The South Florida Federal JNC is:
Vivian de las Cuevas-Diaz
Larry Handfield
Retired Judge Ilona Holmes
Eduardo Lacasa
Victoria Mesa-Estrada
Burnadette Norris-Weeks
Retired Justice Barbara Pariente
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
The South Florida Federal JNC is:
Vivian de las Cuevas-Diaz
Larry Handfield
Retired Judge Ilona Holmes
Eduardo Lacasa
Victoria Mesa-Estrada
Burnadette Norris-Weeks
Retired Justice Barbara Pariente
In Texas prisons, food is so bad the staff are finding mold on it. This photo came w/a leaked email a shocked official sent to every unit.
— Keri Blakinger (@keribla) March 3, 2021
“If there is mold on the bread don’t make a sandwich w/it,” he wrote.
Here’s a THREAD on more internal emails abt the food situation. pic.twitter.com/JyMmUUb7BF
Typically a federal trial about election law doesn't involve extramarital affairs, the National Enquirer, and a Presidential candidate. You'll get all of that in today's episode of For The Defense, in which I discuss the John Edwards trial with the great Abbe Lowell. You can check it out on Apple, Spotify and Google, All other platforms can be accessed on our website.
That's the title of this nice piece about Judge Altman in the DBR. Here's a cool shout-out to his grandfather:
And when Altman had one of his last conversations with his grandfather in Caracas, Venezuela, those American historical figures and what they stood for was the basis of a topic of discussion. At the time, his grandfather was dying from cancer. The two men were playing several games of chess on the balcony of his grandfather’s apartment overlooking tens of thousands of protestors.
That afternoon was a few weeks after Hugo Chávez, the president of the island nation in which corruption had become increasingly more widespread, padded the Venezuelan Supreme Court with loyalists in his party so he could seek unlimited terms in office.
Altman expressed to his grandfather his intentions to apply to law school as people took to the streets to protest the “gross violation of their constitutional charter.”
“One of the last things my grandfather said was: ‘This is what happens to a country when good people don’t serve it. When the worst people become public servants. If you’re going to be a lawyer, remember to be the right kind of lawyer that serves its country, so this never happens in America,’ ” Altman recounted. “ I carried those words with me. That story was my essay for my application to Yale Law School.”
And as Altman was nearing graduation from Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, he had no doubt in his mind that he wanted to return to Miami to start his legal career.
“This is the community that brought my family in when we came here from Venezuela,” Altman said. “We built a life here, we built friendships here, and I owed this community, I still do, for taking us in.”
He posts his 10 Rules here, which he says apply via Zoom or in person. I like them. Check them out, especially young lawyers. One quibble with Rule #4 -- are you really standing up during Zoom court?
Updated -- one rule Rumpole should think about adding is that clients shouldn't show up while performing surgery. This plastic surgeon thought it was a good idea to appear for trial during while his unconscious patient was on the operating table.
Speaking of Zoom court, I'd like to see the statistics for Zoom sentencings. Are judges giving more significant downward variances because of the pandemic? Or are sentences higher because it's harder to humanize the client over Zoom?
My experience has been that most judges recognize the difficulties in presenting arguments during a Zoom sentencing as well as the challenges of custodial sentences. They have been giving the "Zoom discount." It depends, of course... for some judges, it's business as usual. But overall, I have seen better (lower) sentences over the past year.
My hope is that these slightly lower sentences start to become normalized and don't change once the pandemic is over. If Biden can prioritize judges and appoint some progressives to the bench, we may even start to see real change in sentencing. Let's see.