering first and foremost to his commands, legal or not.

Ditto the purge of officials within the Department of Justice, the groundless attacks on judges who follow the law instead of the administration’s directions, and the firing of senior attorneys based on personal grievances, real or imagined.

All by a convicted multiple felon who immediately pardoned hundreds of January 6 participants convicted of violent crimes.

We are living through a period in which groups of masked men in civilian clothes can assault people walking on public streets in broad daylight and take them off by force without any semblance of due process, and deliver them to foreign prisons without recourse despite being legal residents or even citizens of this country.

For perhaps the first time in my long life, I am genuinely scared about the future, of the damage being done daily to essential institutions, the assault on and attempt to rewrite history, the crippling of science and medical research, and the progressive defunding of the web of programs that have made up the public “safety net.”

Meanwhile, life at a personal and community level goes on, just as life under other dictatorships goes on despite the outrages, hardships, and personal suffering.

I’m starting to appreciate two old friends who grew up in coal mining communities with parents involved in the labor movement when communities were divided between us (coal miners and their families) and them (mine owners and their goons). Then they lived through the red scare and McCarthy Era. Even as senior citizens, David and Diva would pull the shades and lower their voices to whispers when speaking with us about politics in “what do we do now?” conversations, telling us that they didn’t want to risk delicate conversations overheard by neighbors. “Just in case,” I suppose. You never know.

I now wonder if we’re destined to go forward as a failed state.

Here’s another anecdote from a different federal courtroom, as recounted by Ben Wittes of LawfareMedia.com. His full column can be found here.

On April 3, in a courtroom in Washington, an unfortunate soul named Drew Ensign—on behalf of the Trump administration—appeared in front of Chief Judge James Boasberg to explain why someone in the government should not be held in contempt for violating the judge’s order to turn around planes deporting Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador pursuant to the president’s proclamation under the Alien Enemies Act.

Judge Boasberg began by getting Ensign to admit certain things the administration is denying out of court:

The order in question didn’t require the release of any gang members.
It didn’t prevent the detention in immigration proceedings of any additional gang members.
It didn’t prevent the deportation of any gang members pursuant to normal immigration procedures.
In fact, the administration had done just that with respect to Tren de Aragua members.

All the temporary restraining orders did was to prevent the government from “summarily deport[ing] in-custody noncitizens who were subject to the proclamation without a hearing.”

“So if anyone in the administration continues to make statements that are contrary to what I have just said, those statements would not be truthful, isn’t that right?” the judge asked. “Those facts that we have just agreed on, they wouldn’t be true?”

Ensign responded tautologically: “Yes, Your Honor. To the extent that it’s contrary to things that are true, they would be false.”

“They would, indeed,” said Judge Boasberg.

A classic. “To the extent that it’s contrary to things that are true, they would be false.”