Miami Dade Bar Association's Criminal Justice Award goes to...

 ...Michael Caruso, the Federal Defender in our District.

Congrats to Michael, who is very well-deserving.  And I don't just say that because he's a frequent guest blogger.  

In another news, it's been a quiet Term at the Supreme Court for criminal cases.  The Court took more life out of the double jeopardy clause yesterday in Denezpi v. United States, which starts this way (per Barrett):

The Double Jeopardy Clause protects a person from being prosecuted twice “for the same offence.” An offense defined by one sovereign is necessarily different from an offense defined by another, even when the offenses have identical elements. Thus, a person can be successively prosecuted for the two offenses without offending the Clause. 

We have dubbed this the “dual-sovereignty” doctrine. This case presents a twist on the usual dual-sovereignty scenario. The mine run of these cases involves two sovereigns, each enforcing its own law. This case, by contrast, arguably involves a single sovereign (the United States) that enforced its own law (the Major Crimes Act) after having separately enforced the law of another sovereign (the Code of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe). 

Petitioner contends that the second prosecution violated the Double Jeopardy Clause because the dual-sovereignty doctrine requires that the offenses be both enacted and enforced by separate sovereigns. We disagree. By its terms, the Clause prohibits separate prosecutions for the same offense; it does not bar successive prosecutions by the same sovereign. So even assuming that petitioner’s first prosecutor exercised federal rather than tribal power, the second prosecution did not violate the Constitution’s guarantee against double jeopardy.

This is why we need more criminal justice warriors like Michael... without them, the system would simply fall apart. 

Roy Moore tries to get 2nd Circuit to revive lawsuit against Sasha Baron Cohen

 He will lose, as he should.  Here's the clip he is suing over:

 

From Courthouse News:

A federal appeals court judge got a talking-to from Roy Moore’s lawyer on Friday after questioning how, given the record of child-abuse allegations against Moore, that he can claim to be a victim of defamation.

“You’re looking at facts outside the case,” attorney Larry Klayman objected in Second Circuit arguments this morning. “You’re actually calling my client a pedophile. That’s what you’re doing in effect.”

With outside facts about his past excluded, Moore is vying to have the appeals court revive his $95 million defamation case against comedian and actor Sacha Baron Cohen over his unwitting appearance in a 2018 episode of Cohen’s limited-run satirical series “Who Is America?”

The segment featuring Moore has him talking to a counterterrorism expert who is actually Cohen in disguise, showing off the supposed newest device in Israeli military technology: a pedophile detector.

Moore walked off the set in a huff as the device beeped persistently whenever waved around him. A year earlier, the ex-Alabama judge saw his Senate run thwarted by sexual misconduct allegations involving underage girls, including one woman who accused Moore of initiating a sexual encounter when she was just 14 years old; Moore was 32.

“I’m not saying you’re a sex offender at all,” Cohen assures Moore in the clip.

Klayman, an attorney notorious for his vexatious litigation style on behalf of far-right causes, insisted in court Friday that the court must distinguish Cohen’s prank from women’s allegations against Moore because such allegations stopped short of using the word “pedophile.”

“There’s nothing more heinous than being accused of being a pedophile,” Klayman argued, adding that “people jump off buildings” over such allegations. “It’s worse than calling someone a murderer.”

Klayman, who runs an outfit called Freedom Watch, which he founded, pounced on U.S. Circuit Judge Gerard Lynch when the Obama appointee questioned that theory. “If someone has said, ‘you molested me when I was a child,’” Lynch asked, “what is the distinction?”

Urging the court to let Moore conduct discovery, Klayman says that he was only given an hour to depose Cohen and that the “Borat” actor was being fed answers during the interview.

U.S. District Judge John P. Judge Cronan tossed Moore’s lawsuit in July 2021, finding that Moore had waived the very claims he brought against Cohen in an enforceable consent agreement. Specifically, the agreement blocked claims of infliction of emotional distress and fraud, like those brought by Moore and with his wife, Kayla Moore, as well as defamation, brought by Roy Moore alone.

Two months earlier, Klayman tried to get Cronan to recuse himself, alleging “bias” and “pre-ordained favoritism” of Cohen. The judge declined to do so.

PACER to become free?

That would be nice!  From Reuters:

Federal judiciary policymakers have approved a plan to eliminate costly fees for online docket searches amid debate in Congress about whether to force the court system to make its PACER electronic court record system free for the general public.

A newly released report on the Judicial Conference of the United States' closed-door March 15 meeting showed that the policymaking body greenlighted making PACER searches free for non-commercial users in any future overhauls of the system.

Letter Motions Needed in SDFL

 Letter Motions Needed in SDFL

By Rumpole

All things federal being the milieu of DOM, we sent this post for him to use.

The SDNY appears to be the only jurisdiction that endorses the use of “letter motions” as a way of attorneys communicating with the court on less serious issues. In the SDNY, each judge lists their practice differently on their website. Some judges want letter motions emailed to chambers, while others direct attorneys to file them in CMECF. In the SDNY cmecf interface, there is an option for a “letter motion” to be filed.

A letter motion is, a motion in letter format to the District Court Judge. For example:

Dear Judge XYZ,

          I write to request that the court allow my client to travel to Pyongyang, North Korea, to attend the opening of the Dear Leader’s Party Conference. My client will be traveling from July 1 to July 21. The government has deferred to the pre-trial services officer, who has indicated that as long as the client does not assist in the launching of ballistic missiles, she does not object.

          Your, obt Svt. H. Rumpole, Esq.

The letter motion is a simpler, and superior way of communicating with the court, bypassing the “Comes Now The defendant” standard motion, the use of the preamble of which Mr. Markus and Rumpole have previously debated.

Why doesn’t the SDFL use letter motions? Have our judges  ever considered the use of letter motions? Has anyone recently asked Chief Judge Altonaga to consider implementing letter motions?  Is there a downside?

A quick perusal of SDNY judge websites yields that the practice is mostly uniform, with judges listing certain motions that can be used in letter format, and others that must be filed in the regular format.

While the SDNY appears, based on a quick internet search, to be the only district that uses letter motions, the practice is efficient and should be adopted by other jurisdictions.

HR

 Response by DOM -- I've never liked the SDNY practice of letter motions.  What is the upside of a letter motion?  You don't need "Comes Now" in a regular old motion either.  Peace and love.

Florida politics = dysfunctional

 The White House announced 5 new U.S. Attorney nominations yesterday.  

 But still, we do not have one here.  And from what everyone says, there is agreement between Rubio, Scott, and Biden that Markenzy Lapointe should get the nod.  But the red Senators refuse to move on anything in Florida right now, even when there is consensus.  And the WH is unwilling to get aggressive and move forward without them.  

And this is for someone that all sides agree on.  What a joke.

Who knows when we will ever see the judge slots filled...

SCOTUS in June

 Somehow there are still 33 cases left to decide at SCOTUS this month.  This morning, the Court will announce some of those 33 decisions.  You can follow all of the action at SCOTUSblog.com as they will live blog the cases as they come out at 10am.

The Supreme Court typically finishes issuing opinions by the end of June, but I really don't see how they do it this Term.  Maybe they won't get as long a summer vacation this year.  I still don't understand why the High Court is closed all summer... but that's just me.

Defense wins

 Congrats to Frank Rubio, Richard Klugh, and Frank's two sons for their not guilty verdict across the board for an eye doctor charged with fraud before Judge Ruiz.  The jury came back quickly.

And to a group of defense lawyers, led by Kate Taylor of the public defender's office and including Marissel Descalzo and Paul Petruzzi who obtained a dismissal before Judge Altman in a boat case for lack of jurisdiction. Here's the order.

Judge Lurana Snow's retirement party

 Congrats to Judge Snow on her retirement.  She had her party last week, with wonderful speeches for Judge Dimitrouleas, Judge Torres, and Bruce Zimet.  Here's some photos from the fiesta: