News Roundup

As the New York Times reports, the major criminal law news of the week was the sudden withdrawal of four federal prosecutors from Roger Stone’s criminal case after senior Justice Department officials intervened to recommend a sentence that was more lenient than what had been recommended by the prosecution team.  Stone was convicted by a Washington, D.C., jury of seven criminal offenses late last year, including five counts of lying to congress, one count of witness tampering, and one count of obstruction.  Keep reading for more news. Amended Recommendation. On Monday, the prosecutors who handled the Stone case recommended that he be sentenced to seven to nine years in prison, a recommendation that apparently is within federal sentencing guidelines.  On Tuesday, President Donald Trump called the sentencing recommendation “a horrible and very unfair situation,” and Timothy J. Shea, who was appointed Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia a week earlier, filed an amendment stating that the seven to nine year range “would not be appropriate” and suggesting that a term “far less” than the initial recommendation “would be reasonable under the circumstances.”  On Wednesday, President Trump congratulated Attorney General William Barr “for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control.”  In an interview with ABC News on Thursday, Barr said that President Trump’s tweets about Department of Justice criminal cases “make it impossible for [Barr] to do [his] job.” Prosecutors.  As noted above, four of the assistant U.S. attorneys who prosecuted the Stone case withdrew from [...]