Posted by Incomplete, Uncertified, & Inconsistent docs for 69 Search Warrants? MJEOL Bullet #174 Michael Jacksons lawyers filed a Status Report with the court today (August 5 2004) in which they tell Judge Rodney Melville that prosecutors have turned over incomplete, inconsistent documents to the defense. Defense attorneys say prosecutors are handing over non-certified copies of some 69 (or as many as 74) search warrants; some with blanks and some that are mysteriously missing pages. Prosecutors are duty-bound, for obvious reasons, to hand over true and correct copies of all of their informationsuch as copies of search warrants and other infoto the defense so that they can adequately prepare for trial. Another obvious reason is so that the defense can make sure that there have been no prosecutorial or police misconduct involved regarding those search warrants. Remember, prosecutors are already up to their eyeballs in hot water for a seemingly unlawful search of private investigator Brad Millers office. The defense filed the Status Report to inform everyone involved, including the judge and the clerk, that there are major discrepancies that exist between the clerks list of search warrants, provided to both counsel on July 29 2004 (pg 2 Status Report). In their status report, the defense says that of these 69 search warrants listed by the court, they are completely missing 6 of them: search warrant number 884686, 884689A, 884689B, 4912, 4953 and 5048A. Whats even more disconcerting is that there is apparently a search warrant handed over to the defense that isnt even on file with the court clerk: search warrant number 4959. The search warrants include, but are not limited to Verizon California Inc., T-Mobile USA, Washington Mutual Bank, Capitol One Bank, Banana Republic, as well as Transunion Legal Process, Equifax and Experian Credit Bureau. Some legal experts are scratching their heads as to why prosecutors seem to be getting search warrants for credit reports on whoever the warrants were executed against. The defense cites another number of search warrants, 72 or 73, in which information is missing. They say 17 of those have affidavits that appear to be complete, but 10 have affidavits where info has been edited out, and 48 or 49 others that they havent received affidavits for at all. Jacksons lawyers also say that most of the search warrant returns are missing; ie prosecutors havent turned over information of what they found, if anything, as a result of these searches. The defense says theyve been trying to pull together info from discovery in an effort to make sense of whats going on with these search warrants, but they cant be sure that the info they have is complete or accurate. The question is why are prosecutors so reluctant to hand over even the most basic informationthe search warrants executed against Jackson? Why are they not notifying the defense of what was found, if anything? Some are already speculating that prosecutors are hiding what could be an incredibly weak hand in this case. And yet some observers say outright that prosecutors may not want defense attorneys to find out that all of these searches have amounted to absolutely nothing. Additionally, the defense lawyers say they received search warrants executed on Neverland Ranch, private investigator Brad Millers office and another location, redacted from the court document; all of which had no number at all. They state in their status report:
We also have testimony that there may be an additional telephonic search warrant issued at Neverland Ranch. That means we have 63 of the 69 listed by the court and reason to believe that there are as many as 73 or 74. (pg3 Status Report Aug 5 2004)
They say there is a total of 5 search warrants that have no numbers associated with them as far as they can tell from information turned over by prosecutors. According to the grand jury transcripts, there were 3 telephonic search warrants (warrants obtained over the phone) issued. But neither the court nor the current district attorney has turned over info about that 3rd telephonic search warrant. Of these search warrants, lawyers say prosecutors have failed to provide them with certified copies of these search warrants, affidavits, and returns. They also level a very valid charge: they have no way of knowing if the incomplete and uncertified copies that they have, in fact, contain the same info the court has:
The defense has no means by which to determine if any of the documents were, in fact, filed with the court in the form provided to us. Furthermore, some of the documents are missing pages, some are redacted and some do not appear to have all blanks filled in thereby indicating that, either the courts files also contain defective documents or that the defense has not been provided with copies of the actual filed documents. (pg4 Status Report Aug 5 2004)
They say they will continue to try to resolve this issue with prosecutors, but felt the need to inform the judge due to the closeness of their next hearing, which is actually a telephonic hearing, on August 6 2004. Whats more perplexing, other than the reason why prosecutors are dragging their feet in handing over this information, is the sheer number of search warrants being executed; between 69-73 search warrants. Some observers have said that this number is ridiculously high in a child molestation case. Attorney Mickey Sherman has also commented publicly that the entire investigation of the Gambino crime family didnt require this many search warrants. Still, others have grown very skeptical about the ingenuousness of prosecutors. They say that it seems as if prosecutors have obtained search warrants with every credit card agency, related bank and credit reporting bureau because theyre searching for something they should already have exact knowledge of by now. They also question whether prosecutors should have done this a year ago and long before arresting Jackson. The next in court hearing will be August 16 2004 where both Tom Sneddon and the accusers mother will have to testify as to the unlawful search of a private investigator working for the then-Jackson-attorney Mark Geragos. You can download the court documents here: :check [url=http://www.mjjforum.com/main/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=247&func=fileinfo&parent=folder&filecatid=247]Status Report (filed August 5 2004)[/url]