“Obviously this is a PR campaign,” claims former prosecutor Joshua Naftalis, now a partner at the law firm Palas Partners. “It’s a no-effort strategy.”
To date, Bankman-Fried has not filed a formal pardon application, a White House spokesperson told WIRED. “We do not discuss on-record speculation on sensitive issues like an apology,” the spokesperson says.
Bankman-Fried’s appeal case hinges on a claim that the trial jury was “allowed to see only half the picture”, due to Judge Lewis Kaplan’s rulings that prevented the defense from presenting evidence that allegedly would have helped weaken the prosecution’s case.
“At every turn, the judge kept his thumb on the scale,” Bankman-Fried’s attorneys wrote in an appellate brief in January. “The result was a one-sided trial, where the district court allowed the government to conceal adverse information from the jury, falsely present false information, instruct the jury about the law, and effectively direct a guilty verdict.”
On November 4, one of Bankman-Fried’s attorneys, Alexandra Shapiro – who is simultaneously handling the appeal cases of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and entrepreneur Charlie Javis – presented those arguments before a panel of judges at the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. The judges were reportedly skeptical of the idea that Bankman-Fried did not receive a fair trial. One of them told Shapiro, “It almost seems like you’re spending more money on Judge Kaplan rather than qualifications.”
Daniel Richman, a law professor at Columbia University who previously served as a federal prosecutor, says, “I’m sure he did not take lightly the possibility of criticizing Kaplan’s exercise of discretion.” “But I think they made a professional decision that this was one of the few roads that was worth pursuing.”
Both Naftalis and Richman cautioned against trying to divine the outcome of the appeal based on comments made by the justices in oral arguments. However, the chances of a criminal appeal being successful are low, in general – between 5 and 10 percent. And Bankman-Fried’s specific arguments concerning matters of judicial discretion are particularly difficult to understand.
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