Opinion

Marktray Spearman v. United States

  • 186 F.3d 743
  • 1999 U.S. App. LEXIS 18008
  • 1999 WL 556445
Court
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Filed
Aug 2, 1999
Status
Published
Author
Ryan
On the bench
Ryan, Batchelder, Clay
Cited by
146 cases
Authority
More cited than 26.0%

finding that “a defénse attorney would have had no reason to challenge the jury selection process that was in place in the Eastern District of Michigan prior to Ovalle, inasmuch as the court to which he would make his challenge consisted of the very judges who approved the plan”

How later courts described this case

  • finding that “a defénse attorney would have had no reason to challenge the jury selection process that was in place in the Eastern District of Michigan prior to Ovalle, inasmuch as the court to which he would make his challenge consisted of the very judges who approved the plan”
  • finding that "a defense attorney would have had no reason to challenge the jury selection process that was in place in the Eastern District of Michigan prior to Ovalle, inasmuch as the court to which he would make his challenge consisted of the very judges who approved the plan"
  • explaining that the evidence “need not remove every reasonable hypothesis except that of guilt” (quoting United States v. Vannerson, 786 F.2d 221, 225 (6th Cir. 1986))
  • stating that “it is well-settled that uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice may support a conviction in federal court”

Written by the judges who cited it.

The opinion

RYAN, Circuit Judge,

concurring.

Although I concur in Judge Clay’s resolution of the issues properly before us in this appeal, as discussed in Parts I, II-D, and III of his opinion, I cannot sign his lengthy opinion because most of it addresses a matter that is not before us.

All of Part II of my brother’s opinion, save the final paragraph, is a gratuitous and inappropriate attack upon a prior decision of this court, United States v. Ovalle, 136 F.3d 1092 (6th Cir.1998), the merits of which have nothing to do with the issues before us. Judge Clay’s polemic, and his criticism of the federal judges of the Eastern District of Michigan, might have a proper place in some academic journal, or Op-Ed page, or perhaps as subject matter for discussion at a bench/bar conference such as the annual Judicial Conference of the Sixth Circuit, but it is totally out of place in an opinion deciding this case.

In my judgment, my brother’s criticism of Ovalle is an embarrassing imposition upon this court, not because of Judge Clay’s personal views about the Ovalle decision — he is entitled to them — but because of the place he has chosen to express them. The taxpayers and the tens of thousands of lawyers who must pay for our ever-lengthening published opinions should not be required to subsidize my brother’s essay attacking a precedently binding decision of this court whose issues and deci-sional rule have nothing to do with the case before us.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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