Reason.com reports:
When Preet Bharara was Manhattan's U.S. attorney, he prosecuted precisely one case in court himself. His team won the case at the time, but a district court judge just vacated one of the convictions...
The current case involves John Pauling, who had been charged with intent to distribute 100 grams or more of heroin. The district court judge, J. Paul Oetken, ruled that the prosecutors used misleading charts (which showed Pauling selling more heroin than they proved at trial), that they did not disclose those charts to the defense beforehand, and that they did not offer adequate proof of the charge, relying instead on speculation.
"The Government offered insufficient evidence at trial to sustain the jury's finding with respect to drug quantity. Instead, the Government relies upon a series of inferences rooted in speculation rather than evidence," Oetken wrote. "The Government made a commitment that it did not keep. Moreover, the Court is convinced that the use of the charts made a difference in the jury's verdict."
Oetken reduced the conviction to a lesser charge involving an "unspecified" amount of heroin. The original charge carried a five-year mandatory minimum sentence; the reduced charge has none.
Maybe Mr. Bharara will write about that one in his book.