The TKPOTD for three years ago today dealt with on aspect of Brett Kimberlin’s latest failed attempt to attack his Speedway Bombing Convictions.
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For the past couple of days, we’ve been looking as some of the filings in two cases from the U. S. District Court in Indianapolis: United Staves v. Brett Kimberlin, 79-CR-0007 (S.D. In.) and Brett Kimberlin v. United States, 18-CV-1141 (S.D. In.). The first case is the originally Speedway Bomber trial which was reopened in 2018 when Kimberlin sought to have some of his convictions vacated. The second case is a parallel civil case which also sought to have some of his convictions vacated. Last Friday, a judge denied all of Kimberlin’s motions in the cases, including his motions to vacate. Kimberlin tried to claim that there were errors in the trial that justified setting aside some of his convictions.
Today, I’m posting the the U. S. Attorney’s Response in Opposition to Kimberlin’s petition in the case. The Background section of the response is a concise history of Kimberlin’s career as a dope dealer, serial bomber, and vexatious litigant. It’s worth reading.
For those of you who would prefer at bit of TL;DR, here are some of the better quotes:
… Kimberlin has received an abudance of process. He had three trials, and at least four direct appeals, five collateral attacks, and four habeas petitions. … Put differently, “Kimberlin is no stranger to appellate proceedings.” United States v. Kimberlin, 898 F.2d 1262, 1264 (7th Cir. 1990) (Kimberlin VII). As of 1990, he had “averaged two appeals per year in [the Seventh Circuit] over the last decade. Id.
Now he is back. Decades after his convictions, Kimberlin returns for another inevitable round of litigation. Dispersed over at least 10 filings, he launches a fusillade of claims—complete with typical conspiratorial bent—that range from merely incorrect to actually misleading. He does so under the writ of coram nobis—”[the] criminal-law equivalent” of a “Hail Mary pass.” United States v George, 676 F.3d 249, 251 (1st Cir. 2012). None of his passes finds a target.
Also, under the heading—Kimberlin’s Litigiousness: “I have filed over a hundred lawsuits and another one will be no sweat for me”—
He managed to save time for several vexatious lawsuits. For example, he sued the Bureau of Prisons fro preventing a pre-election press conference regarding his claim to have sold marijuana to former Vice President Dan Quayle, Kimberlin v. Quinlan, 251 F. Supp. 2d 47 (D.D.C. 2003); he sued U.S. Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley regarding the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, Kimberlin v. McConnell, No. GJH-16-1211, 2016 WL 8667769, a *1 (D. Md. June 3, 2016), aff’d, 671 F. App’x 128 (4th Cir. 2016); and he claimed that a criminal enterprise was spreading defamatory stories about him, Kimberlin v. Frey, No. GJH-13-3059, 2017 WL 3141909, a *1 (D. Md. July 21, 2017), aff’d, 714 F. App’x 291 (4th Cir. 2018). “There are many other unpublished decisions.” Kimberlin VII, 898 F.2d at 1264.
And under the heading—Kimberlin—Not the government—Introduced the Hair Analysis He Now Complains About—
Kimberlin’s hair analysis claim is a paradigmatic example of chutzpah. He says the hair analysis testimony was “false evidence’—but audaciously neglects to mention that he was responsible for its introduction at trial.
Here’s the whole Response—
Oh, and be sure to scroll all the way to the end and get a look at Kimberlin’s FBI mug shot.
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I’ll save you a bit of scrolling. Here’s that mug shot.