The End of US v. Hoskins: And the End of an Era?
On November 16, 2022, a perfunctory entry appeared in the docket of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the case of United States v. Hoskins, Dkt. No. 20-842: Without comment, the Court noted the “issuance of the mandate” in the case. The issuance of a “mandate” signifies that no pending matters remain in the appellate court, it is the Court’s laconic way of saying that an appeal is over and done with. In this instance, the issuance was caused by the non-occurrence of an event: November 11 had been the last day on which the Department of Justice (DoJ) could have sought en banc review of a decision it lost on August 12, 2022 in its appeal of a partial post-trial acquittal of a long-running money laundering and foreign corruption case; without comment, the DoJ declined to do so.