Defendant Horge Tells SDNY Judge
Swain He Needs To Email Scales As CJA Lawyer
Worries
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- The
Source
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
May 28 – Defendant Ernest
Horge back on February 27 said
in open court that it is
unfair he is in the same case
as a man now set to be charged
with capital murder, Sidney
Scales.
Then,
Horge's court appointed lawyer
Matthew D. Myers said he may
soon make a motion for
severance of the cased, but he
has a trial on the other side
of the country first.
Months
later on May 28 amid the
COVID-19 pandemic, Horge and
Myers and others appeared
virtual before Judge Laura
Taylor Swain. Inner City Press
again covered it.
Scales will not, in fact, face
the death penalty. Horge said
he needs the chance to
communicate with him, to avoid
misunderstandings. CJA lawyer
Myers spokes vaguely about
family member contacts and of
his talks with the U.S.
Attorney's Office about a
pre-trial disposition. Horge
spoke for himself, as before,
and asked for release on
medical grounds. It was not
granted. The next telephone
conference was set for July.
Inner City Press intends to be
there too.
Back in
February in an in-person
proceeding in the gallery
where Inner City Press was the
only media were family members
of both defendants, including
a small child running around
with a pacifer.
Previous Horge
and Myers described
non-functional computers to
review discovery in the MCC,
requiring him to print out
nine inches of documents from
a hard drive the US Attorney's
Office provided him.
U.S.
District Court for the
Southern District of New York
Judge Laura Taylor Swain, who
has also received handwritten
letters from Horge's family
members and filed them in the
docket after redacting
children's names, patiently
asked Horge about his
medication. On February 27 she
urged him to speak less.
But
Horge had more to say. He
insisted that the gun was
found in someone else's room,
in someone else's apartment.
He said the prosecutors, here
represented by AUSA Frank
Balsamello, were just "using
924(c) as a bargaining tool."
He said everybody loves him,
he has a great sense of humor.
He rhymed Prosecutors lying
and kids crying, and called
the whole situation a "Star
Spangled Banner blueprint for
genocide."
That said,
the case will continue, with a
conference on February 27 -
the one Inner City Press
attended. Now there's a delay
for capital case review in DC.
The case is US v. Horge,
19-cr-96 (Swain).
***
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