folo

Update: The government picked a date (as described below) pretty expeditiously. The hearing on the defense motions will be at 10:00 on Friday. I do not know where that leaves the search-documents motion.

Judge Biggers responded to the motions last night with an order that is all about “this train is still running on schedule.” He notes that Zach Scruggs filed motions to continue, for a James hearing, to exclude extrinsic evidence, and to reconsider the anonymous jury order. The order goes on:

The issues in the motions have been previously considered by the court. The defendant, however, filed the motions in light of an allegedly material change of circumstances brought on by guilty pleas of two of the three remaining defendants.

The new motions were filed on March 19, 2008, between 6:20 p.m. and 9:50 p.m. (CDT), and the court is aware the government has, therefore, only had possession of these new motions for a few hours. The court will not press the government for an immediate response. The court will, however, schedule a hearing on these motions expeditiously.

The court offered up either Friday, March 21st, Monday, March 24th, or Tuesday, March 25th, allowing the government to request one of these dates for argument; the government has until 3:00 PM today to pick. Here’s the 3-20 Order on motions hearing.

There’s another event looming– recall from our prior post that last Thursday, as the plea deadline approached, the government notified the defendants that the evidence from the search of the Scruggs Law Office will be turned over to the prosecution team unless an objection is filed by March 21st, which is tomorrow. The motion asks the court to enter an order requiring any objection to the turn over be filed “prior to” March 21st. So that motion is saying: They should object today. However, the motion does anticipate an order authorizing turnover, which has yet to occur. So I’m not sure where this stands.