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Choice Of Counsel And The Appearance Of Equal Justice Under Law, Wesley M. Oliver

Northwestern University Law Review

Once a federal prosecutor obtains an indictment that seeks a forfeiture, a judge must permit the prosecutor to freeze all the potentially forfeitable assets that would be unavailable at the time of conviction. Obviously, funds used for the defense would fit into that category. Equally obvious is the tension between the government’s interest in assets that may be forfeitable and a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to choice of counsel. A number of lower courts therefore had permitted defendants to seek release of the assets needed for a defense by challenging the grand jury’s determination that probable cause existed to believe …