Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner and I will discuss the judge’s ruling during a Substack Live today scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time.
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Former Olympian David Hearn received protection from another “meritless, politically driven prosecution” on Thursday, as a federal judge took the rare step of dismissing his criminal case with prejudice.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman made clear that he was shielding Hearn from the vindictive demands of Donald Trump.
“Should the Court dismiss this case in a fashion that allows the government to reinitiate prosecution in the future, the Court would be exposing him to the risk that, due to pressure from the President of the United States apparently motivated at least in part by Mr. Hearn’s political views, he would again be charged with a crime that prosecutors have determined he did not commit,” Judge Edelman wrote in a scathing, 26-page opinion.
‘Miscarriage of justice’
In June, Hearn visited the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and was arrested after being spotted touching a strip of peeling sealant.
At the time, Trump had been humiliated by the speedy unraveling of his $16 million renovation, and he baselessly claimed that the shoddy paint job and pervasive algae had been the work of vandals. Prosecutors quickly empaneled a grand jury, and they charged Hearn and others less than two weeks later, which the judge described as a “near-record pace.”
Those prosecutions collapsed in equally breakneck fashion.
After Hearn’s lawyers obtained evidence through discovery, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s legal team moved to dismiss his case in late July, admitting that the damage was caused by the “rushed and botched” contracting work and that the “overspray” of the sealant was of little to no value. Prosecutors conceded that the lack of damage made it impossible to sustain felony charges for causing $1,000 or more in destruction to government property.
Hearn’s attorneys Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann, and Steve Levin called their client’s ordeal a “miscarriage of justice” that should “shock every American.”
“Today’s dismissal with prejudice ensures that the DOJ cannot bring this case against him again. This decision is a victory for the rule of law and for an innocent American seeking justice,” they wrote in a statement.
‘Practically inconceivable’
During a hearing earlier this month, Judge Edelman sharply questioned what evidence could possibly emerge to justify reviving the case against Hearn.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Spence replied at the time: “I don’t know what the future may bring, None of us do.”
The judge said that the response showed that the government couldn’t imagine “anything close to a legitimate” purpose for continuing to pursue the case.
“Given its own description of the existing evidence and the circumstances of this case, the development of contrary evidence seems practically inconceivable, and the possibility of a future meritorious prosecution strikes the Court as fanciful,” the ruling states.
The only reason Judge Edelman could conceive was appeasing Trump.
“Although the prosecutors assigned to this case have deemed it meritless, the President of the United States has repeatedly disparaged them and pressured them to change course. Mr. Hearn thus finds himself differently situated than any of the other defendants who have had their cases dismissed in Superior Court: while the prosecutors admit that the evidence indicates that he committed no crime, the President’s statements create a risk that Mr. Hearn will be prosecuted nonetheless, either because the current United States Attorney and her assistants will eventually yield to his public pressure campaign or because the President will replace them with prosecutors more likely to carry out his wishes,” he wrote.
Given Hearn’s initial indictment, the judge ridiculed the prosecution’s argument that a grand jury would protect him from further charges as nothing short of "facetious."
Read the scathing, 26-page opinion in full here.
Justice Matters.
Yay!