Mark H. Bonner
Associate Professor
Professor Bonner began his legal career at the U.S. Department of Justice and served in a variety of capacities there for more than 25 years, including Assistant U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Resident Legal Advisor in Moscow. For 10 years, he directed the investigation and prosecution of high-profile federal cases involving international and domestic terrorism. He subsequently joined the U.S. Department of Treasury, where he held the position of Senior Advisor and Chief of Staff to the Undersecretary of the Treasury for Enforcement. Prior to coming to Ave Maria, Professor Bonner served as a Senior Advisor in the United States Department of Homeland Security’s Office of International Affairs, where he oversaw the Department’s activities within the Group of 8 (G8) countries. He also taught as an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center for 13 years.
Mark H. Bonner, Jimmy Gurulé, & Laurie Levenson. Complex Criminal Litigation: Prosecuting Drug Enterprises and Organized Crime. Juris Publishing, Inc. (2019)
Complex Criminal Litigation: Prosecuting Drug Enterprises and Organized Crime, Fourth Edition provides practitioners and others interested in the federal criminal justice system with a comprehensive analysis of the arsenal of federal laws that provide federal prosecutors the means to combat criminal organizations, their leadership (i.e., the so-called "kingpins") and their infrastructure. These statutes include the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO); the Continuing Criminal Enterprise or CCE statute; the Money Laundering Control Act; federal firearms statutes; and criminal and civil forfeiture laws that permit the seizure and forfeiture of the profits and instrumentalities of illegal enterprises. Further, the treatise includes an analysis of the principal legal issues that federal prosecutors and defense attorneys need to consider in handling long-term, complex criminal conspiracies that frequently involve multiple and diverse criminal acts, from the rules relating to grand jury secrecy, granting immunity, bail, criminal discovery, and all points in between. Finally, because organized criminal activity respects no national boundaries, the treatise includes a comprehensive discussion of international criminal law, including extraterritorial jurisdiction and extradition. Criminal trial attorneys involved in litigating complex criminal cases will benefit greatly from reading this treatise.
The Inquisition by Special Prosecutor in United States v. Senator Ted Stevens: of Brady, Contempt, and the Forensic Trifecta, 51 Crim.L.Bull (January 2015).
This Article will examine important issues raised by this unusual case and its lingering aftermath, concerning the limits of the trial court’s authority to order prosecutors to comply with the discovery requirements of the Constitution, to order a private attorney as special prosecutor to investigate Assistant United States Attorneys (AUSAs), and to punitively imprison them sua sponte for Brady violation. Part I sets forth the proposition that criminal contempt for a Brady violation is not available to the court, and that so-called “Brady orders” are legally unsound. An amendment to the criminal contempt statute is proposed. Part II examines the legal basis and procedure for a district court to appoint a special prosecutor under Rule 42, Fed. R. Crim. P., and suggests an amendment to the Rule to inhibit the unnecessary and wasteful appointment of Rule 42 special prosecutors in the future. Part III assesses the investigation and report of the court’s special prosecutor, and evaluates whether its publication by the court in the absence of charges being filed or an adversary hearing being afforded constituted an abuse. An amendment to protect the privacy and rights of those investigated is presented.
Co-authored with Jennifer A. Sheriff, A Child Needs a Champion: Guardian Ad Litem Representation for Prenatal Children, 19 W&M Jour. of Women and the Law 511-584 (2013).
This article examines U.S. and foreign law in the area, and explores a gap that remains in the law protecting prenatal children. That gap exists where the expectant mother damages her child by taking drugs or excessively drinking alcohol, producing a host of adverse consequences to the child and to society, and where the expectant mother is in danger of undergoing an illegal abortion, which also has adverse consequences to the child and to society. While torts and crimes involving the prenatal child are readily responded to after the child is born or killed, e.g. by medical malpractice or assault suits, or by prosecuting abortionists for violation of state or federal abortion laws, there remains a clear gap in the law to prevent such unlawful acts from being committed in the first place. The gap is prominently displayed in the ongoing prosecution of the notorious abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell and his “house of horrors” in Pennsylvania.
"Extradition, Mutual Legal Assistance, and Prisoner Transfer" in Issues and Problems in Combating Organized Crime, Moscow (1997)
St. John Paul II's Natural Law Legacy and International Human Rights: Toward a century of Persuasion, Institute of Political Science and Public Administration, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Warsaw, Poland, June 15, 2022.
How Political Speech Laws Benefits Politicians and the Rich, The Federalist Society, October 13, 2016.
Musacchio v. United States-Post-Decision SCOTUScast, The Federalist Society, July 1, 2013
The Criminalization of Almost Everything: Why Both Liberals and Conservatives Should be Alarmed, The Federalist Society, October 30, 2013
Libertarian v. Conservative, The Federalist Society, October 16, 2013
George C. Marshal Center, European Center for Security Studies, Garmish Partenkirchen, Germany 2003 "Homeland Security"
Smithsonian Institution 2000: "Handling Major Cases", with Roger Cossack (CNN) and Beth Wilkinson (Latham & Watkins)
International Law Enforcement Academy, Budapest 2000: "Terrorism."
United States v. Davila-Post-Decision SCOTUScast, The Federalist Society, July 1, 2013
United States v. Davila-Post-Argument SCOTUScast, The Federalist Society, April 22, 2013
The National Institute for Trial Advocacy, Notre Dame, Indiana 1999: “ Criminal Trials."
Moscow State University 1997: "Money Laundering", with Michael Di Pretoro, FBI legal attaché.
International Law Enforcement Academy, Budapest 1997: “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations.”
The Attorney General's Advocacy Institute (numerous times): "Trial Evidence", "Demonstrative Exhibits", "Legal Ethics", and "Basic Criminal Trials."
