From the very beginning Cesar C. told me he was innocent and that we were going to trial. The D.A. put on a parade of drug-addict witnesses who tried to convince the jury that my client, a man with no prior record and a good family, was the triggerman. The arresting officer told Cesar he "was going to put him away for life." Cesar testifed on his own behalf and the jury freed him after one day of deliberation Cesar is living with his family in San Diego. He still doesn’t understand why the police didn’t believe him over their methamphetamine and PCP using snitches. Cesar’s mistake was in thinking that the police would seek the truth instead of wanting to close their old unsolved homicide case. Read the verdict and see the news article below.
Kudos
By Pat Ford
December 2004
A Joint Publication of the San Diego Criminal Defense Bar Association and the Criminal Defense Lawyers Club www.sdcdba.org
A standing ovation to Russell S. Babcock for his relentless efforts to secure an acquittal for his client (Alexandre Chagovic) in the largest seizure of cocaine in United States maritime history. Russell was appointed by the federal court to represent Mr. Chagovic pursuant to the federal CJA Act.
On April 28, 2001, the United States Coast Guard interdicted a large fishing vessel, the Svesda Maru, five hundred miles off the coast of Acapulco after receiving a tip from an informant that it was laden with drugs. After a five-day search of the ship, the U.S. government found over ten tons of cocaine, the largest seizure in U.S. history, with a street value of over 1.6 billion dollars.
The multi-defendant trial was held in San Diego. The first trial resulted in a hung jury, but on July 14, 2004, a second jury acquitted Mr. Chagovic and four other defendants of all charges.
Russell is deserving of recognition for several reasons. First, of all of the attorneys in the group representing co-defendants, only Russell traveled to Russia, Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador to obtain evidence to exonerate his client.
Before the first trial, Russell and his investigator went to Russia and collected positive character evidence about his client that was admitted at trial. Just days before the second trial, he went with his investigator to South America to obtain the evidence that most probably resulted in the acquittal. The government’s theory was that the drugs were loaded at sea because it would be impossible to load at port due to tight security; thus, all the deck hands would have knowledge of the presence of contraband. Russell took the personal risk to enter dangerous areas of the wharf in Guayaquil and La Libertad, Ecuador, to photograph and observe the very lax security procedures and the loading of cargo at the docks. Russell singularly devised the defense strategy in this case that resulted in the "not guilty" verdicts for each of the defendants in the second trial.
This trial was considered a slam-dunk winner for the prosecution because of the enormous quantity of drugs and the poor condition of the vessel, which under the government’s theory made it impossible to be engaged in commercial fishing. Although Russell was the only defense counsel to travel outside the country to investigate the case, all of the five defense attorneys ably represented their clients and deserve credit as well. The other four attorneys are Robert Carreido, Charles Guthrie, Julie Blair, and David Bartick.
Exemplary work in our profession deserves recognition and Russell devoted more than three years of his life to this case at great personal sacrifice to himself. Submitted by Nancy J. King, with additional "Kudos" information submitted by Gregory L. Rickard.
Attorney Russell S. Babcock represented Mr. Kasim and obtained a reversal of his life sentence after a jury convicted defendant of conspiracy to commit aggravated mayhem ( Pen. Code, §§ 182 , subd. (1), 205) and aggravated mayhem ( Pen. Code, § 205) .
The Court of Appeal granted defendant’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus, vacated the judgment, and remanded for a new trial. The court held that reversal of defendant’s convictions and retrial were required due to prosecutorial misconduct, which denied defendant a fair trial. First, the prosecution withheld critical discoverable evidence favorable to the defense, and the suppressed exculpatory evidence was material, given that, had it been properly disclosed to the defense, there was a reasonable probability that defendant could have obtained a different result. Second, the prosecution presented false testimony to the jury that the two key prosecution witnesses had not received any benefits or promises in exchange for their testimony. The prosecutor had decided to assist one of the witnesses by the time he testified and, therefore, had actual knowledge of this benefit and had a duty to correct any false testimony by his witness. Not only did he fail to do this, but he conveyed the impression that these witnesses were testifying out of a sense of civic responsibility. Finally, a court-appointed referee found that by the time of closing argument, the prosecutor had decided not to prosecute these accomplice-witnesses as originally contemplated by the district attorney’s office. Thus, it was misconduct on the prosecutor’s part to *1361 tell the jury that they would be prosecuted after the trial. Since the testimony of the witnesses was crucial to the prosecution’s case, the prosecutor’s misrepresentation to the jury was material. The prosecutor assigned to the case and gang unit was terminated from the District Attorney’s Office shortly after this decision.
The largest seizure (10 tons) of cocaine on a boat in United States history and Mr. Russell S. Babcock’s client being found not guilty of all charges. Alexandre Chagovic, a sixty seven year old electrician and seaman from St. Petersburg , Russia , had never been in trouble before. He accepted employment in South America in 2001 on a long line fishing vessel, the Svesda Maru. Soon, after he set sail to fish, the American coast guard boarded the vessel . It was obvious that the U.S. government had received a tip that there were drugs that had been planted aboard the vessel. It is truly ironic that my client was expected to know about the drugs when U.S. officials could not find them for five days and only after drilling holes and pumping fuel throughout the ship. The 11 tons of pure cocaine were well- hidden in a fuel hold. The law allowed the United States Coast Guard to tow this boat to San Diego even though it was in the open ocean five hundred miles off the coast of Mexico and more than fifteen hundred nautical miles from the United States .
My client languished in jail for more than three and one half years as the government spent millions of dollars trying to convict him and every single crew member including the cook. Unfortunately, for the United States government, the defendants had a judge who was fair and allowed me to travel to Russia to gather character evidence on my client’s behalf. The first trial resulted in a hung jury for my client primarily Svesda Marubecause the government brought in a paid informant from another country who admitted making false statements under oath in the first trial and who said all the clients knew about the drugs. Before the second trial, I went to Ecuador , Panama , and Colombia to refute the claim of the government that the drugs had to have been loaded at sea. If they were loaded at sea, then all of the defendants would have had to have known and participated in the smuggling. My investigation showed that the it was probable that the drugs were loaded in the private ports of Ecuador before my client ever boarded the vessel. My client is a free man now, but he has lost three and one half years of his life waiting for a verdict in a country that is supposed to have the best justice system in the world. Many people ask me if I like being a defense attorney and "how I can defend those kind of people"? The answer to the first question is yes and the second question is that unfortunately "those kind of people" can be anyone –perhaps your father or mother, a sibling or even you, yourself. I am not a "criminal" defense attorney. I help people who have made mistakes in their lives and I make sure that the government does not convict the innocent. I am in the process of writing a book about this landmark case, the first case where individuals on fishing boats seized by the United States coast guard were found to be not guilty. It will be available for purchase on this web site hopefully later in 2005.