FPC’s coverage of the prosecution of publishers Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin on charges related to Backpage.
The rare moments of levity during the half-hour session at the Ninth Circuit on Sept. 2 in the Lacey/Larkin appeal came at the government’s expense as litigators jousted before a three-judge panel at the James R. Browning United States Courthouse…
Nearly a year since their first trial ended in a mistrial due to prosecutorial misconduct, storied newspapermen Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin head to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on September 2, arguing that a retrial would…
One of the great ironies of the federal government’s criminal pursuit of veteran newspapermen and former Backpage owners, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, is Backpage’s winning record in court. Prior to their 2018 arrests, federal and state judges repeatedly upheld…
On Sunday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals tentatively scheduled oral arguments in the Lacey/Larkin case for Friday, September 2, nearly a year after prosecutorial misconduct caused a mistrial in the high-stakes First Amendment donnybrook. The hearing is one of…
At the request of this writer, editors at The Washington Post issued a correction to an April 8 review of former California prosecutor Maggy Krell’s self-serving memoir, Taking Down Backpage. The review by E.J. Graff, managing editor of WaPo’s “Monkey…
The U.S. Department of Justice has wasted four years and untold millions of tax dollars on the wrongful prosecution of award-winning journalists and former Backpage owners Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin. Given the opportunity, the DOJ may waste more. Because…
Granted, the Jonestown Massacre may not be the perfect metaphor for Washington Post scribe E.J. Graff’s recent review of California prosecutor Maggy Krell’s book, Taking Down Backpage. Still, the way Graff blindly glugs down Krell’s self-serving account of the latter’s…
On April 6, 2018, the U.S. government set a disturbing precedent in the annals of modern censorship by arresting award-winning newspapermen Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin and taking down Backpage.com, a classified ads site that reportedly served almost 1,000 cities…
Forget smoking guns. In an appellate brief filed recently at the Ninth Circuit, defense attorneys in the Lacey/Larkin case offer a series of flaming bazookas, detailing the prosecution’s unabashed intent to force the defense to move for a mistrial (and…
Editor’s note: Since this piece was written, the court granted a brief extension to the government, allowing it to file a response to the defense on April 14. In a two-page order filed earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit Court…
