The two faces of Judge John Kastrenakes — vigilant defender of the law and unbridled hothead — played out in stark relief this month after his decision to send a juror to jail for 10 days.
WEST PALM BEACH — When John Kastrenakes arrived at the Palm Beach County Courthouse 10 years ago to take a seat on the powerful circuit bench all that was missing was a shining steed.
After sending five elected officials in the county to prison, the career prosecutor was feted as a gleaming knight who would use his formidable skills as a dogged crime fighter to continue to chip away at the area’s reputation as “Corruption County.”
A year later, he grabbed headlines for far different reasons.
Stopped for driving the wrong way in the parking lot of a service plaza on Florida’s Turnpike, Kastrenakes became irate. Blasting the Florida Highway Patrol trooper as “a liar,” he said he would never believe her and would doubt the veracity of any FHP officer who appeared in his courtroom.
Concerned about his ability to be fair, state prosecutors asked him to step down from seven cases built by FHP troopers. Kastrenakes agreed and apologized for his outburst.
The two faces of Kastrenakes — vigilant defender of the law and unbridled hothead — played out in stark relief this month.
Howls of overreaching and racial bias greeted his decision to send a 21-year-old West Palm Beach juror to jail for 10 days. Ruling that DeAndre Somerville willfully violated his orders, Kastrenakes found the young black man guilty of contempt of court after he explained that he overslept and didn’t call to report his absence because his cellphone was broken.
Florida state Sen. Bobby Powell, D-Riviera Beach, has asked the Judicial Qualifications Commission to investigate Kastrenakes.
The SDFLA Blog is dedicated to providing news and notes regarding federal practice in the Southern District of Florida. The New Times calls the blog "the definitive source on South Florida's federal court system." All tips on court happenings are welcome and will remain anonymous. Please email David Markus at dmarkus@markuslaw.com
Sunday, October 20, 2019
"Corruption fighter to controversy, Kastrenakes lauded for smarts, chided for ‘God complex’"
That's the title of this Palm Beach Post article which profiles Palm Beach judge John Kastrenakes. From the intro:
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12 comments:
Hear that there is still one seat in the SD fla. still open!
Put aside the reporter's ignorance about the role of the judge in the criminal legal system.
Let me get this straight. An arrogant hothead prosecutor has become an arrogant hothead judge. Go figure.
Johnny K. looks very healthy and clearly has never missed a meal. While in Miami, he had boyish looks but was a very conniving prosecutor and skirted on the ethics boundaries if not crossed it on occasion. Especially in the Joyce Cohen murder trial which he would have lost if not for Alan Ross' blunders.
My guess is that the Fort Pierce spot goes to a former or current prosecutor.
The best (punch) line in this article is sets up this way; "Still, some attorneys said, all judges make mistakes. THAT'S WHAT APPELLATE COURTS ARE FOR."
Amazing that people actually believe this.
So..."Pierre Delecto" is essentially "pari delicto", which is exactly what this is: https://images.app.goo.gl/qFUndNvsb8kaeyMW9
Congrats David, your blog just broke some real news.
The federal bench is overwhelmingly comprised of individuals with prosecution experience and has very few individuals with a public defense or civil liberties background. Almost half the active judges on the federal bench (43 percent) have prosecutorial experience, compared with only 10.4 percent with public defense experience. Even with a President who proclaimed an interest in criminal justice reform, these numbers barely budged. Of President Obama’s nominees, a full 41 percent had prosecution experience, and only 14 percent had public defense experience. While President Obama appointed five of the current federal appellate judges with public defense backgrounds, that brought the total to just seven (namely, Judge G. Steven Agee, Judge Bernice Donald, Judge Jane Kelly, Judge Edward Prado, Judge Luis Restrepo, Judge Robert Wilkins, and Judge James Wynn).
*composed of, 10:15 AM.
10:41. Correct but you are being hyper technical. You must be a former HS English teacher in some tony suburb or elite prep school. Comprise is the correct word (and so is "compose") but the sentence should have read "the federal bench overwhelmingly comprises. . ." or "is composed of. . ." But it is a distinction without a difference. Now if you will excuse me, I have classes to attend at Andover and finish my application to Princeton.
I'm sure 10:15 still lists Ransom on his resume.
10:15 in a nutshell. Wants to argue about word choice and not the substantive issue. Style over substance every time.
His chances of getting a seat are nill to none...the word is his interview was a worse lashing than he gives to lawyers.
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