CLEVELAND Traficant files 3 motions

One Traficant motion says juries are unconstitutional because they are rubber stamps for the prosecutor.
CLEVELAND -- One day after a U.S. District Court judge dismissed his appeal for a new trial, convicted U.S. Representative James A. Traficant Jr. filed paperwork to have the 10-count felony indictment against him dismissed.
Traficant of Poland, D-17th, filed three motions Wednesday in U.S. District Court, claiming not only did the prosecutor of the case wrongly instruct grand jury members, but that the grand jury itself was illegal.
The congressman is scheduled for sentencing July 30 after being found guilty on 10 felony charges, including bribery and racketeering.
Unconstitutional?
Traficant said in his motions that all indictments since June 30, 1906, are unconstitutional because grand juries have become a rubber stamp of prosecutors. The date reflects a statute enacted by Congress that permits government attorneys to take part in the grand jury process. Before that date, only judges took part in the process.
He argues in a separate motion that because the names of grand jurors and their votes to indict him were not recorded the indictment is void.
In the third motion, Traficant says Craig S. Morford, an assistant U.S. attorney, violated procedure by even being in the same room with grand jurors, let alone instructing them about the government's case against the congressman.
U.S. District Judge Lesley Brooks Wells, who will rule on the motions, presided over Traficant's trial.
On Tuesday, she struck down his request for a new trial based on arguments the jury selection process in his case was unconstitutional since none of the jurors was from the Mahoning Valley.