The situation in this case raises the question of whether the Petitioner, Samirkumar Shah, a practicing cardiologist whose former attorney, Tina Miller, switched sides to become a supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney while Petitioner's criminal proceeding was underway, was afforded a meaningful and fair adversarial process when the district court arbitrarily denied his motion to disqualify the United States Attorney's Office that Ms. Miller supervised, and doing so without convening an evidentiary hearing to properly assess the merits of Petitioner's disqualification motion.

Looking at the situation through a logical lens while approaching the extremely important disqualification issue with an abundance of caution due to the underlying complexity of human behavior that is involved, the circumstances leading up to Ms. Miller switching sides and becoming the supervising AUSA over the attorneys who prosecuted Petitioner warranted disqualification of the entire United States Attorneys' Office. The district court concluded that it did not, citing a "fully developed" record as basis for its decision—a record that is devoid of any meaningful input from the defense which sought a continuance in order to convene an evidentiary in order to develop the record. Had the district court convened an evidentiary father than arbitrarily concluding that it did not "see any issue of any facts demonstrating a conflict of [interest]," (Appendix 5), it would have discovered that Ms. Miller was in fact motivated to obtain a conviction against Petitioner from the time she represented him and that she maintained that desire throughout the course of Petitioner's trial.

Therefore, because there was ample evidence that Ms. Miller interfered with the prosecution of Petitioner's criminal case—a case that she declared not to have interfered with after becoming a supervisory AUSA over the very office that prosecuted Petitioner, Petitioner's motion to disqualify the entire AUSA office on grounds of impartiality and conflict of interest was improperly denied.

The question for review then is presented as follows:

On the matter of disqualification with regards to federal Assistant United States Attorneys in particular, and an entire United States Attorney's Office in general, whether the appropriate standard in making a disqualification determination is an abuse of discretion when an argument that the district court acted arbitrarily is presented (cf. Wheat v. United States, 486 U.S. 153 (1988); United States v. Stewart, 185 F.3d 112 (3rd Cir. 1999) & United States v. Whittaker, 268 F.3d 185,193-94 (3rd Cir. 2001)); whether the appropriate barometer for assessing such a disqualification claim either in a general context or relative to a particular federal prosecuting attorney is founded upon the requirements set forth in a state constitution (Pa. Const, art. V § 10) and state rules of professional conduct (W.D. Pa. L. Civ. R. 83.3(A)(2) & 204 Pa. Code R. 1.11(d)) rather than through the lens of this Court's holding in Wheat v. United States, 486 U.S. 153 (1988), which accurately balances the management of incurring unnecessary loss of taxpayers' dollars and the defendant's right to a fair and meaningful adversarial process when deciding a disqualification motion. Id. at 164.

Similarly, since our system of justice is set up to ensure that all parties are afforded a just, fair, and meaningful adversarial process as this Court explaine

Whether the Petitioner was afforded a meaningful and fair adversarial process when the district court denied his motion to disqualify the United States Attorney's Office without an evidentiary hearing