Legal thriller author David Ellis’ day job? Appellate court justice

homesafetytechpros — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 23:28:15 +0000

The Modern Law Library

Legal thriller author David Ellis’ day job? Appellate court justice

August 29, 2024, 8:41 am CDT

Justice David W. Ellis of the Illinois Appellate Court for the 1st District is also the author of legal thrillers that have reached the New York Times Best Seller list.

Justice David W. Ellis has served on the Illinois Appellate Court for the 1st District for nearly 10 years. But readers may know him better as author David Ellis, bestselling writer of more than a dozen legal thrillers.

Ellis had enjoyed creative writing as a youth, he tells the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles in this episode of The Modern Law Library podcast.

But during his college and law school years, he was focused solely on his legal career path. It wasn’t until he had been in practice for a few years that this changed. During a vacation at the beach, he suddenly decided that he was going to write a novel—and once that goal was set, he worked relentlessly toward it. And in 2002, he won a prestigious Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for that first novel, Line of Vision.

Both branches of Ellis’ career have seen tremendous returns. He made national news in 2009 as the prosecutor of the impeachment of then-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich before the state senate. He was the youngest-serving justice in 2014 when he joined the Illinois Appellate Court for the 1st District, which serves Chicago and Cook County. And along the way, he published 11 novels, including the four-book Jason Kolarich series. He was a finalist for the ABA Journal-sponsored Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction in 2012 and 2013. He has also co-written nine books with James Patterson, the latest of which (Lies He Told Me) will be released in September.

In this episode, Ellis and Rawles discuss his July release, The Best Lies. The germ of an idea that became The Best Lies started off with the notion of a main character who was a diagnosed pathological liar.

When the book opens, Leo Balanoff, a criminal defense attorney in Chicago, has just been arrested for murder. Police have collected DNA and fingerprints at the scene that are a match for a college-era bar fight that Leo was charged for, and the victim had an ugly history with one of Leo’s clients.

Over the course of The Best Lies, twists and turns across multiple timelines and through multiple points of view begin to reveal what really happened. Ellis weaves a tale combining corporate espionage, violin concertos, police corruption and the Estonian mob.

Ellis also discusses his writing process, his 3:30 a.m. wake-up time, the similarities in his creative and legal writing, and how his judicial ethics concerns sometimes impact his editorial decisions.

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In This Podcast:

David W. Ellis. (Photo by Kevin Kuster)

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David W. Ellis. (Photo by Kevin Kuster)

David W. Ellis is a judge and a No. 1 New York Times-bestselling, Edgar Award-winning author of 11 novels of crime fiction, as well as nine books co-authored with James Patterson. In December 2014, Ellis was sworn in as the youngest-serving justice of the Illinois Appellate Court for the 1st District. Ellis lives outside Chicago with his wife and three children.

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David Shafer loses motion to dismiss some RICO case charges

homesafetytechpros — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 19:53:24 +0000

Left: Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee (AP Photo/Alex Slitz, Pool, File); Right: Former Georgia GOP chair David Shafer (Fulton County Sheriff’s Office)

The judge overseeing the Georgia racketeering (RICO) and election interference case against Donald Trump denied a motion by the former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party to dismiss election subversion charges based around the fake electors scheme.

David Shafer, the erstwhile Peach State GOP head, was charged in the August 2023 indictment with eight counts including impersonating a public officer, forgery in the first degree, false statements and writings, and criminal attempt to commit filing false documents.

In motions, and during a late March hearing in Fulton County, Shafer’s attorney, Craig Gillen, argued the indictment was defective because of the way prosecutors referred to the legally-suspect effort to have alternate, “contingent,” or fake electors deliver Electoral College votes to the 45th president instead of Joe Biden in several swing states.

“While special demurrers typically contend the charging instrument contains insufficient detail, here, the Defendant does not complain that the indictment is defective because it lacks necessary information,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee explained in the April 4 denial order. “Instead, he suggests certain charges must be dismissed because they contain too much, and that what they contain is legally inaccurate.”

Shafer’s defense argued that three phrases should be struck from the indictment: (1) “duly elected and qualified presidential electors”; (2) “false Electoral College votes”; and (3) “lawful electoral votes.”

To hear the defense tell it, those phrases are conclusory and “improper legal conclusions” that, essentially, prove the allegation being asserted and should only be advanced during a trial.

Under Georgia law, McAfee explains in the order, a court has “the inherent power — indeed the obligation — to redact an indictment that contains prejudicial surplusage or extraneous material.”

The kind of information that should be stricken from an indictment includes a co-defendant’s guilty plea, a defendant’s criminal record, or a reference to the defendant’s fingerprint, the judge explains.

Shafer did not identify anything like that, McAfee ruled.

“[T[he challenged language is not prejudicial because it accurately describes the alleged offenses and makes the charges more easily understood by provided a basis to differentiate the allegedly lawful and unlawful acts of presidential electors (as theorized by the State),” the three-page denial order notes.

More Law&Crime coverage: Trump RICO co-defendant wants less-democratic jury, district attorney thrown off case

McAfee goes on to explain that an indictment itself is not evidence and, in his courtroom, procedure requires reminding jurors on at least three separate occasions that an indictment is not evidence.

“An indictment is not subject to a demurrer or redaction simply because it contains unproven allegations or the State’s legal conclusions,” the judge’s order reads. “The very purpose of an indictment is to join issue on these issues.”

Ultimately, the court determined, Shafer’s motion did not single out any kind of defect or extraneous material but rather an explanation “that accurately describes the offenses and makes the charges more easily understood by the defendants and the jury.”

The judge said the proper place to contest how the state described the charges is during a trial — and denied an accompanying motion to dismiss because it relied on failed the motion to strike.

“A defendant retains the opportunity to challenge the entire indictment at trial,” the court’s order continues. “Because the Court finds no legal basis to strike this language, the Defendant’s claim that certain counts must be dismissed also fails, and the motion is denied.”

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Legal thriller author David Ellis’ day job? Appellate court justice