The purpose of this post is to announce the availability of the book entitled “Busting the Feds: How to Effectively Defend Yourself Against Federal Criminal Charges.” It is free for the reading, free for the downloading at www.bustingthefeds.com. It is straight under the home page – you can’t miss it. You can buy it on Amazon for $30, in softcover. Hardcover is not available.
The core premise of the book is that a federal criminal defendant needs to know the process, beginning to end, on the front end. It doesn’t help to find out about the smart way to proceed, after it’s too late to make that information useful. You need to know what’s coming at you, at all times. You need to respond appropriately on the basis of that information.
I’ve prepared a basic synopsis of information every defendant needs to know on day one. Here’s a list of high points.
- Never enter a plea OF ANY KIND without a Presentence Report (PSR). If you’ve already pled guilty, file a motion for early PSR. The info you get from the PSR is mission critical for effective defense. You need someone “running in the background” to help you get the info you need to win, when you’re doing the PSR.
Don’t let anyone else enter a plea without a PSR either. Load all the other defendants in your judicial district for bear. Their trip through the federal prosecutorial meat grinder might save you from a conviction, if you play your cards right.
- Help every criminal defendant in your federal judicial district. Help them defend effectively. If they’re guilty they’ll have to pay for their crimes – a solid defense doesn’t mean the guilty just walk free. Let the judge be the judge – you be the advocate for due process and constitutional rights. Help other defendants vindicate their right to a jury trial, if it otherwise makes sense for them.
- This is a war of attrition. The feds want to wear you down and break your resolve. The sooner you figure this out the better off you will be. Don’t allow your “burn rate” to exceed what you can handle. This is about the cash burn rate, but not just about cash. Yes, you should manage and deploy your cash intelligently, and reserve some for worst case scenario. But you should also prepare yourself mentally, for a long fight. Pick a pace you can hold. Then hold that pace until you either win or decide that your interests require you to “take a knee.”
- Work together. Part of fighting the war of attrition is to get first class work done, and then share it with everyone fighting a similar issue. Don’t let all the lawyers re-invent the wheel, at your expense. www.bustingthefeds.com has a number of pleadings that federal criminal defendants can use to their advantage. Need help to tailor pleadings to your case? Use the contact form.
- You need to know how to recruit a great lawyer at a good price. You need to be able to get everything filed that you need filed, on time, at economical cost. You need to have a serious trial lawyer on deck, to defend you at trial. Need help controlling costs with your own lawyer? Need a good lawyer who will work at a fair price? Use the contact form.
- You need to know how to use a public defender, or a standby attorney.
- The feds use conditions of confinement to wear you down. Tiny cells, too many guys in a cell, bad mats, no pillows, bad food, poor reading resources – that’s all to wear you down and break your resolve. Fight back. If you need the rules, go to www.bustingthefeds.com and hit the contact form. If you want to win, you have to learn to fight smart as well as hard.
- Play the Speedy Trial Clock to your advantage. Force them to either try your case or cut you loose. The feds simply cannot give everyone a trial. They grossly over-prosecute. Let them try cases on the bad guys you taught about their due process rights, and their rights to reasonable conditions of confinement. Keep your adversary tied down doing his real job. That cuts down on the time available for government officials to get into mischief.
If you need help executing on these ideas, let me know. The book is a starting point. The book is a tool to help you maximize your outcomes, at a time when you feel like your world is collapsing in on itself. The effectiveness of a tool is almost always at least somewhat dependent upon the way that it is used.
I hope you enjoy the book, and I hope that you are materially advantaged by the book.
Oscar Stilley
This is very good advice. I hope other defendants will pick up on this. By the way great picture. I really like that tie !!
My so is in federal prison. He asked me to find the pdf download of this book on this website. Is it still available?
The book is still available at http://www.bustingthefeds.com. Click on the button on the main page. You can then click to open up the chapters and appendices.
However, if your son is in federal prison, he will need hard copy. They won’t let him access the internet. The book is available on Amazon for $30 plus shipping.
If your son is doing an appeal or needs help on something, let me know by email to oscarstilley@gmail.com I can’t guarantee anything, but I’d take a look and see if I can help.