Charity organizations across the country have been collecting everything from blowup reindeer and hand-knit scarves to mp3 players and guitars all year long, planning to brighten the holidays for troops deployed far from home.
The task at hand is finding enough money to ship the gifts overseas, organizers say. Postage to Iraq and Afghanistan is almost $100 per box, says Andi Grant, president and founder of Give 2 the Troops. Her Connecticut-based organization sends 70-pound boxes with gifts inside for an entire unit to share. "I need help sending that over," she says.
Grant started Give 2 the Troops eight years ago and says that although the group is "overflowing" with material donations, it is not receiving as much money for shipping costs as it has in previous years. Coming into Thanksgiving week, the organization needed an additional $30,000 to $40,000 to get this year's holiday gifts to the troops, Grant says. The cost can vary greatly depending on the size of boxes shipped.
Florida-based Operation Shoe Box also sees shrinking donations though it gets as many requests from troops as ever, says Mary Harper, president and founder of the organization. "It's harder every year to keep the motivation going," she says.
Since Grant's husband was deployed to Iraq in 2002, Give 2 the Troops has been sending packages to units who register on the organization's website. There are about 75,000 units signed up from all branches of the military, serving mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan, Grant says.
Give 2 the Troops fills boxes with the typical handwritten cards and stockings but includes things the units specifically requested, such as microwaves.
Gifts are especially important as the holidays approach, Grant says. "This is one of the weakest times for our troops because they really miss home," she says.
Master Sgt. Michael Goza has been deployed in an undisclosed location overseas since May 2010 and will not return home until January. He will miss his traditional holiday celebrations with his wife and three daughters. In June, he received a care package from Operation Gratitude and says the items inside made him and the rest of his unit very happy.
"Believe me, we really do enjoy getting some of the things from home, no matter how small or how big," Goza says.
Operation Gratitude focuses on sending smaller packages to individual servicemembers overseas. Based in California, the group sends 100,000 packages a year, each containing 150 small items that can be shared with the recipient's unit, says Carolyn Blashek, the organization's founder and president.
Including expenses such as storage, forklifts, communication and security, each package costs about $15 to ship, she says. Shipping is much less than what Give 2 The Troops pays because Operation Gratitude sends significantly smaller boxes.
This year, each holiday package includes a hand-knit or crocheted scarf, blank holiday cards for the servicemember to send home, beef jerky, protein bars, energy shots, DVDs, socks and more.
Because Iraq and Afghanistan are Muslim countries, pork products, alcohol and overly religious items cannot be sent, Blashek says. Each box includes a small stuffed animal, which can be given to local children. This encourages the children to tell troops where bombs and terrorists are, Blashek says.
Dec. 11 will be Operation Gratitude's last shipping day, on which it will ship its 600,000th box, Blashek says. Each milestone box goes to a randomly selected servicemember with a dramatic surprise such as keys to a new SUV or a vacation in the Caribbean.
"It's really a celebration of the support the country has for the troops," Blashek says.
"All of your gifts bring smiles and sometimes tears to everyone that receives them," Goza says.
Reprinted from USAToday
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
Civilian soldiers' suicide rate alarming
National Guard soldiers who are not on active duty killed themselves this year at nearly twice the rate of 2009, marring a year when suicides among Army soldiers on active duty appear to be leveling off, new Army statistics show.
Eighty-six non-active-duty Guard soldiers have killed themselves in the first 10 months of 2010, compared with 48 such suicides in all of 2009.
The reason for the rise in suicides among these "citizen soldiers" is not known. It may be linked to the recession, says Army Col. Chris Philbrick, deputy commander of an Army task force working to reduce suicides.
Philbrick said investigations into the suicides of soldiers not on full-time-active status have found that some were facing stressful situations such as home foreclosures, debt and the loss of a job.
Other factors have played a role in the suicides, including relationship problems, depression, substance abuse, combat stress and mild brain injuries, Philbrick says.
The rise comes as the rate of suicides leveled among full-time active-duty Army soldiers, National Guard members and reservists following years of increases, Philbrick says. Among that group, there were 132 confirmed or suspected suicides in the first 10 months of this year compared with 140 such suicides for the same period in 2009.
That positive trend among active-duty troops was more than offset by the rise in suicides among non-active-duty National Guard members.
There were 252 confirmed or suspected suicides among active and non-active Army members through October of this year. There were 242 such deaths in all of 2009.
Active-duty soldiers have greater access to programs and mental health resources, Philbrick says. New efforts aimed at reducing suicides among that group may be beginning to have an effect. "We do whatever we can to drive down these numbers," Philbrick says. "But it doesn't happen overnight."
The Army has launched a series of programs aimed at breaking down a stigma among soldiers against seeking mental health treatment. It has also initiated two studies — a $50 million, five-year investigation by the National Institute of Mental Health in 2009 and this year, a $17 million research consortium — aimed at understanding why the suicides are happening and how to stop them.
Army suicides have been climbing since 2007, bringing the rate to 22 per 100,000 soldiers. The rate among civilians within the same age group is 20 per 100,000. The Marine Corps has seen an increase since 2008 and its rate is 24 per 100,000. But there, too, the trend may be downward.
There were 45 confirmed or suspected cases of suicides among Marines through October of this year compared with 53 suicides for the same period last year, Marine Corps statistics show.
Reprinted from USAToday
Eighty-six non-active-duty Guard soldiers have killed themselves in the first 10 months of 2010, compared with 48 such suicides in all of 2009.
The reason for the rise in suicides among these "citizen soldiers" is not known. It may be linked to the recession, says Army Col. Chris Philbrick, deputy commander of an Army task force working to reduce suicides.
Philbrick said investigations into the suicides of soldiers not on full-time-active status have found that some were facing stressful situations such as home foreclosures, debt and the loss of a job.
Other factors have played a role in the suicides, including relationship problems, depression, substance abuse, combat stress and mild brain injuries, Philbrick says.
The rise comes as the rate of suicides leveled among full-time active-duty Army soldiers, National Guard members and reservists following years of increases, Philbrick says. Among that group, there were 132 confirmed or suspected suicides in the first 10 months of this year compared with 140 such suicides for the same period in 2009.
That positive trend among active-duty troops was more than offset by the rise in suicides among non-active-duty National Guard members.
There were 252 confirmed or suspected suicides among active and non-active Army members through October of this year. There were 242 such deaths in all of 2009.
Active-duty soldiers have greater access to programs and mental health resources, Philbrick says. New efforts aimed at reducing suicides among that group may be beginning to have an effect. "We do whatever we can to drive down these numbers," Philbrick says. "But it doesn't happen overnight."
The Army has launched a series of programs aimed at breaking down a stigma among soldiers against seeking mental health treatment. It has also initiated two studies — a $50 million, five-year investigation by the National Institute of Mental Health in 2009 and this year, a $17 million research consortium — aimed at understanding why the suicides are happening and how to stop them.
Army suicides have been climbing since 2007, bringing the rate to 22 per 100,000 soldiers. The rate among civilians within the same age group is 20 per 100,000. The Marine Corps has seen an increase since 2008 and its rate is 24 per 100,000. But there, too, the trend may be downward.
There were 45 confirmed or suspected cases of suicides among Marines through October of this year compared with 53 suicides for the same period last year, Marine Corps statistics show.
Reprinted from USAToday
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
The Power of a Power of Attorney!
When considering securing a power of attorney, know that there are two types. A Special power of attorney and a General power of attorney. A general power of attorney gives another person broad and far reaching authority to handle your affairs. A special power of attorney only provides for specifically limited handling of your affairs such as selling your vehicle or preparing your taxes. Regardless of the type of power of attorney you give, there should be a specific termination date. As an attorney, I recommend powers of attorney terminate after one year has passed.
Case Scenario 1:
“Service Member” was ordered to active duty to be deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. “Service Member” has been married for 18 years to a wonderful person, “Spouse”.
“Service Member” loved “Spouse” very much and wanted to ensure “Spouse”was able to take care of things in “Service Member’s” absence. Prior to “Service Member” departing for duty "Spouse" was given a Power of Attorney.
Do to the stress and temptations of “Service Member's” absence, “Spouse” files for divorce. However, due to the “Service Member” not fully understanding the difference between a general power of attorney and a special power of attorney, “Service Member” gave "Spouse" a general power of attorney.
What do you think happened?
Case Scenario 2:
“Service Member” was order to active duty to be deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. “Service Member” has been married for 5 years to a wonderful person, “Spouse”.
“Service Member” loved “Spouse” very much and wanted to ensure “Spouse” was able to take care of things in “Service Member’s” absence. Prior to “Service Member” departing for duty "Spouse" was given a Power of Attorney.
Do to the stress and temptations of “Service Member's” absence, “Spouse” files for divorce. However, prior to deploying to Afghanistan, “Service Member” reads the book The Service Member’s Guide to Deployment; what every Soldier, Sailor, Airmen and Marine should know prior to being deployed. Copyright 2008 “Service Member” gave "Spouse" a special power of attorney.
What do you think happened?
To find the answers to these “Case Scenarios” and other fascinating questions, read the book, The Service Member’s Guide to Deployment; What every Soldier, Sailor, Airmen and Marine should know prior to being deployed. Copyright 2009
Case Scenario 1:
“Service Member” was ordered to active duty to be deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. “Service Member” has been married for 18 years to a wonderful person, “Spouse”.
“Service Member” loved “Spouse” very much and wanted to ensure “Spouse”was able to take care of things in “Service Member’s” absence. Prior to “Service Member” departing for duty "Spouse" was given a Power of Attorney.
Do to the stress and temptations of “Service Member's” absence, “Spouse” files for divorce. However, due to the “Service Member” not fully understanding the difference between a general power of attorney and a special power of attorney, “Service Member” gave "Spouse" a general power of attorney.
What do you think happened?
Case Scenario 2:
“Service Member” was order to active duty to be deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. “Service Member” has been married for 5 years to a wonderful person, “Spouse”.
“Service Member” loved “Spouse” very much and wanted to ensure “Spouse” was able to take care of things in “Service Member’s” absence. Prior to “Service Member” departing for duty "Spouse" was given a Power of Attorney.
Do to the stress and temptations of “Service Member's” absence, “Spouse” files for divorce. However, prior to deploying to Afghanistan, “Service Member” reads the book The Service Member’s Guide to Deployment; what every Soldier, Sailor, Airmen and Marine should know prior to being deployed. Copyright 2008 “Service Member” gave "Spouse" a special power of attorney.
What do you think happened?
To find the answers to these “Case Scenarios” and other fascinating questions, read the book, The Service Member’s Guide to Deployment; What every Soldier, Sailor, Airmen and Marine should know prior to being deployed. Copyright 2009
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The need for a Family Care Plan
The sequence of events on September 11, 2001 changed America forever. On this day, The United States of America lost its innocence. The land of the free was no longer as free as it once was. Open and free travel no longer seemed as open and free following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Subsequently, America soon found itself at war with Iraq and Afghanistan. The number of service members needed to adequately fight this war was tremendous. The number of service members on active duty was not enough to engage in effective combat. As such, the burden to pick up the slack fell upon the Reserve and National Guard forces of our military. Not in recent memory has there been a greater number of service members deployed conus or oconus. From a military development standpoint, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan provoked the number of deployments to grow substantially. Since September 11, 2001, over 1.7 million service members have been deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Operation Enduring Freedom’s military focus is on securing the nation of Afghanistan, while as its name suggest, Operation Iraqi Freedom is concerned with securing the nation of Iraq. In addition to the service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, thousands of service members were deployed to Kuwait and Qatar in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Moreover, tens of thousands service members were deployed in support of contingency operations around the world.
So what happens when you receive your "orders" to go? Generally speaking your Unit, if you are deploying as a unit, will receive unit orders informing the Command that their unit will be deploying. If on the other hand you are an individual deployer as I was, you could receive your initial order via a phone call followed by orders requesting that you report for active duty. The amount of notice given to a service member ranges anywhere from several months in advance to only several days prior to the date ordered to active duty. I received my orders only three weeks before my scheduled day to report for duty.
There have been millions of Americans deployed to war zones around the world since this great country was founded over 230 years ago, however, recently it appears that many soldiers are deploying in greater frequency then ever before. In addition, some of those deployed are on their 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th deployment. In many cases, the deployment is involuntary and not knowing all of the information that will make the deployment less stressful creates a tremendous burden not only for the deploying service member but the family of that service member as well.
Deployment is much like a roller coaster ride at an amusement park. You first have the uncertainty of the entire event much like what you feel as you enter the gate to a roller coaster that you have never ridden before. You are unsure if you will make it. You may even attempt to get out of it at the very last minute. The roller coaster makes its climb and just as you begin the process of family planning and the actual deployment, you become anxious and nervous. After you’ve made it to the top of the roller coaster, you brace yourself for your quick decent, and at this point you realize there is no turning back. This is a similar feeling to what you may experience upon reaching your mobilization site but you brace yourself anyway and prepare for the many highs and lows this ride will offer.
One of the first things a service member should do prior to deployment is review and/or implement a current family care plan. Your family care plan should be reviewed certainly, if you are being deployed, but also at least once a year regardless of deployment status. It is said that “the strength of the Family is the strength of the Soldier is the strength of the Military is the strength of the Nation!” So it logically follows that caring and providing for the families of service member alleviates many of the stresses related to deployment and combat. This in turn leads to the strong national defense of the United States of America.
The very first responsibility of a service member scheduled for deployment is to inform the family and start making a plan. While I would not say it is easier deploying without having a family, it certainly is challenging if you are a deployed service member with a family. Regardless, if you have children or not, you should have some form of a Family Care Plan in place.
In my book, I go into great detail explaining what a Family Care Plan is and how to set up a good Family Care Plan.
So what happens when you receive your "orders" to go? Generally speaking your Unit, if you are deploying as a unit, will receive unit orders informing the Command that their unit will be deploying. If on the other hand you are an individual deployer as I was, you could receive your initial order via a phone call followed by orders requesting that you report for active duty. The amount of notice given to a service member ranges anywhere from several months in advance to only several days prior to the date ordered to active duty. I received my orders only three weeks before my scheduled day to report for duty.
There have been millions of Americans deployed to war zones around the world since this great country was founded over 230 years ago, however, recently it appears that many soldiers are deploying in greater frequency then ever before. In addition, some of those deployed are on their 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th deployment. In many cases, the deployment is involuntary and not knowing all of the information that will make the deployment less stressful creates a tremendous burden not only for the deploying service member but the family of that service member as well.
Deployment is much like a roller coaster ride at an amusement park. You first have the uncertainty of the entire event much like what you feel as you enter the gate to a roller coaster that you have never ridden before. You are unsure if you will make it. You may even attempt to get out of it at the very last minute. The roller coaster makes its climb and just as you begin the process of family planning and the actual deployment, you become anxious and nervous. After you’ve made it to the top of the roller coaster, you brace yourself for your quick decent, and at this point you realize there is no turning back. This is a similar feeling to what you may experience upon reaching your mobilization site but you brace yourself anyway and prepare for the many highs and lows this ride will offer.
One of the first things a service member should do prior to deployment is review and/or implement a current family care plan. Your family care plan should be reviewed certainly, if you are being deployed, but also at least once a year regardless of deployment status. It is said that “the strength of the Family is the strength of the Soldier is the strength of the Military is the strength of the Nation!” So it logically follows that caring and providing for the families of service member alleviates many of the stresses related to deployment and combat. This in turn leads to the strong national defense of the United States of America.
The very first responsibility of a service member scheduled for deployment is to inform the family and start making a plan. While I would not say it is easier deploying without having a family, it certainly is challenging if you are a deployed service member with a family. Regardless, if you have children or not, you should have some form of a Family Care Plan in place.
In my book, I go into great detail explaining what a Family Care Plan is and how to set up a good Family Care Plan.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Deployment to the war zone. What do I do next?
The sequence of events on September 11, 2001 changed America forever. On this day, The United States of America lost its innocence. The land of the free was no longer as free as it once was. Open and free travel no longer seemed as open and free following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Subsequently, America soon found itself at war with Iraq and Afghanistan. The number of service members needed to adequately fight this war was tremendous. The number of service members on active duty was not enough to engage in effective combat. As such, the burden to pick up the slack fell upon the Reserve and National Guard forces of our military. Not in recent memory has there been a greater number of service members deployed conus or oconus. From a military development standpoint, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan provoked the number of deployments to grow substantially. Since September 11, 2001, over 1.7 million service members have been deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Operation Enduring Freedom’s military focus is on securing the nation of Afghanistan, while as its name suggest, Operation Iraqi Freedom is concerned with securing the nation of Iraq. In addition to the service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, thousands of service members were deployed to Kuwait and Qatar in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Moreover, tens of thousands service members were deployed in support of contingency operations around the world.
So what happens when you receive your "orders" to go? Generally speaking your Unit, if you are deploying as a unit, will receive unit orders informing the Command that their unit will be deploying. If on the other hand you are an individual deployer as I was, you could receive your initial order via a phone call followed by orders requesting that you report for active duty. The amount of notice given to a service member ranges anywhere from several months in advance to only several days prior to the date ordered to active duty. I received my orders only three weeks before my scheduled day to report for duty.
There have been millions of Americans deployed to war zones around the world since this great country was founded over 230 years ago, however, recently it appears that many soldiers are deploying in greater frequency then ever before. In addition, some of those deployed are on their 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th deployment. In many cases, the deployment is involuntary and not knowing all of the information that will make the deployment less stressful creates a tremendous burden not only for the deploying service member but the family of that service member as well.
Deployment is much like a roller coaster ride at an amusement park. You first have the uncertainty of the entire event much like what you feel as you enter the gate to a roller coaster that you have never ridden before. You are unsure if you will make it. You may even attempt to get out of it at the very last minute. The roller coaster makes its climb and just as you begin the process of family planning and the actual deployment, you become anxious and nervous. After you’ve made it to the top of the roller coaster, you brace yourself for your quick decent, and at this point you realize there is no turning back. This is a similar feeling to what you may experience upon reaching your mobilization site but you brace yourself anyway and prepare for the many highs and lows this ride will offer.
Over the next several post, I will attempt to share some insights for service members and their families as to of what to expect during the time of deployment and the best way to minimize many difficulties sure to occur...
So what happens when you receive your "orders" to go? Generally speaking your Unit, if you are deploying as a unit, will receive unit orders informing the Command that their unit will be deploying. If on the other hand you are an individual deployer as I was, you could receive your initial order via a phone call followed by orders requesting that you report for active duty. The amount of notice given to a service member ranges anywhere from several months in advance to only several days prior to the date ordered to active duty. I received my orders only three weeks before my scheduled day to report for duty.
There have been millions of Americans deployed to war zones around the world since this great country was founded over 230 years ago, however, recently it appears that many soldiers are deploying in greater frequency then ever before. In addition, some of those deployed are on their 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th deployment. In many cases, the deployment is involuntary and not knowing all of the information that will make the deployment less stressful creates a tremendous burden not only for the deploying service member but the family of that service member as well.
Deployment is much like a roller coaster ride at an amusement park. You first have the uncertainty of the entire event much like what you feel as you enter the gate to a roller coaster that you have never ridden before. You are unsure if you will make it. You may even attempt to get out of it at the very last minute. The roller coaster makes its climb and just as you begin the process of family planning and the actual deployment, you become anxious and nervous. After you’ve made it to the top of the roller coaster, you brace yourself for your quick decent, and at this point you realize there is no turning back. This is a similar feeling to what you may experience upon reaching your mobilization site but you brace yourself anyway and prepare for the many highs and lows this ride will offer.
Over the next several post, I will attempt to share some insights for service members and their families as to of what to expect during the time of deployment and the best way to minimize many difficulties sure to occur...
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Army finds simple blood test to identify mild brain trauma
FREDERICK, Md. — The Army says it has discovered a simple blood test that can diagnose mild traumatic brain damage or concussion, a hard-to-detect injury that can affect young athletes, infants with "shaken baby syndrome" and combat troops.
"This is huge," said Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff.
Army Col. Dallas Hack, who has oversight of the research, says recent data show the blood test, which looks for unique proteins that spill into the blood stream from damaged brain cells, accurately diagnosing mild traumatic brain injury in 34 patients.
Doctors can miss these injuries because the damage does not show up on imaging scans, and symptoms such as headaches or dizziness are ignored or downplayed by the victims.
If the brain is not allowed time to recover and a second concussion occurs, permanent damage may result. Brain injuries afflict 1.4 million Americans each year, says the National Brain Injury Association. Seventy percent are mild cases.
About 300,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered concussions, mostly from roadside bombs, according to a RAND Corp. study.
Hack says the new findings could rival the discovery of unique proteins in the 1970s that now help doctors identify heart disease.
"This will in fact do for brain injury what that test did for chest pain. It's going to change medicine entirely," Hack says.
If the Army wins FDA approval for the test, the discovery could be a milestone in brain-injury care, says Gregory O'Shanick, national medical director for the Brain Injury Association of America.
"We will find people who are under the radar and then treat them appropriately," he says.
The Army collaborated on the biomarker program with Florida-based Banyan Biomarkers, company created by former faculty member of the University of Florida.
The company recently received $26 million to conduct a final, large set of clinical trials through 2013 on 1,200 patients suffering mild to moderate to severe brain injuries. The patients will be drawn from 30 trauma centers across the country. The success of this phase will determine FDA approval for public use of the biomarker test, Hack says.
"We're trying to see if we can make that (clinical trial) earlier and make it faster," Hack says.
Physician Jeffrey Bazarian said the results may be flawed if researchers are studying only people admitted into hospitals. Their brain injuries, even if characterized as mild, may be more severe than common forms of concussion.
"The key is whatever patients they study need to look like concussed patients, walking, talking and not necessarily in need of hospitalization," said Bazarian, a trauma specialist who has served on task forces involving brain injury and panels for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "If you just look at the milds that are admitted ... that's potentially a flaw."
From USAToday.
"This is huge," said Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff.
Army Col. Dallas Hack, who has oversight of the research, says recent data show the blood test, which looks for unique proteins that spill into the blood stream from damaged brain cells, accurately diagnosing mild traumatic brain injury in 34 patients.
Doctors can miss these injuries because the damage does not show up on imaging scans, and symptoms such as headaches or dizziness are ignored or downplayed by the victims.
If the brain is not allowed time to recover and a second concussion occurs, permanent damage may result. Brain injuries afflict 1.4 million Americans each year, says the National Brain Injury Association. Seventy percent are mild cases.
About 300,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered concussions, mostly from roadside bombs, according to a RAND Corp. study.
Hack says the new findings could rival the discovery of unique proteins in the 1970s that now help doctors identify heart disease.
"This will in fact do for brain injury what that test did for chest pain. It's going to change medicine entirely," Hack says.
If the Army wins FDA approval for the test, the discovery could be a milestone in brain-injury care, says Gregory O'Shanick, national medical director for the Brain Injury Association of America.
"We will find people who are under the radar and then treat them appropriately," he says.
The Army collaborated on the biomarker program with Florida-based Banyan Biomarkers, company created by former faculty member of the University of Florida.
The company recently received $26 million to conduct a final, large set of clinical trials through 2013 on 1,200 patients suffering mild to moderate to severe brain injuries. The patients will be drawn from 30 trauma centers across the country. The success of this phase will determine FDA approval for public use of the biomarker test, Hack says.
"We're trying to see if we can make that (clinical trial) earlier and make it faster," Hack says.
Physician Jeffrey Bazarian said the results may be flawed if researchers are studying only people admitted into hospitals. Their brain injuries, even if characterized as mild, may be more severe than common forms of concussion.
"The key is whatever patients they study need to look like concussed patients, walking, talking and not necessarily in need of hospitalization," said Bazarian, a trauma specialist who has served on task forces involving brain injury and panels for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "If you just look at the milds that are admitted ... that's potentially a flaw."
From USAToday.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Not guilty, but stuck with big bills, damaged career
By Kevin McCoy and Brad Heath, USA TODAY
A judge had a warning for the Justice Department lawyers who accused Army Lt. Col. Robert Morris of conspiring to steal military supplies: The case could be "ill-advised." A nearly two-year Army probe had cleared him. And another U.S. attorney's office had declined to prosecute.
The cost of fighting federal charges could "take the guy's life savings away," the judge added.
Prosecutors went ahead, anyway. The judge's prediction was right — a jury needed only 45 minutes to find Morris not guilty. By then, though, his career had derailed. His parents had mortgaged their home to help with $250,000 in legal bills. He had drained his own savings.
The government he had served in uniform for decades could have compensated Morris for some of the losses. A 1997 law requires the Justice Department to repay the legal bills of defendants who win their cases and prove that federal prosecutors committed misconduct or other transgressions.
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But Morris didn't get anything from Washington. It took a gift from a Texas billionaire to help the Morris family pay off part of the debts.
The law, known as the Hyde Amendment, was intended to deter misconduct and compensate people who are harmed when federal prosecutors cross the line. A USA TODAY investigation found the law has left innocent people like Morris coping not only with ruined careers and reputations but with heavy legal costs. And it hasn't stopped federal prosecutors from committing misconduct or pursuing legally questionable cases.
USA TODAY documented 201 cases in the years since the law's passage in which federal judges found that Justice Department prosecutors violated laws or ethics rules. Although those represent a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of federal criminal cases filed each year, the problems were so grave that judges dismissed indictments, reversed convictions or rebuked prosecutors for misconduct. Yet USA TODAY found only 13 cases in which the government paid anything toward defendants' legal bills. Most people never seek compensation. Most who do end up emptyhanded.
The Hyde Amendment did nothing for Morris, whose claim was dismissed by a judge who nonetheless criticized prosecutors and said they had "lost sight of the objective — justice."
It did nothing for Daniel Chapman, a lawyer who lost his job and had to sell his house to pay $275,000 in legal bills fighting a securities fraud case a judge threw out for "flagrant" prosecutorial misconduct.
And it did nothing for Michael Zomber, an antiques dealer who spent two years in prison and paid more than $1 million in attorney fees before his fraud conviction was thrown out.
The Justice Department, which fought the Hyde Amendment from the day it was proposed, nearly always resists efforts to win compensation, no matter how egregious a prosecutor's conduct might have been. Defense lawyers contend that the scarcity of compensation wins, amid a rise in misconduct charges, shows the law's not working.
"The Hyde Amendment is practically a useless tool for dealing with prosecutorial misconduct," said Jon May, a Miami lawyer who co-chairs the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers' white-collar crime committee. For a defendant to win, "the standard is so high that a prosecutor practically has to know" in advance "that his case is so meritless that it is unlikely to get a conviction."
USA TODAY found the government is seldom forced to pay because:
• Many defendants don't apply. The wealthy and those so poor they had court-appointed lawyers don't qualify. Others hold back because they'd have to spend time and money in court and pursue a new civil action against the government after winning their criminal cases. The investigation identified just 92 Hyde Amendment compensation cases since the law's enactment.
• Some defendants are pressured by federal prosecutors to give up their right to seek repayment in exchange for lenient plea bargains or getting their cases thrown out.
• Even those who seek compensation face what an appeals court called the "daunting obstacle" of proving, sometimes in another trial, that prosecutors wronged them. Congress deliberately set a high legal standard to qualify for payment: To win, a defendant must prove a prosecution had been "vexatious, frivolous or in bad faith." But the House and the Senate never held committee hearings that could have defined that standard.
An anonymous tip
The case against Morris began in 1999 with an anonymous tip to a Department of Defense hot line. The caller said the infantry officer had diverted $7 million of surplus medical equipment from a Marine Corps base in Albany, Ga., just south of his own post at Fort Benning.
Morris, now 54, was a decorated combat veteran and logistics expert. Superiors often had praised his ability to work his way through complex military supply rules and get the job done. He played a role, for example, in ex-Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega's 1990 surrender to U.S. troops. When commanders decided to use deafening music to force Noriega out of the Vatican Embassy in Panama City, Morris quickly found and set up a sound system.
Morris' defense team said the medical supplies were intended to help a charity he had founded open health clinics in Rwanda. The non-profit, Partners International Foundation, had been approved by Army brass and had never paid Morris.
The Army's Criminal Investigation Division and the Defense Logistics Agency probed the charges and gave a report to Army Maj. Gen. John Le Moyne, the Fort Benning commander. Le Moyne issued a February 2001 decision that cleared Morris, finding that he didn't violate military law, hadn't lied and didn't misappropriate government property. "There was no theft," the decision stated.
Dissatisfied, the Defense Logistics Agency took its findings to the U.S. attorney's office in Columbus, Ga., which declined to prosecute. The agency then turned to the U.S. attorney's office in Dallas. In March 2001, a grand jury there indicted Morris on a theft conspiracy charge.
U.S. District Court Judge Joe Kendall in Dallas voiced doubts about the case. He said it looked as if investigators had shopped it to prosecutors in several jurisdictions. Getting a guilty verdict from a Texas jury could be hard, he warned, and prosecuting Morris could be a mistake. The prosecutors went forward, and Kendall granted a defense motion to transfer the case to Georgia for trial.
Le Moyne also tried to head off the August 2002 trial. He reminded prosecutors the Army had exhaustively investigated Morris. In a letter to an Army officer panel, Le Moyne said he had met with the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Candina Heath, and told her "she would lose … and be embarrassed in the process." In a separate memo sent to prosecutors before trial, Le Moyne wrote that Morris had made an "error in judgment" that "did not rise to the level of a criminal offense." It concluded: "Bob Morris is not a crook!"
During a nearly two-week trial, the prosecution called 38 witnesses. The defense called none. The jury acquitted Morris in 45 minutes, a "lightning fast" verdict that U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land tied to the government's "woefully inadequate presentation."
The Dallas U.S. attorney's office and Heath declined to comment.
Legal bills from Morris' criminal case totaled $250,000.He said he faced at least $40,000 more in related expenses — and had exhausted his savings and life insurance benefits during the earlier Army investigation. So Morris' parents took two new mortgages on their Connecticut home, and also cashed life insurance policies, to help pay the lawyers.
Morris filed a Hyde Amendment application. Despite Judge Land's criticism of the prosecution, he dismissed the case in 2003. The decision to prosecute hadn't been totally baseless, he ruled, because Morris' logistics skill and signs that he'd skirted military rules provided "sufficient circumstantial evidence" to infer "criminal intent."
The judge did not rule that the prosecutors committed misconduct. For that reason, USA TODAY did not include the Morris case among 201 misconduct cases the newspaper found in an extensive search of federal court records since 1997.
The prosecutors, Land wrote, "will likely lick their wounds and fully recover. Because of the strict requirements for recovering fees and expenses, Lt. Col. Morris, an innocent (and now financially poorer) man, may not."
The case put a three-year hold on Morris' previously approved promotion to colonel. He got the promotion after the trial, but his military career plateaued and he ultimately retired Aug. 31. The case didn't leave him destitute, but there seemed little hope of repaying his parents anytime soon.
Then Texas billionaire and former presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and his charitable foundation stepped in. Grants totaling $210,000 to Morris and his father arrived in 2003 after the court denied Morris' compensation claim, the foundation's tax filings show. The organization, which often requires beneficiaries to sign confidentiality pacts, declined to comment.
Morris said the money helped his parents pay off their mortgages. It did not, though, cover thousands in other debts related to the investigations and trial. His widowed mother, Lillian, 86, is his dependent; he took over paying most of her bills.
Said Jack Zimmerman, a Houston lawyer who represented Morris: "If Congress really intended to compensate innocent people who were put upon by the government, they've got to revisit the Hyde Amendment standard. … Any court is loath to penalize the government … if it's a judgment call."
A compromise in Congress
Illinois Rep. Henry Hyde spoke bluntly when he rose on the House floor and introduced the law that bears his name. "This simply says to Uncle Sam, 'Look, if you are going to sue somebody … and the verdict is not guilty, then the prosecution pays something toward the attorney's fees of the victim,' " Hyde said on Sept. 24, 1997.
As proposed, the legislation would have required the Justice Department to pay legal fees to vindicated defendants unless the government proved the prosecution had been "substantially justified." That provoked a veto threat from the Clinton White House.
Then-deputy attorney general Eric Holder, the Justice Department's leader, said defendants such as John Gotti, the mobster who beat the rap at his first trials, might get "big taxpayer checks."
Asa Hutchinson, a former House member from Arkansas who led the opposition, said critics feared the law could have a "chilling effect," making prosecutors shy away from worthwhile but difficult cases.
Hyde compromised. He agreed to require defendants to prove they had been wrongly charged. And to win, they would have to show not just that they were innocent, but that prosecutors had acted vexatiously, frivolously or in bad faith.
Congress approved the measure, which Hyde had attached to an appropriations bill, without defining those terms. As a result, federal trial and appeals courts in different parts of the country have issued conflicting and often confusing rules about when the Justice Department must pay.
A U.S. district court in Virginia in 1999 ruled the standard for vexatiousness should be whether a "reasonable prosecutor should have concluded" that evidence was "insufficient to prove the defendants' guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco explicitly rejected the standard used in Virginia. It adopted a two-step rule: To win, a defendant must prove that the case was "deficient or without merit" and the prosecutor "acted maliciously or with an intent to harass."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta used different language. It said defendants must show a prosecutor's "state of mind (was) affirmatively operating with furtive design or ill will."
The U.S. Supreme Court, which often resolves conflicting lower-court rulings, has not yet accepted any Hyde Amendment cases.
The legal threshold is so high that Joseph McKay, a Montana lawyer who won nearly $17,000 in a 1999 Hyde Amendment repayment, says the legal standard has become "un-meetable" since his win.
Law not a deterrent
Hyde Amendment awards are so infrequent and so small that the law "hasn't been a major remedy for bad prosecutions," said Bennett Gershman, a Pace Law School professor who examined the misconduct cases USA TODAY identified. "It's a very minuscule deterrent" to prosecutors.
Even courts that have ruled that prosecutors violated defendants' constitutional rights find their hands tied. That's what happened when the government brought securities fraud charges against Las Vegas lawyer Daniel Chapman. The case collapsed in 2006 because prosecutors failed to turn over more than 650 pages of records his lawyers could have used to discredit prosecution witnesses.
A series of judges berated prosecutors for violating Chapman's rights. U.S. District Judge James Mahan, who presided over the trial, said it was "not some slight oversight, but it strikes at the very heart of the government's obligation." He said prosecutors had offered no proof that Chapman broke the law and then dismissed the case.
An appeals court was even tougher, ruling that prosecutors had committed "misconduct in its highest form" and "conduct in flagrant disregard of the United States Constitution."
Chapman, now 57, has spent four years seeking repayment of his legal bills. That effort has so far failed, because the Hyde Amendment only allows payment to a "prevailing party." Courts ruled the dismissal Chapman won didn't qualify because it didn't decide his innocence or guilt.
He's now pursuing another long-shot appeal. Chapman said his continued battle is about vindication and discouraging government misconduct as much as a desire for repayment. Without a strong deterrent, Chapman said, federal prosecutors will "do this over and over again."
Defendants who win Hyde cases also say they doubt that repayment awards have any impact on the Justice Department.
Ali Shaygan, a Miami doctor, was charged in 2008 with 141 counts of illegally administering prescription drugs. Acquitted in 2009, he sought Hyde Amendment payment because the government had engaged in what the trial judge called "win-at-all-costs" conduct. Shaygan won compensation of $601,795; the government is appealing.
Even if he wins again on appeal, Shaygan said the money would amount to "a drop in the bucket" that wouldn't change prosecutors' "habits."
Payments in all the winning Hyde Amendment cases ranged from $8,722 to nearly $1.5 million, USA TODAY found, less than some of the defendants' total legal costs. The 13-year payout total was just under $5.3 million.
A bargaining chip
Michael Zomber already had served his two-year sentence when prosecutors agreed to throw out his conviction stemming from a 2003 conspiracy indictment. There was just one catch: He had to give up give up his right to seek government repayment of his $1 million legal bills.
Before agreeing to a dismissal, federal prosecutors used Zomber's right to seek government repayment as a bargaining chip.
A federal jury in Pennsylvania had convicted Zomber of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud for the sale of four antique Colt pistols to businessman Joseph Murphy. Prosecutors said the weapons were worth half of what Murphy paid for them, and that Zomber lied to increase the price.
Zomber, now 60, spent almost two years in a federal prison camp before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit threw out his conviction. It found that the prosecutor, Robert Goldman, had failed to give Zomber's defense the letters Murphy wrote to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates offering to resell the pistols "at cost" — the same price Murphy paid.
Goldman said he did nothing wrong and warned USA TODAY that he would have any article about Zomber's case "reviewed by counsel for potential litigation." He said he regrets only that Zomber's conviction was overturned because of "an insignificant document." But the Appeals Court ruled the letters could have given jurors "reasonable doubt" about whether Zomber overcharged Murphy.
The court's decision meant Zomber faced the prospect of another costly trial. He was unlikely to go back to prison. But he could have been ordered to pay $1 million or more in restitution.
Instead, defense lawyer Gerald Lefcourt reached a deal in which prosecutors ended the case.
"They weren't going to consider dismissing" it "unless we agreed not to pursue a Hyde Amendment application," he said. Lefcourt, Hutchinson and other lawyers say prosecutors now automatically include such waivers in many plea agreements.
Zomber said he had little choice but to go along with the agreement, because prosecutors are "always going to make you sign a Hyde Amendment" waiver. Battling for repayment, he said, was "just not worth it."
A judge had a warning for the Justice Department lawyers who accused Army Lt. Col. Robert Morris of conspiring to steal military supplies: The case could be "ill-advised." A nearly two-year Army probe had cleared him. And another U.S. attorney's office had declined to prosecute.
The cost of fighting federal charges could "take the guy's life savings away," the judge added.
Prosecutors went ahead, anyway. The judge's prediction was right — a jury needed only 45 minutes to find Morris not guilty. By then, though, his career had derailed. His parents had mortgaged their home to help with $250,000 in legal bills. He had drained his own savings.
The government he had served in uniform for decades could have compensated Morris for some of the losses. A 1997 law requires the Justice Department to repay the legal bills of defendants who win their cases and prove that federal prosecutors committed misconduct or other transgressions.
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But Morris didn't get anything from Washington. It took a gift from a Texas billionaire to help the Morris family pay off part of the debts.
The law, known as the Hyde Amendment, was intended to deter misconduct and compensate people who are harmed when federal prosecutors cross the line. A USA TODAY investigation found the law has left innocent people like Morris coping not only with ruined careers and reputations but with heavy legal costs. And it hasn't stopped federal prosecutors from committing misconduct or pursuing legally questionable cases.
USA TODAY documented 201 cases in the years since the law's passage in which federal judges found that Justice Department prosecutors violated laws or ethics rules. Although those represent a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of federal criminal cases filed each year, the problems were so grave that judges dismissed indictments, reversed convictions or rebuked prosecutors for misconduct. Yet USA TODAY found only 13 cases in which the government paid anything toward defendants' legal bills. Most people never seek compensation. Most who do end up emptyhanded.
The Hyde Amendment did nothing for Morris, whose claim was dismissed by a judge who nonetheless criticized prosecutors and said they had "lost sight of the objective — justice."
It did nothing for Daniel Chapman, a lawyer who lost his job and had to sell his house to pay $275,000 in legal bills fighting a securities fraud case a judge threw out for "flagrant" prosecutorial misconduct.
And it did nothing for Michael Zomber, an antiques dealer who spent two years in prison and paid more than $1 million in attorney fees before his fraud conviction was thrown out.
The Justice Department, which fought the Hyde Amendment from the day it was proposed, nearly always resists efforts to win compensation, no matter how egregious a prosecutor's conduct might have been. Defense lawyers contend that the scarcity of compensation wins, amid a rise in misconduct charges, shows the law's not working.
"The Hyde Amendment is practically a useless tool for dealing with prosecutorial misconduct," said Jon May, a Miami lawyer who co-chairs the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers' white-collar crime committee. For a defendant to win, "the standard is so high that a prosecutor practically has to know" in advance "that his case is so meritless that it is unlikely to get a conviction."
USA TODAY found the government is seldom forced to pay because:
• Many defendants don't apply. The wealthy and those so poor they had court-appointed lawyers don't qualify. Others hold back because they'd have to spend time and money in court and pursue a new civil action against the government after winning their criminal cases. The investigation identified just 92 Hyde Amendment compensation cases since the law's enactment.
• Some defendants are pressured by federal prosecutors to give up their right to seek repayment in exchange for lenient plea bargains or getting their cases thrown out.
• Even those who seek compensation face what an appeals court called the "daunting obstacle" of proving, sometimes in another trial, that prosecutors wronged them. Congress deliberately set a high legal standard to qualify for payment: To win, a defendant must prove a prosecution had been "vexatious, frivolous or in bad faith." But the House and the Senate never held committee hearings that could have defined that standard.
An anonymous tip
The case against Morris began in 1999 with an anonymous tip to a Department of Defense hot line. The caller said the infantry officer had diverted $7 million of surplus medical equipment from a Marine Corps base in Albany, Ga., just south of his own post at Fort Benning.
Morris, now 54, was a decorated combat veteran and logistics expert. Superiors often had praised his ability to work his way through complex military supply rules and get the job done. He played a role, for example, in ex-Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega's 1990 surrender to U.S. troops. When commanders decided to use deafening music to force Noriega out of the Vatican Embassy in Panama City, Morris quickly found and set up a sound system.
Morris' defense team said the medical supplies were intended to help a charity he had founded open health clinics in Rwanda. The non-profit, Partners International Foundation, had been approved by Army brass and had never paid Morris.
The Army's Criminal Investigation Division and the Defense Logistics Agency probed the charges and gave a report to Army Maj. Gen. John Le Moyne, the Fort Benning commander. Le Moyne issued a February 2001 decision that cleared Morris, finding that he didn't violate military law, hadn't lied and didn't misappropriate government property. "There was no theft," the decision stated.
Dissatisfied, the Defense Logistics Agency took its findings to the U.S. attorney's office in Columbus, Ga., which declined to prosecute. The agency then turned to the U.S. attorney's office in Dallas. In March 2001, a grand jury there indicted Morris on a theft conspiracy charge.
U.S. District Court Judge Joe Kendall in Dallas voiced doubts about the case. He said it looked as if investigators had shopped it to prosecutors in several jurisdictions. Getting a guilty verdict from a Texas jury could be hard, he warned, and prosecuting Morris could be a mistake. The prosecutors went forward, and Kendall granted a defense motion to transfer the case to Georgia for trial.
Le Moyne also tried to head off the August 2002 trial. He reminded prosecutors the Army had exhaustively investigated Morris. In a letter to an Army officer panel, Le Moyne said he had met with the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Candina Heath, and told her "she would lose … and be embarrassed in the process." In a separate memo sent to prosecutors before trial, Le Moyne wrote that Morris had made an "error in judgment" that "did not rise to the level of a criminal offense." It concluded: "Bob Morris is not a crook!"
During a nearly two-week trial, the prosecution called 38 witnesses. The defense called none. The jury acquitted Morris in 45 minutes, a "lightning fast" verdict that U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land tied to the government's "woefully inadequate presentation."
The Dallas U.S. attorney's office and Heath declined to comment.
Legal bills from Morris' criminal case totaled $250,000.He said he faced at least $40,000 more in related expenses — and had exhausted his savings and life insurance benefits during the earlier Army investigation. So Morris' parents took two new mortgages on their Connecticut home, and also cashed life insurance policies, to help pay the lawyers.
Morris filed a Hyde Amendment application. Despite Judge Land's criticism of the prosecution, he dismissed the case in 2003. The decision to prosecute hadn't been totally baseless, he ruled, because Morris' logistics skill and signs that he'd skirted military rules provided "sufficient circumstantial evidence" to infer "criminal intent."
The judge did not rule that the prosecutors committed misconduct. For that reason, USA TODAY did not include the Morris case among 201 misconduct cases the newspaper found in an extensive search of federal court records since 1997.
The prosecutors, Land wrote, "will likely lick their wounds and fully recover. Because of the strict requirements for recovering fees and expenses, Lt. Col. Morris, an innocent (and now financially poorer) man, may not."
The case put a three-year hold on Morris' previously approved promotion to colonel. He got the promotion after the trial, but his military career plateaued and he ultimately retired Aug. 31. The case didn't leave him destitute, but there seemed little hope of repaying his parents anytime soon.
Then Texas billionaire and former presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and his charitable foundation stepped in. Grants totaling $210,000 to Morris and his father arrived in 2003 after the court denied Morris' compensation claim, the foundation's tax filings show. The organization, which often requires beneficiaries to sign confidentiality pacts, declined to comment.
Morris said the money helped his parents pay off their mortgages. It did not, though, cover thousands in other debts related to the investigations and trial. His widowed mother, Lillian, 86, is his dependent; he took over paying most of her bills.
Said Jack Zimmerman, a Houston lawyer who represented Morris: "If Congress really intended to compensate innocent people who were put upon by the government, they've got to revisit the Hyde Amendment standard. … Any court is loath to penalize the government … if it's a judgment call."
A compromise in Congress
Illinois Rep. Henry Hyde spoke bluntly when he rose on the House floor and introduced the law that bears his name. "This simply says to Uncle Sam, 'Look, if you are going to sue somebody … and the verdict is not guilty, then the prosecution pays something toward the attorney's fees of the victim,' " Hyde said on Sept. 24, 1997.
As proposed, the legislation would have required the Justice Department to pay legal fees to vindicated defendants unless the government proved the prosecution had been "substantially justified." That provoked a veto threat from the Clinton White House.
Then-deputy attorney general Eric Holder, the Justice Department's leader, said defendants such as John Gotti, the mobster who beat the rap at his first trials, might get "big taxpayer checks."
Asa Hutchinson, a former House member from Arkansas who led the opposition, said critics feared the law could have a "chilling effect," making prosecutors shy away from worthwhile but difficult cases.
Hyde compromised. He agreed to require defendants to prove they had been wrongly charged. And to win, they would have to show not just that they were innocent, but that prosecutors had acted vexatiously, frivolously or in bad faith.
Congress approved the measure, which Hyde had attached to an appropriations bill, without defining those terms. As a result, federal trial and appeals courts in different parts of the country have issued conflicting and often confusing rules about when the Justice Department must pay.
A U.S. district court in Virginia in 1999 ruled the standard for vexatiousness should be whether a "reasonable prosecutor should have concluded" that evidence was "insufficient to prove the defendants' guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco explicitly rejected the standard used in Virginia. It adopted a two-step rule: To win, a defendant must prove that the case was "deficient or without merit" and the prosecutor "acted maliciously or with an intent to harass."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta used different language. It said defendants must show a prosecutor's "state of mind (was) affirmatively operating with furtive design or ill will."
The U.S. Supreme Court, which often resolves conflicting lower-court rulings, has not yet accepted any Hyde Amendment cases.
The legal threshold is so high that Joseph McKay, a Montana lawyer who won nearly $17,000 in a 1999 Hyde Amendment repayment, says the legal standard has become "un-meetable" since his win.
Law not a deterrent
Hyde Amendment awards are so infrequent and so small that the law "hasn't been a major remedy for bad prosecutions," said Bennett Gershman, a Pace Law School professor who examined the misconduct cases USA TODAY identified. "It's a very minuscule deterrent" to prosecutors.
Even courts that have ruled that prosecutors violated defendants' constitutional rights find their hands tied. That's what happened when the government brought securities fraud charges against Las Vegas lawyer Daniel Chapman. The case collapsed in 2006 because prosecutors failed to turn over more than 650 pages of records his lawyers could have used to discredit prosecution witnesses.
A series of judges berated prosecutors for violating Chapman's rights. U.S. District Judge James Mahan, who presided over the trial, said it was "not some slight oversight, but it strikes at the very heart of the government's obligation." He said prosecutors had offered no proof that Chapman broke the law and then dismissed the case.
An appeals court was even tougher, ruling that prosecutors had committed "misconduct in its highest form" and "conduct in flagrant disregard of the United States Constitution."
Chapman, now 57, has spent four years seeking repayment of his legal bills. That effort has so far failed, because the Hyde Amendment only allows payment to a "prevailing party." Courts ruled the dismissal Chapman won didn't qualify because it didn't decide his innocence or guilt.
He's now pursuing another long-shot appeal. Chapman said his continued battle is about vindication and discouraging government misconduct as much as a desire for repayment. Without a strong deterrent, Chapman said, federal prosecutors will "do this over and over again."
Defendants who win Hyde cases also say they doubt that repayment awards have any impact on the Justice Department.
Ali Shaygan, a Miami doctor, was charged in 2008 with 141 counts of illegally administering prescription drugs. Acquitted in 2009, he sought Hyde Amendment payment because the government had engaged in what the trial judge called "win-at-all-costs" conduct. Shaygan won compensation of $601,795; the government is appealing.
Even if he wins again on appeal, Shaygan said the money would amount to "a drop in the bucket" that wouldn't change prosecutors' "habits."
Payments in all the winning Hyde Amendment cases ranged from $8,722 to nearly $1.5 million, USA TODAY found, less than some of the defendants' total legal costs. The 13-year payout total was just under $5.3 million.
A bargaining chip
Michael Zomber already had served his two-year sentence when prosecutors agreed to throw out his conviction stemming from a 2003 conspiracy indictment. There was just one catch: He had to give up give up his right to seek government repayment of his $1 million legal bills.
Before agreeing to a dismissal, federal prosecutors used Zomber's right to seek government repayment as a bargaining chip.
A federal jury in Pennsylvania had convicted Zomber of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud for the sale of four antique Colt pistols to businessman Joseph Murphy. Prosecutors said the weapons were worth half of what Murphy paid for them, and that Zomber lied to increase the price.
Zomber, now 60, spent almost two years in a federal prison camp before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit threw out his conviction. It found that the prosecutor, Robert Goldman, had failed to give Zomber's defense the letters Murphy wrote to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates offering to resell the pistols "at cost" — the same price Murphy paid.
Goldman said he did nothing wrong and warned USA TODAY that he would have any article about Zomber's case "reviewed by counsel for potential litigation." He said he regrets only that Zomber's conviction was overturned because of "an insignificant document." But the Appeals Court ruled the letters could have given jurors "reasonable doubt" about whether Zomber overcharged Murphy.
The court's decision meant Zomber faced the prospect of another costly trial. He was unlikely to go back to prison. But he could have been ordered to pay $1 million or more in restitution.
Instead, defense lawyer Gerald Lefcourt reached a deal in which prosecutors ended the case.
"They weren't going to consider dismissing" it "unless we agreed not to pursue a Hyde Amendment application," he said. Lefcourt, Hutchinson and other lawyers say prosecutors now automatically include such waivers in many plea agreements.
Zomber said he had little choice but to go along with the agreement, because prosecutors are "always going to make you sign a Hyde Amendment" waiver. Battling for repayment, he said, was "just not worth it."
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