Our Weekly: Amicus Brief in Support of MRT Squarely in Line with Recent US Supreme Court Ruling

By Brett David Louie

On January 31, 2024, the law firm of Miller Barondess, LLP filed a friend of the court brief in support of Dr. Mark Ridley-Thomas’s appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The brief was submitted on behalf of Sheila Kuehl and Jim Brulte, both former elected officials with a combined thirty-six years of public service—at the state and local levels—in both the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively. Their brief makes it very clear that, “Ridley-Thomas’s conviction raises serious due process and federalism concerns.”

Mira Hashmall, Esq. on behalf of Miller Barondess LLP representing Kuehl and Brulte participated in a CD10 Voices amici briefing session explaining the import of the issues at hand. In other words, the USAO got it wrong and SCOTUS has now declared it so (June 26, 2024 in the case of Snyder v. United States) explaining that state and local governments already regulate gifts to officials, and so federal law “does not supplement those state and local rules by subjecting 19 million state and local officials to up to 10 years in federal prison for accepting even commonplace gratuities.”

Please take a look at the presentation, as the SCOTUS has now confirmed the point of view articulated in this amicus brief, which is also made very clear in the Appellant’s Opening Brief and the Appellant’s Reply Brief. The next step in the process is the hearing for oral argument, currently scheduled for October of this year.

This article was originally posted to Our Weekly