Criminal Law
Mr. Jayaraman has approximately 30 years of experience in criminal and civil litigation. He has won several jury trials in United States District Courts and State Courts. His vast federal experience includes representation of clients before United States District Courts throughout the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. In both U.S. District Court and U.S. Court of Appeals he has won several cases including jury trials and federal appeals.
He has argued innumerable cases before the U.S Courts of Appeals during the past thirty years and more than a dozen of his federal appellate cases (both civil and criminal) have been recommended for full text publication by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
The seminal cases he litigated including jury trials involve inter alia Three Strikes statute, sex offenses, Federal and State rape cases, first degree murder, telemarketing fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, all types of drug cases, and practically most areas of statutory violations enshrined in Titles 18 and 21 of the United States Code (Titles 18 & 21 U.S.C.).
Another important area he has successfully litigated involve ineffective assistance of counsel claims in federal courts involving writs of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Ineffective assistance of counsel claims against trial lawyers asserted by convicted individuals is the last resort for a convicted person to get relief after all appellate avenues are exhausted.
In a leading case in this area which he won before the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Tennessee and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Court, the Court of Appeals upheld Mr. Jayaraman's argument alleging ineffective assistance by prior trial counsel in an arson conviction case and the Court of Appeals vacated the conviction and sentence.
In that case the Court of Appeals in vacating the conviction inter alia held;
"Owing to the defense team's incompetent trial strategy, Defendant was forced to admit incriminating facts in a vacuum, including that he had sole access to the church, that he was alone for stretches of time on the day of the fire, that he had unfettered control of church finances, that he wielded his financial authority in a questionable manner, and that he personally signed the insurance forms. What counsel failed to elicit after these admissions, however, were all the facts that Defendant could have provided to explain his behavior or to cast his incriminating responses into doubt. The jury did not hear from Defendant that he could precisely describe his whereabouts for most of the day, that he was asleep on his couch when the fire was discovered, that he immediately rushed to the church to try and save some of its valuable assets, that the church board knew of his prior expenditures and never accused him of misusing church funds, and that he signed the insurance forms only at the advice of attorneys, with the approval of the church board, and pursuant to a valid and legal power of attorney. This informational imbalance was the direct product of deficient advice, inadequate preparation, and indefensible choices of Defendant's own defense counsel."
As a result, the Court agreed with the district court that defense counsel's serious errors denied Defendant the right to a fair trial and Defendant's conviction for arson was vacated.
The above proof was presented by Mr. Jayaraman in support of his ineffective assistance of counsel claim at the evidentiary hearing in this matter in connection with the writ of habeas corpus that he litigated in the District Court successfully.
The Three Strikes case Jayaraman argued before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals involved a reversal of the case in the defendant's favor by a unanimous panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals holding that the said statute was unconstitutional. However, the case was later argued before the en banc Court of the Sixth Circuit and was reversed by the en banc court.