Roman Storm Petitions Supreme Court

• The order is "unprecedented" and would cause "irreperable harm" to Storm's defense
• The Supreme Court should opine whether the district court is misapplying the law

Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm has filed a Petition for a writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in hopes to stop an order that would make him disclose his defense strategy to the Government.

In October, Judge Failla ordered both Storm and the prosecution to disclose their expert witnesses statements ahead of trial on request of the Government, which the defense describes as "unprecedented". To avert the disclosure, Storm previously filed an appeal with the Second Circuit arguing that the court had violated Federal Criminal Procedure Rule 16, which governs disclosure at trial.

Under Federal Criminal Procedure Rule 16, the defense must only provide the prosecution with the names of expert witnesses and their statements ahead of trial if it has asked the prosecution to do the same. If the defense does not move the prosecution to disclose its expert witnesses, the defendant's expert witnesses may remain undisclosed too, or so the rule says.

In Storm's case, the prosecution asked the court to order reciprocal disclosure, absent of any request made by the defense – a misapplication of the law, the defense argued, pointing to Storm's right to preserve the confidentiality of his defense strategy, which Judge Failla dismissed as “gamesmanship” and “parlor tricks.”

The Second Circuit denied Storm's appeal in November, who is now asking the Supreme Court to consider deciding whether Rule 16 was adequately followed in his case, referring to a SCOTUS ruling which previously made clear that "district courts do not have the authority to contravene the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure."

The pretrial disclosure would cause "irreparable harm" to Storm's defense, the petition states, forcing him to reveal confidential and constitutionally-protected information.

The defense believes that Storm is eligible to be heard by SCOTUS, which only takes on few cases per year, as the district court is attempting to rewrite the law – a process that should be left up to Congress.

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