The last stages of the Russian criminal process — second cassation before the Supreme Court, a complaint to its Chairman against a refusal to refer, supervisory review before the Presidium — are narrow, discretionary and easy to waste. A complaint can generally be filed once, and a repeat on the same grounds is returned unexamined.
Alexander drafts these. His working rule is that a complaint to the Chairman must argue against the refusal decision, not resend the complaint that was refused — which is the mistake in most of the ones we are asked to review after someone else has filed them.
