Judge Dimitrouleas is a great trial judge. A story from a trial he is currently presiding over:
An in-custody witness comes into court one morning complaining that the jail didn’t allow him to wear his yarmulke to court. Judge D says hold on, I have one in my car you can have. He calls a 5 minute recess, goes down to his car and returns with yarmulke in hand. He passes it to the witness and calls in the jury.
He later explains that it was from Bob Josefsberg’s funeral.
3 comments:
Known in state court as "fast Billy as he would set cases for trial 30 days after arraignment. He is not a good trial judge. He is mean spirted and not lawyer friendly. I have had cases in his division when he was a state judge in Broward and have tried cases in front of him as a district judge. He is a judge to be avoided, if at all possible.
I had two federal criminal trials in front of him and he was very much a fair judge. He is inscrutable, but I always took it as a reflection of fairness, not mean-spiritedness. I don't need a judge to be my friend, just to understand the rules of evidence, trial procedure, etc. which he does in spades.
Completely disagree with 2:57. As far as state court, he would generally grant three written motions for continuance for the defense, maybe one but usually none for the state. But if you came in at calendar call and said the famous “I’ll take a continuance because it’s first time up” you probably were like 2:57 and left unhappy. One of the few judges who would hold the state’s feet to the fire as much or more than the defense—if the defense was prepared.
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