Cite as: 520 U. S. 899 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
political relationships and organized-crime connections he had exploited as a lawyer; 8 and that at least one attorney from Maloney's former law firm, Robert McGee, was actively involved in assisting Maloney's corruption, both before and after he became a judge, and also bribed Maloney himself, App. 55, 68-72. In addition, the proffer confirms that petitioner's murder trial was sandwiched tightly between other murder trials that Maloney fixed.9
As just noted above, petitioner's attorney at trial was a former associate of Maloney's, App. 51, and Maloney appointed him to defend this case in June 1981. The lawyer announced that he was ready for trial just a few weeks later. He did not request additional time to prepare penalty-phase evidence in this death penalty case even when the State an-8 For example, Lucius Robinson and Robert McGee, who were involved in Maloney's corruption as a lawyer, later facilitated his bribe taking when he became a judge. United States v. Maloney, 71 F. 3d 645, 650-652 (CA7 1995), cert. denied, 519 U. S. 927 (1996); App. 22-24; 54-55. As the Government alleged in its proffer: "Maloney was closely tied to the [sic] La Cosa Nostra prior to his appointment to the bench and . . . major organized crime figures looked forward to [his] appointment as an opportunity to have a 'good friend' on the bench . . . [and] after his elevation to the bench, Maloney continued his close First Ward/organized crime connections, fixing the results of several murder cases of import to organized crime." App. 54-55.
9 Petitioner was tried in July 1981. William Swano testified at Maloney's trial that, in October 1980, he bribed Maloney in the murder case of Swano's client, Wilfredo Rosario. Maloney excluded Rosario's confession and, in May 1981, acquitted Rosario after a bench trial. Maloney, supra, at 650; App. 12, n. 1, 53, n. 1. Also in May 1981, Maloney took a bribe to throw the murder case of Lenny Chow, a hit man for a Chinatown crime organization. At a bench trial that August, Maloney admitted a dying declaration, but found it unreliable, and acquitted Chow. Maloney, supra, at 650; App. 20-22, 27. In 1982, Maloney and Swano fixed another murder case in which one Owen Jones was charged with beating a man to death with a lead pipe. Maloney took $4,000-$5,000 from Jones' mother, using his former associate Robert McGee as a "bag man," to acquit Jones on the felony-murder charge, and to convict him of voluntary manslaughter only. Maloney, supra, at 651; App. 20, 22, 28.
907
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