Hacks and Bells – Update for August 21, 2025

We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

Summer is ending with back-to-school, football, and cooler days upon us. In commemoration of a short summer, I am condensing a surprising amount of news from last week into ‘shorts’.

PROSECUTORIAL ‘SHORTS’

PACER Hack: A hack of the lawyer-filing side of the PACER case filing system discovered last month let a “nation-state” sponsored group of hackers steal petabytes of sensitive court data – such as sealed filings and presentence reports – using a system vulnerability that’s been known for years.

Politico reported on August 6th that officials said the theft affected at least a dozen district courts and mimicked a 2020 breach of the system.

Wired reported that the breach has pushed some courts onto backup paper-filing plans after sealed records were compromised, possibly exposing the identities of confidential informants and cooperating witnesses. The cyber intrusion was not particularly sophisticated, Politico said, a fact that should be deeply concerning.

Politico, Hack of federal court filing system exploited security flaws known since 2020 (August 12, 2025)

Politico, Federal court filing system hit in sweeping hack (August 6, 2025)

Wired, The First Federal Cybersecurity Disaster of Trump 2.0 Has Arrived (August 14, 2025)

Trump DOJ Can’t Unring the Bell: The Biden Dept of Justice indicted an LA deputy sheriff for an 18 USC § 242 civil rights violation, after he beat and pepper-sprayed a woman who was videoing him handcuffing a suspect.

However, after a jury convicted him, the DOJ changed hands. A Trump-appointed US Attorney asked the district court to sentence the deputy to probation.

After the court imposed a 4-month sentence, the US Attorney moved to dismiss the whole case under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48, thus sparing the defendant even a day in jail.

Last week, the court refused the government’s motion.

The District Judge ruled that the “record reflects that the Government’s newest Rule 48(a) motion is motivated not by the discovery of new evidence or reconsideration of the case, but by disagreement with the Court’s decision to sentence Defendant to four months in prison… Put simply, the Government disagrees with the Court’s sentencing decision and is using Rule 48(a) to erase it. It has even acknowledged that this is its reason for seeking dismissal… Using Rule 48(a) in this way is contrary to the public interest. The government cannot circumvent the Court’s sentencing authority by waiting until after a sentence has been imposed to selectively dismiss charges with the goal of obtaining a desired result.

Order (ECF 134), United States v. Kirk, Case No. 2:24-cr-527 (CD Cal, Aug 8, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root