6.Karpeles Evidence, Hearsay, Informant Privilege, and Limits of Cross-Examination
171 lines(At the side bar)
THE COURT: Let me say that I don't want to do this in front of jury. There's no inconsistent statements so the fact it that he's sworn to it doesn't get you for impeachment purposes to ability to put that in.
MR. DRATEL: Right. What I want to do is get the basis for his conclusions of his investigations.
THE COURT: Why don't you ask him?
MR. DRATEL: That's fine. And the government's objection is hearsay, I have no problem that it's not for the truth. It's just for what his investigation collected that led him to have probable cause to believe --
MR. TURNER: But --
THE COURT: What the investigation -- so you would ask him, and tell me, Mr. Turner, what your view is.
MR. TURNER: That sounds like it is being offered for the truth of the matter; he's trying to get out what the probable cause was for the affidavit. He's trying to establish that these are the facts, that show that somebody else, in fact, was running Silk Road, that somebody else is the real operator of the site.
THE COURT: It's obviously, number one, we can all agree it's obviously highly relevant, right, if the lead investigator believed at one point in time in August of 2013 that somebody else might be a candidate, then how he arrived at how that fellow was a candidate is obviously relevant; and also how he changed his mind if he changed his mind would similarly be relevant. And you could go into that to your heart's content on redirect and Mr. Dratel can bring it out.
MR. TURNER: I think there are two concerns I have, your Honor, one is, I understand if he believed these things, but it's another thing to start citing the evidence that consists of hearsay from a confidential informant. That's core hearsay.
THE COURT: It goes to his state of mind, though.
MR. TURNER: I think it's going to be impossible for the jury to segregate that out. We're bringing out --
THE COURT: I'll give them a limited instruction, but I'm going to allow him to ask what was the basis for his view that somebody else was an appropriate target. That strikes me as in the heartland of the defense.
MR. TURNER: Another problem I have is law enforcement privilege. If we're going to start getting into statements of confidential informants, these are people who have brought information to the government in secrecy.
THE COURT: Here's what we're going to do. We won't have him go into the content of the communications. He can simply list, and why don't you take it carefully?
MR. DRATEL: Okay.
THE COURT: And let's cut him off if he's going to go into the content of any of those communications. He's just going to give an itemized list of these are the types of things I relied on.
MR. TURNER: Not only the contents but the source, the identity of somebody --
MR. DRATEL: The information --
THE COURT: What I was going to say is, the point that I think it's fair for the defense to bring out is that there was information listing the sources that led the investigator to believe at one point in time that there was probable cause for purposes of a warrant. That I think can be done in a way that does not invoke hearsay, all right. So do it in that way that does not get us into the hearsay problem.
MR. DRATEL: Tell him what information -- can I lead him?
THE COURT: You're on cross.
MR. DRATEL: Yes, right.
THE COURT: You can just say -- why don't you ask him what his conclusion is if he ever reached a conclusion and what the source was to give you an itemized list of the types of information --
MR. DRATEL: But the bitcointalk.org forum is important because it's the one that some of the initial --
THE COURT: You can't go into the content of what the bitcoin forum was.
MR. DRATEL: No. To say that he was running it. That's the information they had.
THE COURT: That's definitely -- you're trying to get that in for the truth, right? That is exactly the truth, so you can't do that.
MR. TURNER: We would ask for a strong limiting instruction here, your Honor.
THE COURT: He's saying it's not going to go into the hearsay. I think we can do this in a way that does not suggest hearsay.
MR. TURNER: My concern, is this the defense that the defendant wants to put on, that there was another individual behind it and this is the witness that they're seeking to draw that evidence out of?
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. TURNER: So that is being offered for the truth in terms of the evidence --
THE COURT: No. Let's go through it so we're absolutely clear on what the question is going to be.
The question is going to be did there come a point in your investigation when you formed a basis for believing that there was probable cause for a warrant against Mr. Karpeles? Yes or no?
You got these in mind?
MR. DRATEL: Yes.
THE COURT: Then it's going to be tell me, just by source type, the type of sources that led you to that. They were written information that I had received, it was witnesses. I can lead him through that if you want to, but you can do it.
MR. DRATEL: No. That's okay. If I'm running astray, you'll let me know.
THE COURT: Then what do you want to do next because those are not hearsay so far. The fact that he did reach that conclusion is clearly something that he can testify to.
MR. TURNER: I understand that. I guess my concern there is if he just says something like witnesses, then it makes it sound potentially more significant than it is.
THE COURT: Then you can go back on cross, but that's not hearsay. That's part of a list of items. I can't preclude him from that. I don't think there's a basis to preclude him from that.
MR. TURNER: As long as it's very clear that he's not saying that a witness told me that.
THE COURT: No, no. We're not going to let him go into content. He can't go into the content of the communications.
MR. TURNER: Then I'm not sure what he can draw out of the question. I understand that he can show -- that asking this witness whether he believes someone else was the person in charge of Silk Road is relevant, but beyond that, unless -- I don't know what the point of going further is unless the defendant is seeking to draw that information out for the truth to show there was credible evidence that somebody else --
THE COURT: Well, he is saying this investigator reached a point of having believing there was probable cause.
MR. TURNER: I'm not even sure how that is relevant, I mean, if it's not being offered for bias --
THE COURT: It's clearly relevant; I have no problem with making a relevance ruling on this.
MR. TURNER: But why, your Honor, unless if it's being offered for truth.
THE COURT: It's being offered for the truth of probable cause. This is not hearsay. None of this we talked about so far is hearsay. There's no statement.
MR. TURNER: Right. My concern, again, is that the effect of the testimony is going to be that there were other sources --
THE COURT: He can always say there were 25 sources and he can always list the type. We don't get a hearsay problem as a matter of law until he goes into the content. I think the government's concern is that by implication, there was content. Of course, there's content in any communication. He when he says he spoke to people, there's necessarily content. He can't say what that content was, but his subsequent action led him to do something one might infer, but that's way people get around hearsay all the time.
I understand your concern. Let's take it step by step. He clearly gets to ask about the investigator having some belief.
MR. TURNER: I would just, finally, I would note our growing concern that there actually is no legitimate basis here if the defense is not trying to show something like bias or anything else that, but, instead, is trying to prove through this witness the contents of other statements, statements of others, of witnesses that aren't being called in to testify themselves, basically the defense is trying to suggest there's all this evidence out there of the person who is running Silk Road. If that's the case, then the defense can introduce that evidence, but trying to get this witness to testify about that evidence, particularly when it concerns statements of others --
THE COURT: Here's what we're going to do because I think this is in the heartland of exactly what the defense wants to do, and I have to say right now, my view is it seems to be perfectly appropriate that this fellow says he put together an investigation which identified the defendant, he did it in the following way, showing that he may have put together an equally strong investigation to identify somebody else and that's issue: Is this the right guy?
That strikes me as a defense that can be developed through this witness because this witness is not limited only to bias. Factual impeachment by undermining some of his testimony I think is perfectly appropriate, but I don't think we're going to solve it right now.
MR. DRATEL: No.
THE COURT: Hold on. But I also think, is there anything else you can do because what I'd like to do is rather than break right now, I want to make sure I hear and think about these issues clearly because this is critical. So if the government feels as strongly and we're at 4:00 and we already have issue that this witness is coming back for on Tuesday, I'm inclined to hold both of these issues and talk about it so we can raise our voices above a whisper, but is there anything else you can go to?
MR. DRATEL: No.
THE COURT: That's fine. We'll break for the day and we'll talk about this then in open court.
MR. TURNER: Thank you, your Honor.
THE COURT: Thank you.
(Continued on next page)
(In open court; jury present)
THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to break for the afternoon because this conversation is going to take a little bit longer and I don't want to take up your time with it. So since we're at 4:00 anyway, I'm sure you'll be able to get a head start on the traffic and everything else and the commute.
I want to give you a few reminders, though, because you do have between now and -- we're not going to see you again until Tuesday morning, right, so set your alarm clock. Don't forget about us. We need you here on time by 9:15 on Tuesday morning so we can pick up here in the room by 9:30. We will not meet tomorrow as I said before and Monday is a holiday, so we will not meet on Monday.
I do want to remind you to take as seriously as you can possibly take the instruction not to talk to anybody about this case, anybody at all, including those in your life who you may have in your home or visitors, friends, spouses, significant others, whoever they may. Be don't update your Facebook page. I know that sounds ridiculous. People have done it before. And don't send emails about it, don't Tweet.
And really, it's very important that if you run across any news articles on the Internet, on the television, newspapers, avert your eyes. Do not read them. You can read the remainder of the paper but do not read them. It's very, very important that the only information that you folks use as the triers of fact in this case is the evidence which you receive here in this room. And don't watch Princess Bride over the weekend, okay? Don't do any particular research on any aspect of this case from anything that you've heard about to further inform yourself. You will have all the facts as they develop here in this record here at trial.
See you Tuesday morning. Thank you very much.
(Jury excused)
(Continued on next page)
(In open court; jury not present)
THE COURT: Let's all be seated. When the witness has left the room, let's pick up where we left off on this issue and we can speak about it then in a voice that is above a whisper, which always feels both as if it's being done more quickly than we otherwise might do. There's an urgency to it when we're at side bar and also people are constrained in terms of what they can reasonably say.
(Witness temporarily excused)
THE COURT: All right, so let's go back to the issue. We have two issues on the table. We have the one that we spoke about before and that was the earlier issue, which we'll now take up Tuesday morning as well. You folks, by the way, on any of these issues can write to me letters over the weekend and collect your thoughts and any case law or other support that you may believe is appropriate for me to have. I will read anything that you put before me.
On this last issue, Mr. Dratel, so we have it clearly in mind now, can you maybe give me the kind of question or questions that you believe you could ask that you believe are not objectionable and otherwise comply with the rules of evidence and then let's get them on the record. And we'll find out what kinds of issues we have so we can think about them.
Question number one?
MR. DRATEL: Question number one is, you reached a conclusion based on your investigation that there was probable cause to believe that Mark Karpeles was behind the Silk Road as an operator and was using it to sell narcotics, essentially, what's in the affidavit.
Second would be, what kind of sources did you have for that information. And I would lead him saying you did your own investigation, you did a lot of Internet research, you had confidential informants, your own research, other collection by your colleagues. And then there is a whole range of information that he collected on his own through his own Internet research, which I would go into.
THE COURT: "He" being the witness?
MR. DRATEL: Special Agent Der-Yeghiayan, yes, that he did, and it's really Internet research that he did, and then I would just go through that with him a little bit.
THE COURT: Hold on. Let's take that, okay. Let's not skip through that too quickly. I want to understand what you want to do with it.
MR. DRATEL: Sure.
THE COURT: I understand the type of information, you want to get a list of source types, right? So that includes, for instance Internet, confidential CI, confidential informant, etc., that's a source type.
Then what's the next thing you want to do?
MR. DRATEL: The next thing I wanted to do, and, your Honor, just so we're clear, because I usually don't see the need for this given how we practice in this district, but obviously I'm going to ask for it specifically: That there be no communication with the witness from the prosecution team in any respect because I am now previewing my cross, 615.
THE COURT: So to the extent that anything would be done differently -- there are things done with witnesses all the time, but they shouldn't be talking to him about the specific content of his testimony; I wouldn't expect anybody would in terms of these things.
But to the extent they're going to have the kinds of conversations and communications they would normally have, then I'm not going to preclude that, but they shouldn't be preparing him on your cross.
MR. DRATEL: That's right, or on the redirect because while someone is on cross, they shouldn't be talking --
THE COURT: I have no reason to believe they won't fulfill their obligations. I'm not going to give a special instruction. So you're going into he develops his own information.
MR. DRATEL: Right. This is it: That the Silk Road website, from visiting the Silk Road website, I'm quoting him now, I know that this same software platform used by bitcointalk is used to operate the discussion forums on Silk Road.
THE COURT: The same software platform?
MR. DRATEL: Correct. You can ask that in a way that is simply getting out a factual question, right?
THE COURT: Let's talk about the nonhearsay way of getting at that which is, Are you familiar with bitcointalk, are you familiar with that software platform, are you aware of any similarities between that and the Silk Road platform, right?
MR. DRATEL: He says based on my training and experience, this platform is not widely used by forum administrators. And then he reached the conclusion that the forums were likely set up by the same administrator; that is, Karpeles. And there's more to it, which is, both platforms, the Silk Road and bitcointalk.org use something called Mediawiki version 1.17, and this is not an updated version, but the same exact version, even though the software has been updated since the 1.17 version.
So he concludes I believe that Karpeles has been involved in establishing and operating the Silk Road website. And then he goes on to say in the affidavit that Karpeles is using Silk Road to increase the value of bitcoin because Silk Road generated a huge source demand for bitcoin.
Then he says Karpeles has the technical expertise and experience necessary in order to establish and operate a large commercial website such as Silk Road. Further, the fact that the Silk Road relies on a highly complex system for processing bitcoin strongly suggests that it was designed by someone with extensive technical expertise related to bitcoin, which Karpeles, being the owner and operator of a major bitcoin exchange and bitcoin discussion forum, clearly has.
He also talks a little further about based on training and experience, I believe it is likely that Karpeles has worked with others in establishing and operating the Silk Road website because the postings on the silkroadmarket.org are signed Silk Road staff and written in the plural first person.
Then it points to some investigative stuff. He did some other subpoenas that went out.
THE COURT: There's a bunch of that that you can get at in a way that does not invoke any of the hearsay issues that we're talking about.
MR. DRATEL: That's right. I'm just --
THE COURT: I understand.
MR. DRATEL: But there is one piece of hearsay that I don't think it's hearsay based on my purpose, which is not with respect to the affidavit because I'm trying to go through this so we get all of this out of the way right now.
THE COURT: Yeah.
MR. DRATEL: But a little further on, in the context of sort of DPR and the context of more than one DPR, there was an interview done by a journalist named Andy Greenberg of DPR, someone claiming to be DPR, in August 2013, right at the same time. And in the interview, DPR says no, I bought the site from -- and I'm not going to go into that, that he bought the site from someone else and all of that, I'm not going to go into the hearsay -- but just the fact that in that interview, the person who claims to be DPR to Andy Greenberg says I'm not the first DPR, there were other DPRs before me. And Special Agent Der-Yeghiayan says in an email that sounds very much like Karpeles. That's what he says, that the person in that interview --
THE COURT: And so your point is that Der-Yeghiayan reads -- that's the Bloomberg article?
MR. DRATEL: Forbes.
THE COURT: So Der-Yeghiayan reads the Forbes article that has this statement in it, and I've actually run across that, and you want to bring out that statement.
MR. DRATEL: His conclusion, his conclusion that sounds very much --
THE COURT: You want to bring out the statement and the conclusion he draws from that?
MR. DRATEL: Right.
THE COURT: Tell me now, give me your argument as to why that's not rank hearsay.
MR. DRATEL: Because it's his conclusion that it sounds like Karpeles based on his investigation. It's not whether the statement is true that there were other -- it sort of informs his conclusion and it buttresses it.
THE COURT: There's a way of getting at the "sounds" that doesn't bring out the statement, of course, so I need to understand the statement. Because the way to get out the fact that he sounds like Karpeles could be, Did you read the article? Yes. Did it -- let me finish it so the record is clear about the way it could be brought out.
Were there words that were reported to be by DPR? Yes. Did you draw any conclusions? Yes. What was your conclusion? That it sounded like Karpeles.
That doesn't require getting into the statement. So if you're going to get into the statement, tell me why, in terms of your argument, that's not rank hearsay.
MR. DRATEL: You're right. I agree. Playing it out, that's correct.
THE COURT: All right, so you could do it that way.
MR. DRATEL: That's my purpose, not to get into the other stuff that we got into.
THE COURT: So what you'd say is was there a Forbes article? In the Forbes article that you read, did you read it -- did it purport to have an interview with DPR? And did you draw any conclusions from that? Yes. What was your conclusion? X.
MR. DRATEL: Right.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. DRATEL: In a leading way.
THE COURT: What's that?
MR. DRATEL: In a leading way.
THE COURT: I'm playing out a nonhearsay way to do it. And now I want to get the government's view. And I am going to allow these issues, of course, to evolve over the next few days because we're all dealing with this right now for the first time.
If you come up with additional questions, Mr. Dratel, I'm not going to prevent you from asking them, nor will I prevent the government from further refining its position.
Mr. Turner, what's your view about these pieces? If you can take them in a granular manner, that would be helpful.
MR. TURNER: Sure. Overall, I certainly understand what your Honor was saying at side bar that in terms of this being the core of the defense, that the defense wants to argue that there was somebody else running the site, but it just has to be done through competent evidence. And the fact that a witness at one time believed there was probable cause that somebody else was running the site, that in and of itself is not evidence; it's not competent evidence. And there is no inconsistent statement that's been drawn out that provides a justification to use that sworn affidavit to try to impeach the witness.
THE COURT: Why isn't an investigator who says I received the following four pieces of information, I took the following action based upon that information -- it doesn't have to be in terms of belief, not belief, when you file an affidavit in support of a search warrant, you're taking action based upon that information.
In the government's view, is that line of approach acceptable or do you also oppose that line of approach?
MR. TURNER: It's not evidence of anything.
THE COURT: The investigator receives -- I received four pieces of information.
MR. TURNER: Right.
THE COURT: I then took the following act based upon those four pieces of information, that's evidence of four pieces, correct?
MR. TURNER: The government's view is what should be the focus of the defense here is the four pieces of information whether --
THE COURT: And the act.
MR. TURNER: I don't know what the act might be.
THE COURT: If the act is to walk to a judge and get a warrant, that's an act.
MR. TURNER: If the act is simply an assertion that this agent believed there was probable cause that someone was operating a website other than Mr. Ulbricht at the time, that assertion, that belief, that is not competent evidence of anything.
THE COURT: The act of "What did you do next? I sought a search warrant without the statement of law as to probable cause."
MR. TURNER: Right. So that act would only be evidence that the agent had that belief at the time, but again, that belief isn't evidence of anything.
If the defendant is trying to prove that there was somebody else operating Silk Road, they can do that by focusing on the underlying evidence itself. And then the question becomes, What evidence is admissible?
THE COURT: Are the four facts admissible?
MR. TURNER: So, for example, the report of a confidential informant obviously is clearly hearsay.
THE COURT: Hold on. We're not going into the content of the report. We're going to say what information did you receive, just like he's testified for a day about the information he developed about the website itself.
MR. TURNER: But there, your Honor, it was all facts that were being elicited. Here, it's just a belief of the agent.
THE COURT: No, I'm moving aside from the belief. I'm taking the facts. So he says there were four facts. I read X or I did Y or I heard this. And he doesn't go into content. I had a communication; I had a visual sighting on some website. I have my four facts, can he list those four facts? In the course of my investigation, because you don't want him to skip over August, right, or April, I mean, that's part of what you've been bringing out.
MR. TURNER: It depends on what it's being offered for, your Honor. If, for example, what that information was being offered for was to show some sort of inconsistency that he says now that he never believed that anybody but Ross Ulbricht --
THE COURT: Isn't it an ultimate inconsistency?
MR. TURNER: No, your Honor, because in order to prove that, the defendant needs to rely on competent evidence. In order to prove the ultimate inconsistency that it was someone else running the site, if that's what they're trying to prove, they have to prove that through competent evidence. Then it becomes a question of the individual pieces of underlying information that the agent relied on in his sworn affidavit, for example, which of those are admissible.
THE COURT: Let's take a different example because you and I, our minds are not meeting here, I want to move away from the word "belief." I want to focus on analogous types of evidence as to that which we have gone over here so far with this witness. And if analogous types of evidence were reviewed by this witness and he lists those analogous types of evidence as among those that he reviewed, he can do that, right?
MR. TURNER: Right.
THE COURT: I reviewed X, I reviewed Y, I reviewed Z. He can do that, right?
MR. TURNER: Right -- it depends, if I may.
So, for example, the forum software, that is a fact, and if the defendant wants to bring that out through this witness' testimony -- isn't it true that Silk Road, the forums operated using a certain version of forum software? Do you know that to be a fact? Did you personally observe that?
Those are facts that this witness can competently testify to.
THE COURT: Presumably, he might have information about the bitcoin.org. Did you become familiar with the software platform that bitcoin.org relied upon? Yes, I did. And did you compare that to the Silk Road forum software platform? Yes, I did. Did you draw any conclusions? Yes, I did. What was your conclusion? It was the same thing or similar.
He can do that.
MR. TURNER: Yes. Those are personal observations of this witness. He's made no hearsay issue --
THE COURT: Here's what we'll do: First, I will elicit from you whether there are any other bases upon which you sought to object to the testimony so I get a full view of your objections.
Then I want you to find a case for me, or cases, because if what you're saying is supported and it's the way that the law works, then there ought to be oodles of cases. I feel like what we're talking about is analogous types of evidence that would be described in very similar ways, but there may be something that I am missing --
MR. TURNER: We'd be happy to brief it.
THE COURT: -- at 4:30 on a Thursday. It does happen.
Tell me: Are there any other bases apart from this one that you just described?
MR. TURNER: Other than about confidential informants, as I mentioned at side bar.
THE COURT: So, the way I would articulate back to you what I understand your concern is or your objection, is that underlying the witness' statement or testimony, potential testimony about why he took certain action which is seeking a warrant, underlying that are or information which he believed were facts and based upon which he took certain action, and you dispute the reliability of those facts and you believe that those facts are themselves based upon hearsay.
Do I have your point right?
MR. TURNER: I'm not sure if that captures all of it, honestly, your Honor. There are a couple of points, and I think it would probably best if, at the end of the day, for us to lay this out in our papers.
I think one is certainly hearsay issues to the extent that basically what the defense is trying to draw out are hearsay assertions that were proffered as support for probable cause in a search warrant affidavit, that's not competent evidence.
THE COURT: He's not going to go into the content of the communications. He would say I have these four types; I took this act.
MR. TURNER: I understand. Then our larger concern is, the witness' act is irrelevant, what this witness did is irrelevant.
THE COURT: I don't think it's irrelevant because if he pursued a target of this conduct and it wasn't the defendant, I think that's directly relevant to the defendant's theory of the case.
MR. TURNER: My point is, your Honor, what the defense is trying to prove here is not simply that this agent pursued another target. The defense is trying to argue that this other target is the real DPR.
THE COURT: They're trying to raise a reasonable doubt as to whether or not the defendant is the real DPR.
MR. TURNER: But that is the assertion they are trying to prove, so that's why the hearsay concerns we have --
THE COURT: How else do you do it?
MR. TURNER: -- are so acute.
The way the defense does it, your Honor, is by relying on competent evidence. So, for example, if they want to point to the fact that the Silk Road forums were based on a certain software that Mark Karpeles also used, that has nothing to do with what the agent did or didn't do or whether a search warrant was sworn out or not. It's a simple fact, and this agent observed that fact and can testify to it.
It's a completely different matter for the defense to say, well, didn't you hear from some confidential informant or hear from some other witness certain information that led you to believe that Mark Karpeles was the person behind it and then go to a judge with a search warrant sworn out? All of that is being offered to try to prove that someone else was running the site and that is clear hearsay being offered for the truth of the matter.
THE COURT: It's an inference. There are certain facts that are being posited to draw inferences.
Here's what I think we should do: We should all get this transcript and read this portion of it that relates to what we have just all gone over. I think that to the extent that there's any question as to whether or not the defense has been building all afternoon a picture that Mr. Karpeles was, in fact, at least arguably a DPR, that I think has come out in spades. I think the jury understands that that's the argument. I have no idea what they think about it, but that I think is not -- that cat's out of the bag, right, and that this particular witness Mr. Der-Yeghiayan, for some period of time, was pursuing Mr. Karpeles, all of that's out.
So I don't know that what we're talking about, frankly, is particularly additive, but you folks, again, know more than I. And I very much hesitate to preclude something unless there's a very solid evidentiary basis when it goes to the heartland of the defendant's theory.
That's why I want you to look at it, think about it, measure it against what's already in the record, and then present whatever you want to present in terms of a written submission. I'll absolutely read it.
MR. TURNER: We'll do so.
THE COURT: Thank you.
MR. DRATEL: I wanted to add the identification of an alternative suspect and the conduct of the government's investigation with respect to that alternative suspect is core Brady in so many cases, and we'll brief that for the Court.
THE COURT: In terms of Brady, the very fact that we have all this 3500 material is Brady. If you think it's Brady, then it's there.
MR. DRATEL: Yes. I'm just talking about relevance. I agree with the Court, it couldn't be more relevant. And the question of competent evidence, the Court has navigated that, but we'll address it in the papers.
THE COURT: I'll tell you, it raises some issues that I would benefit from people's writing things down so that I can sit there and I can really go through it very carefully.
MR. DRATEL: I'm saying, we will submit something as well, your Honor.
THE COURT: If you're going to change what you're doing, let us know so we're not ships passing in the night.
MR. DRATEL: Correct; I agree 100 percent.
THE COURT: I am sorry that this occurred in terms of cutting things short, but I think it was necessary in light of this particular issue.
We'll come back on Tuesday morning. Is there anything else that we should know about that we should preview for next week? And we're going to need to come up with a solution for that monitor because I can't see Mr. Ulbricht's face. I like to see actually everybody's face. The Court looks around. I can see Mr. Howard's face because he's closer. I don't need to see Ms. Lewis' face.
MS. LEWIS: I'm fine with that. We can put it in between.
MR. DRATEL: We'll figure it out.
THE COURT: I had a note to myself a couple of times.
MR. DRATEL: Let me review what I have left. And if there's something else that I think needs to be previewed, I'll include it in the submission and figure it out.
THE COURT: Anything from the government's perspective?
MR. TURNER: No.
THE COURT: What we're going to do, I'm also going to provide next week, it's likely to be Wednesday, a set of the draft jury instructions. You folks will then be asked to go back and to go through them using comments with Word so that I can just look and see what you don't agree with.
We're actually working off of your draft because your draft is off of one of my prior drafts, so actually I think it's working okay that way.
Tomorrow I have a full day with a million lawyers in this room, so you'll need, unfortunately, to at least clear the tables and put things someplace safe.
MR. DRATEL: It will be pristine.
THE COURT: Terrific. I don't mean the jury room. Well, you can't go in the jury room.
We're adjourned. Thank you. See you Tuesday morning.
COURT CLERK: All rise.
(Adjourned to January 20, 2015 at 9:15 a.m.)
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