IOWA CHAMPION

Judge rules Romona Cunnigham competent to stand trial

A Federal Judge in Des Moines has issued his ruling finding Ramona Cunningham competent to stand trial. The ruling was not a surprise to anyone familiar with the standards for competency in criminal trials.  The trial is supposed to begin June 30th, but (also as expected) an appeal of the ruling may delay the start of the proceedings. 

The judge sums up the situation in his ruling as follows:

...the only issue is whether, despite her condition and regardless of whether it is in her best interest from a medical and psychiatric standpoint, the defendant is capable of assisting in her defense. While the defendant does not want to go to trial and has serious anxiety related to the legal proceedings, a lack of desire to help her attorney is different than an inability to do so...

As I posted earlier, competency is not the same as an insanity, and even if her defense attorney was successful in convincing the judge she was not competent, because the mental health issue raised was one of depression, she would have been treated (in custody) until she was capable of assisting her attorney.  At best you have delayed the proceedings.

The Postville debacle

I've postponed posting about the Postville raid until I had some more time to assess the situation. 

For those of you outside Iowa, the Feds (I.C.E.) swooped in at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa on Monday for the largest single site immigration raid in the nation's history.  The plant there is the largest Kosher meat processing plant in the world, so the story is chock full of world records.  I say we have the detainees make the largest kosher taco in the world...someone call Guinness!

The topic of illegal immigration is one that I am not about to tackle in any substance on this blog.  To me, the run of the mill illegal immigration case has little to do with criminal defense. I also don't consider myself any kind of immigration lawyer.  If someone came to me with an immigration case, I'd refer them out to someone else. What I know about immigration law is confined to being able to advise my criminal clients with what will happen to their immigration status as a result of a conviction. 

It appears most of the 400 people detained will be deported after expedited immigration hearings.  There will be a couple of dozen that are chosen for criminal prosecution, probably the ones that I.C.E. can verify have illegally re-entered after a previous deportation, or any cases of aggravated identity theft. The people that will probably suffer the biggest prosecutorial hammer in this whole mess are the managers and union leaders at the Agriprocessors plant.    They will be accused of harboring illegal immigrants, conspiracy of one kind or another, and other types of document fraud.  There are also reports that the immigrants were being paid under the federal minimum wage, so there will probably be some hay made of that.

All in all this is more of a political issue than a criminal defense issue. I am not envious of the attorneys in the Northern District of Iowa that will have to wade through the mess of the deportation hearings over the next several weeks.  There will be long hours and not a lot of fanfare, but they are doing a truly admirable job under the circumstances.  I can also say I'm glad to see the progress the Feds have made in dealing with these situations in the most humane way possible under the circumstances.  The last raid in Marshalltown temporarily orphaned some children when their parents were both snatched up and deported.  Some of those detained in Postville were released for "humanitarian" reasons pending their formal hearings. Whether you believe that "there are no illegal human beings" or you are Congressman Steve King, the children shouldn't have to suffer for their parents mistakes.