GOVERNMENT'S OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANT ALEX MARKEVICH'S MOTION TO STRIKE GOVERNMENT'S OPPOSITION AND REQUEST TO PERMIT LATE FILING OF BRIEF; DECLARATION OF R. STEVEN LAPHAM

JOHN A. MENDEZ, District Judge.

The United States hereby opposes the defendant's motion to strike the government's brief in opposition to the defendant's motion to quash the indictment and respectfully moves the court for an order permitting consideration of its untimely brief. The basis for this request is set forth in the attached declaration of R. Steven Lapham.

I, R. Steven Lapham, declare as follows:

1. I am the lead prosecutor assigned to the above captioned case.

2. By order dated February 4, 2013, the government's brief in opposition to the defendant's motion to quash should have been filed on or before February 19, 2013. The brief was, in fact, not filed with the court until February 21, 2013.

3. I was unable to file the government's brief on time for the following reasons:

(a) On February 19, 2013, I completed and filed with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals a 22 page brief in opposition to the defendant's motion for bail pending appeal in United States v. Dharni, Cr. No. 11-16438.

(b) On February 20, 2013, I completed a 32 page answering brief in the same case. (The brief was not actually filed with the court until a week later during which time it was being reviewed by the Appellate Chief of the U.S. Attorney's Office pursuant to office policy.)

(c) During the morning of February 19, 2013, I was absent from the office for three hours due to a previously scheduled speaking engagement at California State University, Sacramento. That morning I gave back-to-back presentations to two different criminology classes on two different topics.

4. Even as late as February 19, 2013, the date that the government's brief was due, I believed there would be sufficient time to research and draft the government's response. However, due to the conjunction of events describe above, I was unable to do so.

5. Ordinarily, I would have contacted opposing counsel to seek agreement for a short extension of time to file my brief. In this case, however, the defendant is representing himself and, given his prior conduct in court proceedings and court filings, I believed such an effort would be useless. (In prior court proceedings, I observed the defendant giving non-responsive answers to questions posed to him by the court; during this time he appeared to be reading from a prepared script. In court filings, the defendant refers to himself as a natural, not artificial, person and also refers to this country as the "united States of America," both of which are indicators of a belief system that does not accept the authority or legitimacy of the federal government).

6. Based on the foregoing I respectfully request that the court excuse me from my two day delay in filing the government's opposition brief.

I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my knowledge.

ORDER

Having reviewed the Government's Opposition in response to the defendant's motion to strike the government's answering brief and the Government's request for an extension of time to file its answering brief, and good cause appearing therefor,

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the government's request to be relieved of its default in failing to file its brief in opposition to the defendant's motion to quash in a timely manner is GRANTED, and the defendant's motion to strike the government's opposition brief is DENIED.