Comments on: Mr. Chips or Professor Moriarty?

By: Mike Deal

Mike Deal — Tue, 27 May 2008 00:15:15 +0000

Mr. Brady: The E.D. Tenn. AUSA was winging it: Not having any experience with an AECA/ITAR prosecution, he just assumed the law was the same as most of the meth cases he normally prosecutes, and got the law wrong, as most East Tennessee AUSA’s do. Unfortunately Judge Varlan, a law school classmate of mine who is more of a gentleman than a scholar, signed off on the plea agreement despite Mr. Sherman’s statement that he wasn’t aware of the licensing requirement.

By: David Brady

David Brady — Fri, 23 May 2008 20:26:09 +0000

Cliff, in the earlier NY Sun article one of the prosecuting attorney (responding to your observations on willful violations), that he was relying on the “deliberate ignorance”.

“…but a prosecutor, Jeffrey Theodore, said case law in the 6th Circuit allows a prosecution in cases involving “deliberate ignorance” of the legal requirements.” NY Sun article ” Chinese Grad Student’s Work Leads to Criminal Case” by Josh Gerstein 17 April 2008

Another article picked it up as “willful blindness”.

What’s their 6th circuit case law?

By: Charles Liu

Charles Liu — Fri, 23 May 2008 18:59:29 +0000

FYI Robert Gates recently asked American academics to send information related to the Chinese military back home:

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/05/project-minerva.html

(credit goes to MutantPalm)

By: John Liebman

John Liebman — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:28:29 +0000

Universities champion a culture of free and open exchanges of information and ideas, and for that reason are particularly vulnerable to the “deemed export” problem. Some institutions – those, for example, who participate in programs sponsored by the US Government – are pretty savvy in this area. In this case, the press release pointed to other facts suggesting that the good professor knew what he was doing, and that the institution was as much a victim as national security. As the old proverb goes, there are always three sides to every story…