Legal News

For not stopping trial so defendant could visit dying son, 9th Circuit overturns conviction

By Richard Binder

U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer refused to stop a tax fraud trial so the defendant could be at his son's deathbed and did not inform the jury why the defendant was absent for the final day of trial.  For these reasons, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the conviction in that case should be overturned.

Garth Kloehn was charged in 2005 for failing to report $1.2 million in income. He left the courtroom to fly to Las Vegas where his son, Kevin, was dying of cancer. Being the sole defense witness, he left no one to rebut the prosecution's final testimony. The jury found Garth Kloehn guilty and the judge sentenced him to 46 months in prison, plus payment of the owed taxes and penalties.

In a 2-1 ruling, judges of the 9th Circuit said that although there were "no mechanical tests for deciding when a denial of a continuance is so arbitrary as to violate due process," Fischer's action was "arbitrary and unreasonable."

Full story here.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on September 07, 2010 (boomark / email).