1st Circuit Greenlights New Trial in FCPA Case Due to Insufficient Counsel

The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts was right to allow a new trial for Joseph Baptiste in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit said in an Aug. 9 opinion. Concurring with the district court that Baptiste's counsel was of such deficient performance to allow a retrial, a three-judge panel at the circuit court denied the U.S.'s appeal of the decision to run the trial back.

The two defendants in the case accused of wrongdoing are both former executives at U.S.-based investment company Haiti Invest. Baptiste is a former member of the board of directors, while Roger Boncy served as the CEO. The U.S. claimed that the pair bribed Haitian officials into approving an $84 million port project -- a violation of the FCPA. After a trial in which the extent of their alleged wrongdoing came into light, including the solicitation of money from undercover agents that they pledged to ship to Haitian bureaucrats through a Baptiste-controlled nonprofit, the duo was found guilty.

Baptiste, though, moved for a new trial at the district court, claiming that his lawyer's "ineffectiveness" cost him the case. In fact, the deficiency of Baptiste's representation extended to Boncy's case, prompting the district court to order a joint retrial in the interest of "justice" since neither individual got a fair first trial. In its appeal of the decision, the U.S. didn't challenge the claim of ineffective assistance. Baptiste's counsel's malpractice ranged from failure to provide copies of documents to Baptiste, to "thoroughly review" certain documents, to obtain English translations of Haitian-Creole recordings and more.

After considering the district court's decision, the three-judge panel held that the district court was right to order a retrial. In its appeal, the government said that the case against the two defendants was so strong that the appellate court cannot find that the pair was prejudiced. While the strength of the prosecution's case is a factor in a prejudice analysis, it is not the "be-all and end-all," since the main focus is still on the "fundamental fairness of the proceeding," Circuit Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson said in the opinion. The judge said the panel presumed that the district court considered this already and made a determination that the fairness concern outweighed the strength of the prosecution's case.

The U.S. also argued that the district court didn't consider that Baptiste did indeed receive proper counsel through Boncy's "complementary defense." Since Boncy's lawyer took the lead on cross-examination and possessed skilled questioning abilities, the district judge did not make a determination of inadequacy in the proper context, the government said. "The government is still stuck with the judge's finding -- based mostly on Baptiste's counsel's evidentiary-hearing testimony -- that the two defense teams 'did not 'coordinate' ... or see 'eye to eye''' on "their defense strategy," Thompson said. "And the judge so found because Boncy's attorney had 'his direction' and Baptiste's attorney had his own 'in terms of how [they] were proceeding with the trial.' ... The bottom line is that despite what the government thinks, Boncy's lawyer was hardly defending Baptiste. So this facet of the government's reversal argument does not assist its cause."

(U.S. v. Joseph Baptiste, 6th Cir. #20-1400, dated 08/09/21, Judges Howard, Thompson and Arias-Marxuach. Attorneys: Alexia De Vincentis for plaintiff appellant U.S. government; Daniel Marx of Fick & Marx for defendant appellee Baptiste)