GROUND Four: The Cumulative effect of the above Grounds results in a violation of Due Process, where Mr. Gordon lacked an adequate understanding of factual and legal matters relevant to his defense and where Defendant is actually innocent of the offenses.
Key Points:
Missing emails: The government took thousands of Mr. Gordon's emails from his Yahoo and Gmail accounts. These likely contain important conversations with experts and Mr. Smith (his long-time attorney) that would help prove Mr. Gordon's innocence. As far as he knows, these emails were not provided to Mr. Gordon's legal team earlier.
Frustrated efforts: Mr. Gordon couldn't get these emails even after trying for years using legal requests (Freedom of Information Act).
Why this matters: Mr. Gordon believes this missing evidence should lead to a new hearing to review his case, especially since he's still in custody.
Actual Innocence:
The government's view: United States law has a strict definition of 'actual innocence'. The Government referenced a case (Bousley v. United States) where someone pleaded guilty, then later tried to claim innocence based on technicalities.
Mr. Gordon's situation: Mr. Gordon always claimed he was innocent. His case isn't just about legal technicalities; he believes he genuinely didn't commit copyright infringement. He thinks this unfair situation justifies a new hearing.
