Opinion ID: 802339
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Second Severance

Text: Instead, on December 27, 2011, the Court severed the substantive counts charging Bergrin with drug trafficking and participating in the Esteves Plot from the rest of the counts in the Indictment, and ordered that they be tried in January 2012 (the “Second Severance Order”). The Court explained that its “original premise [was] that trying Bergrin for his alleged involvement in the [Kemo] murder conspiracy with extensive evidence from the [Esteves Plot] … would be fundamentally unfair and improper” (id. at 67), and it went on to say that the concerns memorialized in its First Severance Opinion required an additional severance, because the government’s appeal with respect to the Kemo Murder Counts made it “impossible” to pursue the “most logical solution” of simply retrying those counts (id. at 69). 28 Severing the Indictment’s drug-trafficking and Esteves Plot counts was the next best solution, the Court said, since such a severance would avoid[] undue prejudice because Bergrin faces no exposure for his alleged involvement in the [Kemo] murder conspiracy, and so the jury cannot find him guilty of those charges based on improper spillover evidence. It also incorporates as many of the remaining counts as may properly be joined, and, if Bergrin is convicted, carries a substantial penalty which should satisfy the Government’s desire for justice. (Id. at 73.) The Court also ruled that it was necessary to ensure that those counts were tried before the RICO counts in which the Kemo murder and the Esteves Plot were intrinsic, rejecting the government’s statement that it should be permitted to proceed on its RICO charges first, and characterizing that position as a “thinly veiled attempt to either circumvent [the Court’s] prior decision or discourage the Court from taking further actions required by justice.” (Id.) That same day, the government filed a second notice of appeal, this time challenging the Second Severance Order.