IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF RIDGEWAY
STATE OF RIDGEWAY )
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DOCKET NO. RSC-CM-2642
Judge Presiding: koala4life
Plaintiff
v.
BRANDONNLUV; ROYALTYSYN;
MATRIX_OC
Defendant
DEFENDANT’S REPLY TO PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO DISMISS
The State of Ridgeway, by and through Assistant Attorney General RyanJSyndicate of
the Office of Government Affairs, hereby submits this reply to Plaintiff’s Motion to Dismiss.
I. INDICTMENT WAS NOT SET-ASIDE, BUT PROCEEDINGS WERE
DISMISSED
Defendants ask the Court to dismiss the new proceedings on the basis that the indictment
being used was dismissed by the “State’s failure to act appropriately within the deadline set to
respond to a motion made by the defense.” Defendant’s Mot. to Dismiss 2. In the past
proceedings, the Court agreed and dismissed proceedings for “administrative dismissal for want
of prosecution” and that it would “not [be] making a decision on the merits of the motion” State
of Ridgeway v. BrandonnLUV, et al., RSC-CM-2455 (2024) (Case Tr. on 04/12/2024 02:51
PM).
In their order, the Court did not order the indictment to be set-aside on its contents, the
manner it was brought, nor did it rule on the merits of Defendants’ challenge of the contents of
the indictment. Whether the Court agreed with Defendants’ argument that the Indictment was
poisoned and must be set-aside was not mentioned into their order.
Our procedures place an explicit difference between setting aside an indictment and
dismissing one. Compare Rid. R. Crim. P. 5(a)(1), with Rid. R. Crim. P. 3(f) (“If the Court finds
that there is no probable cause to believe that the defendant committed the crime or crimes
alleged by the law enforcement officer, the court shall dismiss the charges”). When an indictment
is set aside, it is killed under the set of facts that the State has alleged and must be resubmitted to
the Grand Jury if the State wishes to reseek charges on the defendant. When an indictment is
dismissed, such as on an assertion that proceedings have been poisoned by some action that
requires a restart of proceedings, then the State is allowed to reintroduce the same charges to
reseek proceedings on the Defendant.
Criminal proceedings “shall be commenced in the Superior Court by a criminal
information or by an indictment.” Rid. R. Crim. P. 3(a). When a case commenced by criminal
information is dismissed, assuming it is done without prejudice, the State is allowed to bring the
same copy of the previous criminal information without objection. Defendants cannot outline
any cases where the Court has past prohibited the reintroduction of charges with the same
criminal information. There exists no statute nor provision in our procedures that requires
indictments be treated any different. This is especially so for cases involving dismissal for want
of prosecution, where the matter wasn’t dismissed for a defect in proceedings or error in the
charging document, but by a lack of action.
Defendants point towards the final order rule as a guidance to the Court on whether the
dismissal of the past proceedings counts as a finality for the indictment. This rule outlined that an
order “is not final, ordinarily, unless it ‘“ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for
the court to do but execute the judgment.”’” Cunningham v. Hamilton County, Ohio, 527 U.S.
198, 204 (1999) (quoting Van Cauwenberghe v. Biard, 486 U.S. 517, 521-522 (1988), and Catlin
v. United States, 324 U.S. 229, 233 (1945)). Defendant is correct that the dismissal order was a
final judgment in terms of appealability, but this misapplication of the purpose of the final order
rule would also bar all cases dismissed without prejudice. In the example the State points
towards, a case commenced by criminal information that is also dismissed without prejudice is
done with a final order — but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the finality of the order can bar
the reintroduction of charges with the same refiled document.
In the alternative, if the Court wishes to clarify on its past order and order that the
indictment be set aside, the State requests ability to do so since it was not clear whether the past
indictment was set aside.
II. DEFENDANTS’ MALICIOUS PROSECUTION ARGUMENTS ARE
INAPPROPRIATE
Defendants argue that the prosecutor in this case has “an axe to grind against Defendant
Matrix_oc” and that the indictment must be set aside. This argument is inappropriate for many
reasons.
Non-binding Standard
In their argument alleging a malicious prosecution, Defendants turn towards a case in the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for “a clear and precise definition for someone who
is not a disinterested prosecutor.” Defendants’ Motion for Reconsideration at 3. It goes without
saying that a judgment in that court is non-binding for application in the State of Ridgeway’s
jurisdiction. There are many instances of clashing precedents in the circuits and referring to their
judgments without regard to the quality of reasoning within them is inappropriate, as it isn’t that
difficult to find a competing precedent. E.g. United States v. Jacobs, 855 F.2d 652, 655 (9th Cir.
1988) (holding that dismissal for misconduct is appropriate with “flagrant and prejudicial
prosecutorial misconduct”).
Defendants look towards Wright v. United States, 732 F.2d 1048 (2d Cir. 1984) as their
guidance on this argument. In that case, the Circuit Court applied standards from the American
Bar Association as their binding authority. Wright, supra at 1055 (“The ABA Standards cited the
relative of a complaining witness only as one example of a prosecutorial conflict of interest”).
Our Supreme Court has in the past allowed for federal precedents to be used when there is a
mirror between our rules and theirs. Lazerify v. StudsPerSecond, Inc., 1 Rid. 101, 104 (2023)
(“Owing to the mirroring of these rules, this Court tends to rely on federal precedent to guide its
interpretation of relative issues”). For Defendants’ application of Wright to be even somewhat
applicable and adopted to our jurisdiction, they require a similar rule to mirror. In this case, they
need to mirror a provision from our State Bar Association’s Rules of Professional Conduct with
the standards required in the American Bar Association.
In Wright, the Circuit Court applied a requirement that prosecutors “should avoid the
appearance or reality of a conflict of interest with respect to official duties.” Wright, supra
(quoting ABA Standards for Criminal Justice § 3-1.2 (2d ed. 1980)). In our State Bar
Association, there is only one rule broken down into seven subsections that apply specifically to
prosecutors. None of them can remotely mirror the provision that the Circuit Court was applying
in Wright. There is no guidance on this topic within our jurisdiction as to what is and is not
allowed conduct from a prosecutor. Not only is Wright non-binding within our jurisdiction, but it
cannot be mirrored even if the Defendants’ wanted the Court to incorporate it.
Misapplication of Wright
To summarize Wright, the Circuit Court affirmed dismissal of a relief petition by a
convicted public official charged with violating the Hobbs Act and fraud related to a federal
funding scheme. In his petition, Samuel Wright raised a conflicted interest argument regarding
the prosecutor’s wife being a person of likely vindictive nature against Wright for political
purposes. Their court noted that the decision to prosecute was made and overseen by the
prosecutor before the one with the biased wife. This was insufficient for error because they
“would have to drawn an inference that [the prosecutor with a biased wife] was the real instigator
of the decision to proceed before a new grand jury” and that the biased prosectuors “were not
utlizing the criminal process to advance their own pecuniary interests.” Wright, supra at
1057-1058. The departing note by the Circuit Court is that they “consider the choice of Puccio as
prosecutor to have been ill advised” but that they “do not regard it as having deprived Wright of
due process of law” and it instead “deprived him of the chance that, with another prosecutor, he
might have undeservedly escaped indictment and consequent conviction for crimes of which he
was properly found to be guilty.” Id.
Defendants now seek to mischaracterize the Wright case to apply to their situation with a
quote taken out of context from the remainder of the case, without realizing that the remainder of
the judgment works against them. Defendants have argued that the ability to prosecute is “a
function that is solely provided to the Attorney General.” Matrix_oc v. Techiey, RSC-CV-2461
(2024) (Plaintiff’s Civil Complaint ¶ 2). Under their own reading, the decision to further the
investigation was made by the Attorney General similar to how the decision to investigate was
made by the first prosecutor without the biased wife. Even assuming that they wish to abandon
their reading and make the assessment under the current prosecutor, the decision to bring charges
was made by the past prosecutor who is no longer on this case. No proceedings regarding the
indictment, namely in the Grand Jury, have been tainted. Defendant was afforded an unbiased
Grand Jury.
Inappropriate Forum
“[A]bsent demonstrable prejudice, or substantial threat thereof, dismissal of the
indictment is plainly inappropriate, even though the violation may have been deliberate.” United
States v. Morrison, 449 U.S. 361, 365 (1980). “A United States Attorney’s decision to prosecute,
for example, will not be reviewed on the claim that it was prompted by personal animosity.”
Webster v. Doe, 486 U.S. 592, 608 (1988) (Scalia, J., dissenting). “[S]o long as the prosecutor
has probable cause to believe that the accused committed an offense defined by statute, the
decision whether or not to prosecute, and what charge to file or bring before a grand jury,
generally rests entirely in his discretion” and that “the decision to prosecute is particularly
ill-suited to judicial review.” Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U. S. 357, 364 (1978). Defendants
have a high bar to demonstrate that they have either suffered concrete and particularized
prejudice from the prosecutor’s conduct or that they are under significant threat to suffer such.
So far, Defendants’ only claim of prejudice effectuated by two biased prosecutors was
that one of them left the case and abandoned response to their dismissal request, which led to a
dismissal of proceedings favorable to their interests. At the time of writing this response,
proceedings in this case have only entered pretrial considerations. There has not been a chance
for any prejudice to be caused — except for in one place.
“Unrestrained prosecutorial misconduct in grand jury proceedings is inconsistent with the
administration of justice in the federal courts and should be redressed in appropriate cases by the
dismissal of indictments obtained by improper methods.” United States v. Williams, 504 U.S. 36,
691 (1992). The only place where some form of misconduct in these proceedings could have
feasibly taken place is in grand jury proceedings, which admittedly does allow for dismissal of
the indictment for defect if there is some form of misconduct. Defendants have had a copy of all
grand jury transcripts and proceedings, as well as statements made by the prosecutor to the grand
jury that retured the indictments against them. To date, there has been no complaint on the
conduct of the prosecutor in those proceedings.
Defendants have failed to meet the substantial burden required to demonstrate that they
have been prejudiced or are facing substantial threat that requires dismissal. Generally, many
circuits have held that dismissal of indictment is disfavored unless absolutely necessary.2 In this
case, it cannot be reasonably said that dismissal is reasonable given the lack of concrete harm
and extreme disfavor towards dismissing an indictment. Probable cause is probable cause and
2 Each of the following listed cases use some variant of the phrase “Dismissing an indictment is a disfavored remedy
of prosecutorial misconduct.” E.g United States v. Manthei, 979 F.2d 124 (8th Cir. 1992); United States v. Laboy,
909 F.2d 581 (1st Cir. 1990); United States v. Azad, 809 F.2d 291 (6th Cir. 1986); United States v. Woodley, 9 F.3d
774 (9th Cir. 1993); United States v. Torkington, 874 F.2d 1441 (11th Cir. 1989); United States v. Orozco, 916 F.3d
919 (10th Cir. 2019); United States v. Gagliardi, 285 F. App'x 11 (3d Cir. 2008). Even the U.S. Supreme Court has
somewhat agreed. United States v. Morrison, 449 U.S. 361, 366 n. 2 (1981).
1 nice.
challenging it is inappropriate in a Motion to Dismiss unless there is defect to how the probable
cause was gathered.
III. THE SIMILARLY SITUATED CLASS OF THE SELECTIVE PROSECUTION
CLAIM IS DIFFERENT FROM DEFENDANTS
Defendants make one last argument that they were the victim of a selective prosecution
where others similarly situated in their actions were not prosecuted by the Department of Justice.
To demonstrate this claim, Defendants point towards nine different instances where assorted
agencies and departments in the State of Ridgeway use administrative leave authority to suspend
the pay and duties of various individuals. However, the group that Defendants point towards are
vastly different to the situation in which the Department of Justice sought charges for.
Defendants are not similarly situated to these cases and stretching their comparison to do so is
inappropriate in light of the stark differences enumerated below.
Retaliatory Action
The Government’s decision to seek charges was motivated in-part by the allegations of
retaliation by the victims of the administrative decisions taken by Defendants separately and
jointly in conspiracy. The State contends that it has evidence that Defendants abused the at-will
authority given to state employers in violation of the employment practices statutorily regulated
as to how to manage the state’s workforce. Further, the State believes that these actions were
done in retaliation for the behaviors of the victims which led to the termination of service of the
affected individuals.
Defendants’ group of similarly situated individuals lack this specific identification which
cannot be neglected if the Court is to engage in an inquiry into the state of mind of the
Department of Justice when deciding to press charges. The so-called similarly situated
individuals are all cases involving the employment of administrative leave pending termination
of service and recovery of state property. These are not retaliatory actions as the State is alleging
in these proceedings, they are standard uses of the administrative leave authority.
Just_Dapper’s Administrative Leave
Some of the relevant Defendants are charged with an unlawful employment of the
administrative leave authority that state employers have. In their challenge, Defendants say that
the administrative leave was used “pending their later discharge from the agency in question
when there was allegedly not an investigation proceeding against them at that time.” Defendants’
Motion to Dismiss 5. This is incorrect for one of the victims.
Just_Dapper was placed on administrative leave on March 6th, 2024 at 10:06 PM by
BrandonnLUV for “Pending Investigation.” Defendant BrandonnLUV then contacted
Just_Dapper informing them of an investigation that would be supplemented by the State Bureau
of Investigations. When the State Bureau of Investigations declined that there was an active
investigation on Just_Dapper, and the Ridgeway National Guard’s Military Police had no
investigation open on him either, it became evident that there was no actual investigation being
conducted. Just_Dapper would then be removed from his administrative leave and hear nothing
from this supposed investigation.
Lack of Prosecutorial Policy Discrepancy
Defendants’ argument of selective prosecution is a due process claim which is born from
the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Fifth Amendment’s application in this case holds that
“discrimination may be so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process.” Bolling v. Sharpe, 347
U.S. 497, 499 (1954). For the Fourteenth Amendment, the equal protection clause requires an
equal treatment of prosecution for all defendants regardless of arbitrary classification.
“The claimant must demonstrate that the … prosecution policy ‘had a discriminatory
effect and that it was motivated by a discriminatory purpose.’” United States v. Armstrong, 517
U.S. 456, 465 (1996) (quoting Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 608 (1985)). Generally,
“[e]xamining the basis of a prosecution delays the criminal proceeding, threatens to chill law
enforcement by subjecting the prosecutor’s motives and decisionmaking to outside inquiry, and
may undermine prosecutorial effectiveness by revealing the Government’s enforcement policy.”
Wayte, supra at 607. Defendants have a very very high burden to be successful on the selective
prosecution claim, one that is made in almost every indictment returned and has been eroded of
its significance in Ridgeway.
In this case, Defendants cannot find any evidence of a prosecution enforcement policy
that unjustly structured the criminal justice system against Defendants or their identification
classes. That is because there isn’t one. The Department of Justice is an equal opportunity
prosecutor that encounters these claims in almost every single indictment case of high profile
nature. Neither our prosecutorial policy nor our results can point towards a consistent abuse of
the executive prosecution authority to a level that requires judicial examination. The U.S.
Supreme Court has warned against judicial dissection of prosecution discretion unless absolutely
necessary — in this case, Defendants cannot prove that it is absolutely necessary.
IV. ALL ERRORS HAVE BEEN OF MISUNDERSTANDINGS AND BONA FIDE
BELIEF OF COMPLIANCE, BATTALIONGAVIN IS INAPPLICABLE
Lastly, Defendants request dismissal with prejudice by an application of State of
Ridgway v. BattalionGavin, 4 R. Supp. 14 (2023). In BattalionGavin, this Court gave a shark
rebuke of the Department of Justice’s gross incompetence in a second failed attempt to provide a
sustainable indictment. In that case, an indictment was returned without examination of
witnesses or evidence by the Department of Justice by a less-than-attentive grand jury.
Additionally, the Court also gave a harsh criticism of the language used in the indictment as
being subpar to inform the defendant of the nature of their charges.
BattalionGavin’s indictment was dismissed by repeated instances of ineptitude for issues
that were largely the result of laziness or just forgetfulness. Defendants’ reading of
BattalionGavin would expand its reading into a judicially-created policy that places a hard limit
on just two reintroductions of charges without an inquiry as to why the charges were dismissed.
So far, the Department of Justice has been able to defend each of its actions so far, excluding the
one offense of a prosecutor abandoning the case. If any errors have been made in these
proceedings, they are the result of bona fide belief of compliance with the law. Dismissal for
prejudice on these proceedings is highly inappropriate.
CONCLUSION
Defendants broke the law and are now trying to use their high profile status to evade the
due administration of justice with this challenge to the charges. They are not the subject of a
witch-hunt or any selective prosecution. This action wasn’t instituted by a large-scale
surveillance of their roster looking for the first mistake to bring charges on. Instead, it was
brought by a complaint by two individuals who felt victimized by the actions taken by
Defendants separately and in joint conspiracy. This indictment was brought against them as a
result of their own actions that were motivated by a knowingly gross disregard of the law. They
accuse the Department of Justice of using their high profile status in our government as our
motivation to seek charges; meanwhile, their entire challenge is an invocation of their rank as
proof that they are being hunted by overzealous prosecution. This is a defense that the typical
criminal is not afforded, yet Defendants believe they should be allowed to use it to evade all
charges. Administration of the law has to come somewhere, for Defendants, it comes now.
The motion to dismiss should be rejected.
Respectfully Submitted,
/s/ RyanJSyndicate
Assistant Attorney General
Office of Government Affairs
Ridgeway Department of Justice
