Conspiracy Defenses

Drug-Related Conspiracy Charges

Eighty years ago a distinguished federal judge wrote that conspiracy is “the darling in the prosecutor’s nursery.” Twenty-five years later Justice Jackson echoed this view. Conspiracy was the prosecutor’s darling eighty years ago and they have been lovers ever since.

Conspiracies are the easiest cases for a prosecutor to prove and the hardest for a lawyer to defend. When many defendants are charged with a conspiracy, the acts of one to further the conspiracy are the acts of all and the statements of one are treated as though they were said by all.

The defense of conspiracy prosecutions is an endless attempt by defense counsel to block the acts and admissions of other defendants. The law of conspiracy is largely the law of evidence. It is subtle and complex. The complexity arises from the interplay and collision of the rules of evidence and a defendant’s constitutional right to confront his accusers.

James Shellow has defended numerous conspiracy prosecutions over the past four decades. While still in law school, James Shellow analyzed the convictions of the Mafia defendants in the Appalachian conspiracy case. His law review article accurately predicted that the convictions would be reversed by the Second Circuit.

One year after James Shellow graduated from law school he was retained as co-counsel for the main defendant in a high profile tax conspiracy prosecution. He succeeded in having the court suppress significant documentary evidence seized by federal agents. Thereafter, James Shellow successfully defended clients in the American Allied Insurance Company conspiracy trial in Bismarck, the Aladdin Hotel Corporation conspiracy trial in Las Vegas and in numerous drug conspiracy prosecutions including the Jackson money laundering and cocaine conspiracy trial in Milwaukee.