1988 – 1995 

Federal Judicial Service: 

• Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court, Western District of New York.  Entered duty in 1988 and served until 1995. 

Education: 

• Vermont Law School, J.D., 1977 
• Williams College, B.A., 1974 

Professional Career: 

• Justice, New York State Supreme Court, 1995-2017 
• Deputy County Attorney, Monroe County Law Department, 1984-1988 
• Assistant District Attorney, Monroe County District Attorney’s Office, 1977-1984 
• Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, Department of Justice Strike Force, Organized Crime and Racketeering Division, Rochester, New York, Field Office, 1981-1984 
• Special Counsel, Steuben County District Attorney, 1981-1986 

 

Noteworthy Cases: 

 

United States v. Harloff, et al., No. 91CR205: 

In a case that threatened to divide the Rochester Police Department (“RPD”), five Rochester Police Department officers were charged with civil rights violations, money thefts, and other crimes while acting in their official capacity as members of an RPD drug interdiction unit.  The defendants moved to dismiss the indictment or in the alternative for suppression of evidence on the grounds that the government improperly enlisted the services of one of the defendants’ fellow officers as a government informant.  The undercover officer thereafter met with defendants and surreptitiously taped conversations with each of them after the defendants’ attorneys communicated to the government that the defendants were represented and should only be contacted through counsel.  Defendants maintained that the government’s use of the undercover informant violated the New York Code of Professional Responsibility and constituted outrageous conduct in violation of their Fifth Amendment Due Process rights.  Judge Fisher disagreed, recommending to the district court that the motion to dismiss or suppress be denied in its entirety.  Judge Fisher determined that the defendants’ Sixth Amendment rights had not attached at the time of the recordings because the defendants had not yet been indicted.  He further concluded that the government was not precluded from investigating “collateral criminal conduct, such as witness tampering,” through the use of “clandestine informants” so long as the investigation did not “deliberately elicit incriminating statements concerning the discrete crime for which the constitutional right to counsel has attached.”  He noted that none of the recorded communications revealed defense strategy, identification of witnesses, or other evidence.  Finally, he held that the government’s use of the undercover informant was not so outrageous as to violate defendants’ Fifth Amendment rights.  The District Court adopted Judge Fisher’s recommendation.  The five officers were acquitted following a jury trial. 

 

United States v. Harloff, et al., 807 F. Supp. 270 (W.D.N.Y. 1992)
https://casetext.com/case/us-v-harloff-2  

 

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United States v. Miceli, No. 9057: 

The defendant filed a motion seeking to dismiss the indictment and to suppress evidence that he claimed was illegally seized from his business office.  The defendant alleged that an investigator with the Internal Revenue Service engaged in outrageous government conduct in violation of the defendant’s due process rights.  According to the defendant, during the course of the government’s investigation, the agent engaged in an intimate relationship with the defendant’s estranged wife and induced her to burglarize his business office in order to obtain evidence to be used against the defendant.  Judge Fisher found that the agent had not importuned the alleged burglary of the defendant’s office.  Although noting that the agent’s conduct with defendant’s estranged wife was troubling and may have violated IRS policy, because it involved a third party and did not rise to the level of coercion or domination of the estranged wife, Judge Fisher recommended against dismissal of the indictment.  He also recommended that the district court decline to invoke its supervisory powers to suppress tangible evidence.  The District Court adopted Judge Fisher’s recommendation. 

 

United States v. Miceli, 774 F. Supp. 760 (W.D.N.Y. 1991)
https://casetext.com/case/us-v-miceli