Supreme Court Denies Petition in Shaygan Prosecutorial Misconduct Case

On Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court denied Dr. Ali Shaygan’s petition for review of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s reversal of the trial court’s award of attorneys’ fees to Dr. Shaygan based upon misconduct by Federal prosecutors during his criminal case, as noted by the Chicago Tribune. The Supreme Court denied the petition without comment, despite a brief supported by 60 Federal judges and prosecutors, as we have reported.

The Hyde Amendment, 18 U.S.C. Section 3006A, enables Federal courts to award attorneys’ fees and court costs to  defendants in criminal cases “where the court finds that the position of the United States was ‘vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith.’” However, the gaping hole in the test under the Hyde Amendment, as demonstrated by a case such as Dr. Shaygan’s, is its focus on the Government’s initial case against a defendant while overlooking bad faith conduct by prosecutors during criminal proceedings.

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“Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason…” Sir Edward Coke