U.S. prosecutors have opposed Roman Storm’s attempt to use a recent Supreme Court ruling in his Tornado Cash case, arguing that the decision does not apply to the criminal charges he still faces.
The new filing adds to a legal fight that has drawn close attention across the crypto sector because it could shape how courts treat developers of privacy tools and open-source software.
The government’s response came after Storm’s lawyers moved to rely on the Supreme Court’s March 25 ruling in Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment.
Storm’s team argued that the case supports its view that offering a tool with lawful uses does not, on its own, prove criminal intent.
Prosecutors rejected that position and said the copyright ruling has no direct bearing on a case involving money laundering, sanctions, and money transmission charges.
Prosecutors reject Storm’s legal comparison
In an April 7 filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, prosecutors said Storm cannot rely on the Supreme Court’s Cox ruling to support his request for acquittal or dismissal on the unresolved counts.
The filing said the defense was trying to import a civil copyright standard into a criminal case built around different statutes and different facts.
Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the conduct alleged against Storm ”bears no resemblance” to the conduct reviewed in Cox.
He also mentioned the defense’s use of that decision was ”window dressing at best and outright misdirection at worst.” Prosecutors further told the court that ”a civil copyright case has no relevance here in the first place.”
The government’s filing followed a defense submission from April 2. In that letter, Storm’s lawyers said the Supreme Court’s ruling supports a narrower reading of intent and weakens the claim that knowledge of misuse alone is enough to establish criminal liability.
Their position is that Tornado Cash functioned as a neutral privacy tool with lawful uses, not a product built for crime.
Defense leans on Supreme Court ruling
The Supreme Court ruled on March 25 that Cox Communications could not be held contributorily liable for piracy by its internet subscribers unless there was proof that the company intended its service to be used for infringement. The ruling turned on civil copyright law, but Storm’s lawyers said the Court’s reasoning on intent supports their broader argument in the Tornado Cash case.
Storm’s team has argued that ”mere knowledge” that a tool may be misused should not be enough to prove that its developer joined a criminal scheme.
That defense goes to the center of the case, because prosecutors say Storm helped run a service used to move illicit funds, while Storm says he wrote open-source code for a protocol he did not control in the way the government claims.
That dispute has become one of the most watched legal fights in crypto. The case is not only about Tornado Cash itself. It also raises a broader question about where courts may draw the line between software development and criminal participation when third parties use decentralized tools for illegal activity.
Case remains active after split verdict
A jury in August 2025 convicted Storm on conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, but it did not reach a verdict on conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate sanctions. That split left prosecutors free to seek a retrial on the two unresolved counts.
In March 2026, prosecutors asked the court to schedule that retrial for October. Reporting at the time stated that Storm could still face serious prison exposure if a new jury convicts him on the deadlocked counts.
As of April 7, prosecutors and defense lawyers were expected to meet again this week, but no final retrial date had been set in the public reporting reviewed here.
Storm has continued to frame the case as one about code and developer freedom. In a March post on X, he noted that the remaining counts expose him to decades in prison ”for writing open-source code” and for a protocol he says he did not control.
That message has kept the case in focus for crypto developers, privacy advocates, and legal observers who see the trial as a test of how far criminal liability can extend in decentralized systems.
Developer liability stays at the center
The latest filing shows that the core fight has not changed. Storm’s defense is still trying to show that lawful software uses matter and that criminal intent must be proven with more than awareness that bad actors may use a tool. Prosecutors, by contrast, are telling the court that this case is about conduct that went beyond passive software creation.
That is why the government is resisting the comparison to Cox. In the prosecutors’ view, the Supreme Court decision addresses a separate area of law and does not help Storm on charges tied to money laundering and sanctions.
For the defense, however, the ruling offers language that may help narrow how intent is read in a case involving decentralized software.