Filed: Mar. 26, 2018
Latest Update: Mar. 26, 2018
Summary: ORDER REQUIRING DEFENDANT'S COUNSEL TO FILE DOCUMENTS CONCERNING WHETHER HE WILL REPRESENT DEFENDANT AT TRIAL AND REQUIRING DEFENDANT'S APPEARANCE ON MARCH 27, 2018 GARLAND E. BURRELL, JR. , District Judge . Each party filed a document on March 23, 2018, regarding what should occur if Defendant's attorney, Mr. David J. Cohen, is unavailable to represent Defendant at the jury trial scheduled to commence at 9:00 a.m. on March 27, 2018. The trial commencement date has been repeatedly reschedul
Summary: ORDER REQUIRING DEFENDANT'S COUNSEL TO FILE DOCUMENTS CONCERNING WHETHER HE WILL REPRESENT DEFENDANT AT TRIAL AND REQUIRING DEFENDANT'S APPEARANCE ON MARCH 27, 2018 GARLAND E. BURRELL, JR. , District Judge . Each party filed a document on March 23, 2018, regarding what should occur if Defendant's attorney, Mr. David J. Cohen, is unavailable to represent Defendant at the jury trial scheduled to commence at 9:00 a.m. on March 27, 2018. The trial commencement date has been repeatedly reschedule..
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ORDER REQUIRING DEFENDANT'S COUNSEL TO FILE DOCUMENTS CONCERNING WHETHER HE WILL REPRESENT DEFENDANT AT TRIAL AND REQUIRING DEFENDANT'S APPEARANCE ON MARCH 27, 2018
GARLAND E. BURRELL, JR., District Judge.
Each party filed a document on March 23, 2018, regarding what should occur if Defendant's attorney, Mr. David J. Cohen, is unavailable to represent Defendant at the jury trial scheduled to commence at 9:00 a.m. on March 27, 2018. The trial commencement date has been repeatedly rescheduled for 24-hour continuances beginning on March 20, 2018, and ending on March 22, 2018, on which date Mr. Cohen's law office alerted the court at 7:10 a.m., that he was unavailable for the jury trial then scheduled to commence at 9:00 a.m. Numerous potential jurors had been summoned to court for the aborted March 22 jury trial.
A hearing was conducted on March 22, 2018, and the jury trial commencement date was rescheduled to commence at 9:00 a.m. on March 27, 2018. The document each party filed on March 23 concerns what should occur if Mr. Cohen states he is unavailable to represent Defendant at the jury trial now scheduled to commence on March 27, 2018. The United States asserts:
If Mr. Cohen's illness prevents him from arriving for the fourth consecutive scheduled day of trial, . . . whoever appears should be able to answer the following two questions: (a) what attorney will take the case to trial, and (b) when will that person be prepared?. . . The government asks the Court to order that an attorney capable of answering those two questions appear before the Court on Tuesday, March 27, 2018, even if Mr. Cohen is still too ill to proceed to trial.
ECF No. 104 at 2:9-18.
These questions are reasonable in light of the continuances of the jury trial commencement date involved in this case. Mr. Cohen shall file a document by 11:30 a.m. on March 26, 2018, in which he informs the court whether he will appear at 9:00 a.m., March 27, 2018, and whether trial will commence as scheduled. If Mr. Cohen will not appear, he shall respond to the government's above questions by 12:30 p.m. on March 26, 2018, and state whether an attorney will appear with Defendant on March 27, 2018. Defendant shall appear in court at 9:00 a.m., March 27, 2018. The government may respond no later than 2:00 p.m., March 26, 2018.
