Candidate list for U.S. Attorney expands (UPDATED)

UPDATE -- Dave Aronberg has pulled his name from consideration.

In an interesting turn, the search for U.S. Attorney has expanded to 6 candidates. The list, according to the Herald, is:

▪ Roy Altman, 35, worked as a federal prosecutor for six years, handling hundreds of criminal cases, including the conviction of a postal worker’s killer. In early 2014, he became the office’s deputy chief of special prosecutions, focusing on the sexual exploitation of children and federal violent crimes. A native Spanish speaker, he attended Columbia University and Yale Law School before clerking for an influential federal appeals court judge, Stanley Marcus. Altman, a partner in the prominent Miami law firm Podhurst Orseck, is considered among the favored candidates.

▪ John Couriel, 39, prosecuted economic and major criminal cases at the U.S. attorney’s office before joining the law firm Kobre Kim as a partner. He also ran twice unsuccessfully for the Florida Legislature. A native Spanish speaker, Couriel graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Couriel was considered a front runner but lost ground after Trump’s advisers learned he voted for Bush in the GOP presidential primary and predicted Democrat Hillary Clinton would win his Republican district by “quite a bit.”

▪ Jon Sale, 73, is a former federal prosecutor in New York and Miami who co-chairs the Broad and Cassel law firm’s white-collar defense and compliance practice. He is also a close friend of Trump confidant Rudy Giuliani. Sale, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and NYU Law School, was also an assistant special prosecutor for the Justice Department in the Watergate case that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Sale, widely respected by colleagues and judges, could emerge as Trump’s pick.

▪ Dave Aronberg, 46, is the Palm Beach County state attorney. A Democrat, Aronberg declined to prosecute Trump’s former presidential campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, for battery in April. Aronberg is also a former state senator. He graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Despite a being high-profile Florida Democrat, Aronberg has surfaced as an alternative selection.

▪ Jose Felix “Pepi” Diaz, 37, is a state representative from Miami and land-use attorney with the law firm Akerman LLP. A graduate of the University of Miami and Columbia Law School, Diaz came to know the president personally after appearing as a contestant on Trump’s TV show, “The Apprentice,” in 2006. Diaz, despite his association with Trump, is not seen as a strong contender for the post.

▪ Frank Ledee, 53, is a veteran prosecutor in the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office who has most recently served as chief of the gang-prosecution and gun-violence units. He’s also the office’s liaison to the U.S. attorney’s office. Last year, Ledee was appointed by Gov. Rick Scott to the South Broward Hospital District Board. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Barry University and law degree from Nova Southeastern University. Ledee is considered a long shot for the job.

Recap (UPDATED)

UPDATE -- Everything you want to know about the Supreme Court Skullcaps (worn yesterday by Justices Scalia and Breyer) is here.

Last week was pretty eventful in the SDFLA and around the federal courts.  A quick recap:

1.  Judge Scola did the right and courageous thing by granting the defense's motion for judgment of acquittal in Izhar Khan's case.  Here is the JOA ruling. The money line: "This court will not allow the sins of the father to be visited upon the son." And here is Curt Anderson's coverage.



2.  Clarence Thomas spoke during an oral argument.  No one is really sure what he said. Here's the audio so you can hear for yourself.

3.  Raul Iglesias was convicted.  It was a hard fought battle.  Rick Diaz after the verdict: “An appellate court will allow that evidence at a new trial, and he will be vindicate. In the meantime, the verdict suggests that we should put all city of Miami police officers on a leave of absence and give their guns and badges and cruisers to the crack addicts in the city of Miami.”

4.  The Supreme Court weighed in on houseboats.  Lozman's was a house and not a boat.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/18/3189017/veteran-miami-police-sergeant.html#storylink=cpy

Liars or Heroes?

That's the question for the jury today in the case of Raul Iglesias, the Miami police officer on trial for allegedly planting evidence. The prosecution has called the witnesses heroes and the defense has called them liars.  I know this was a hard fought battle between Rick Diaz for the defense and Rick Del Toro and Michael Berger for the prosecution, in a case where the defendant testified. 

Should be interesting to see what happens.  More from closing (via the Miami Herald):

“We had four eyewitnesses — police officers who stood up to corruption, who stood up to what was wrong,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ricardo Del Toro told the 12-member jury during closing arguments Wednesday.
“What reason do these guys have to lie? None,” added fellow prosecutor Michael Berger. “Which person has the only reason to lie? That’s the defendant. And that’s because his liberty, his job and his livelihood are at stake.”
***
On Wednesday, his defense attorney, Rick Diaz, argued that none of the four detectives in Iglesias’ unit testified that they ever witnessed him stealing drugs seized from street dealers, and only one claimed he saw the supervisor swipe money confiscated from a trafficker in April 2010. Diaz said that detective’s testimony was a lie, pointing out that the dealer testified at trial that he had no money on him.
Diaz told jurors that an anonymous letter was sent on April 13, 2010, to Miami police’s Internal Affairs, claiming Iglesias stole drugs and money from dealers two to three times a week over a four-month period. He said it was written by detectives seeking revenge against their new boss because he was trying to tame the “undisciplined” squad and transfer a few officers.
“That letter came back and hit them in the head like a boomerang,” Diaz told jurors, adding that the prosecution’s case doesn’t “mathematically” add up. He suggested that Iglesias’ former undercover officers, internal-affairs detectives and FBI agents were “trying to set this man up.”
Diaz strived to portray Iglesias, an 18-year police veteran who served with the Marines in the Iraq War, as a man of character who deserved to be acquitted on all nine counts.
“This is all or nothing for Raul Iglesias,” Diaz implored jurors. “Make no mistake about it.”

“No one has done anything illegal or broke the law."

That was former Miami police officer Raul Iglesias (prior coverage here) on tape to an undercover informer.  Seems like great stuff for him, but it was the feds that played the tape to end their case and rest before Judge Altonaga.  Here are transcripts (part 1 and part 2) of the tapes via the Miami Herald, which covers the case this way:

Later in their chat, Asanza — who was cooperating with authorities and trying to bait his boss into incriminating statements — expressed fears about lying on the witness stand if he was asked to testify. Iglesias agreed that committing perjury would be a bad idea.
“Yeah, of course, you don’t wanna, you don’t wanna f---ing lie,’’ Iglesias responded.
The secret tape recording from June 2010 was the last piece of evidence that prosecutors presented before resting their corruption case Friday against Iglesias, 40, who has been on the force for 18 years.
Iglesias, an ex-Marine and Iraq War veteran who was shot in the leg during a 2004 drug bust, is standing trial on charges of planting cocaine on a suspect, stealing drugs and money from dope dealers, and lying to investigators about a box of money left in an abandoned car as part of an FBI sting.
Asanza, 33, also an ex-Marine, pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor charge of possessing cocaine and marijuana. The deal helped him avoid a felony conviction; in exchange, he testified Thursday that Iglesias told him it was “okay” to pay off confidential informants with drugs.
The secret tape recording could cut both ways for jurors. On it, Iglesias did not say anything to Asanza to implicate himself in connection with charges in the nine-count indictment, his defense attorney, Rick Diaz, pointed out Friday. The charges encompass the police sergeant’s brief stint as head of the Crime Supression Unit from January to May 2010.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/11/3178680/jurors-hear-secret-tape-recording.html#storylink=cpy

  
Should be interesting to see how this thing ends.

Monday news & notes

1.  Anthony Davila is headed to the Supreme Court.  The blog coverage of the appellate case is here and it centered around his lawyer's decision to file an Anders brief before the 11th Circuit.  The appellate court, though, found an interesting issue, and now it's headed to the High Court.  Here's SCOTUSblog's coverage of the issue:

The Justices agreed to hear an appeal by the federal government in United States v. Davila (12-167), testing what the remedy is to be in a plea-bargained criminal case when a federal judge had some role leading up to agreement on the plea deal. The Eleventh Circuit Court ruled that, if the judge (in this case, a magistrate judge) has any role whatsoever in the plea talks, the guilty plea that resulted must be thrown out. The government petition argued that the guilty plea should be overturned only if the judge’s participation had resulted in prejudice to the accused.
 

2.  Openings were conducted on Friday before Judge Scola in the Pakistani Taliban case. The case is moving at an incredible clip.  Voir dire in a couple days, and each party only requested 20 minutes for opening statements. The Herald coverage, via Jay Weaver:

Hafiz Khan, a hunched man with a flowing white beard, was called the “Santa Claus imam” by the youngsters who attended his modest Flagler Mosque in Miami.
But on Friday, a federal prosecutor portrayed the 77-year-old Muslim cleric as an evil man who spewed hateful words about his adopted country and funneled at least $50,000 to support the Pakistani Taliban terrorist organization in violent attacks against U.S. interests overseas.
His goal, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Shipley said in opening statements of Khan’s terrorism trial, was to help arm the Taliban militants with weapons for their mission to topple the Pakistan government and carry out terrorist attacks against the U.S. military abroad.
“This is no man of peace,” Shipley told the 12-person federal jury Friday. “This is not a religious leader that any of you would respect.’’ 

*** 

Hafiz Khan’s attorney, Khurrum Wahid, said in opening statements that prosecutors have created a “caricature” of his client, asserting that his words were “hyperbole” and “contrary” to the Taliban’s violent campaign. Wahid said his client was driven by a “love” for the people in the Swat Valley region of Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border, where he was born and raised before becoming a Muslim leader and founder of a madrassa religious school.

“You’re going to hear he loved helping the poor and needy,” Wahid told jurors. “You’re going to hear he’s not pro-Taliban. In fact, it’s quite the contrary. ... You’re going to hearing of no evidence that the money went for guns. ...You’re going to hear it was for the madrassa, the love of his life.”
The younger Khan’s defense lawyer, Joseph Rosenbaum, minced the prosecution’s case against his client, saying that Izhar rarely came up in FBI-recorded phone conversations and was not personally responsible for sending any money to the Taliban.
Rosenbaum said that Izhar never heard a potentially incriminating voice mail message left on his answering machine by his father to pick up $300 from a South Florida donor, that the father said had been “approved for the mujahideen,” or Taliban militants.
 

3.  Cops vs. Cops. Rick vs. Rick.  The Altonaga trial is underway with Rick Del Toro and Rick Diaz battling it out.  From Scott Hiaasen:

A pair of veteran Miami narcotics detectives testified in federal court Friday against their former supervisor, accusing Sgt. Raul Iglesias of scheming to plant cocaine on a suspect and once carrying what appeared to be a bag of crack in his personal bag.
Detectives Suberto Hernandez and Luis Valdes told jurors that Iglesias asked the pair if they had any “throw-down dope” to plant on a drug suspect after a search of the man during a Jan. 27, 2010, surveillance operation turned up no drugs.
“He looked at myself and Hernandez and he asked for throw-down dope,” said Valdes, an officer for nearly nine years. “I said, ‘We don’t do that here. Nobody on this team does it.’ ”
Iglesias, 40, is on trial facing nine counts of conspiracy to possess cocaine, violating suspects’ civil rights, obstruction of justice and making false statements. The charges stem from what federal prosecutors have described as four separate incidents of misconduct over a four-month period in 2010, when Iglesias led a team in the police department’s Crime Suppression Unit, which targets street-level drug sales.***But under cross-examination from Iglesias’ lawyer, Rick Diaz, Valdes conceded that he did not see Martinez hand the drugs to Iglesias. Nor did he see Iglesias plant the baggie on Rafael Hernandez. Iglesias told the detectives he found the drugs in the back pocket of Rafael Hernandez’s jeans — though neither detective saw Iglesias search the suspect.
Diaz challenged the detectives’ stories and suggested that Iglesias simply found evidence that Detective Hernandez had overlooked. The lawyer questioned how thorough Hernandez was in his search, noting that, in a case in 2004, the detective had failed to find drugs on a suspect who was later found to be carrying them.
And in an interview with Internal Affairs detectives and an FBI agent in May 2010, Diaz told the jury, Detective Hernandez described his search of the suspect as merely a “pat down” — a less intrusive type of search that does not include searching the contents of a suspect’s pockets.
Valdes and Hernandez also said they once saw a bag of what appeared to be crack cocaine in a military-style bag that Iglesias owned. They said the bag was not marked as evidence or part of a police-issued “sting kit” used when officers pretend to be drug dealers in reverse stings. But Diaz argued that the bag may have contained “sham” drugs or household items that merely looked like drugs.
If the detectives thought Iglesias was carrying illegal drugs or planting evidence, Diaz asked, then why didn’t the officers complain to their superiors, or even arrest Iglesias?

Starting the year with a bang

Yesterday the Pakistani Taliban trial started.

And today, Judge Altonaga starts a trial with "a Miami police sergeant charged with planting cocaine on a suspect and stealing drugs and money from dealers."  In the sergeant's corner is Rick Diaz.  The government is represented by Rick Del Toro. The Herald has more.

Next month, Kim Rothstein is set to plead guilty to a 371 conspiracy count.  I feel bad for her, especially if it was her husband who ratted her out. The Sun-Sentinal has the coverage.

Life in this District is never boring!

Supreme Court decides US v. Williams

You all remember this case -- the child pornography case that our own Rick Diaz and Lou Guerra argued before the High Court.

The Court ruled 7-2 against Diaz's client.

Here's a summary from SCOTUSBlog:

In a second major ruling, the Court — after years of repeatedly nullifying Congress’ efforts to stamp out child pornography on the Internet — finally upheld such a law, a 2003 statute that Congress shaped in a way that it hopes would spare it from the same fate as earlier attempts. In an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court found that the 2003 law did not reach too far and that it was not vague in its scope. The decision came on a 7-2 vote in United States v. Williams (06-694).

Here is Justice Scalia's opinion.

Rick Diaz nominated for lawyer of the year

The Wall Street Journal blog has posted its nominations for lawyer of the year. Sure, there's Alberto Gonzalez, Clarence Thomas, David Boies, Jon Keker, and Billy Martin. But you can also vote for our very own Rick Diaz! Check it out.

WSJ blog interviews Rick Diaz

Here.

I particularly liked this question and answer:

Was there ever a doubt that you were going to hand the case over to someone else?

I then got calls from all over the country from lawyers who called themselves First Amendment advocates. Some graciously offered help, others aggressively tried to take the case away from me. One lawyer accused me of not being an appellate advocate and threatened to contact my client and directly to solicit the case from him. So I wrote to Mr. Williams and I honestly told him that I was neither an appellate advocate nor a First Amendment expert but asked him what he wanted me to do. He essentially told me, “I’ve known you for 20 years as a street cop and I’ve seen you work in the federal court building for over 10 years. There’s nobody I want arguing my case in front of the Supreme Court except you.”

Oral argument transcript from the Supreme Court

The transcript of today’s argument in United States v. Williams, argued by Rick Diaz, is now available here.

Rick Diaz and Lou Guerra to Washington

At 10 a.m today, the United States Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral argument in United States v. Williams (06-694), asking whether a federal ban on pandering material believed to be child pornography is unconstitutional. Solicitor General Paul Clement will argue for the petitioner, and Richard J. Diaz -- yes, that Rick Diaz -- will argue for the respondent. Louis Guerra will be joining Rick at counsel table.

Initially Judge Middlebrooks denied Diaz & Guerra's motion to dismiss. The 11th Circuit reversed. And the High Court granted cert.

Go get em Rick and Lou.

Cert granted

The United States Supreme Court has taken a case from the Southern District of Florida, U.S. v. Williams, a case about the constitutionality of a child pornography law:

The [11th Circuit] court panel found the pandering provision of the PROTECT Act of 2003 was overbroad and impermissibly vague, saying that it criminalizes the speech of someone who touts material as child pornography when in fact it is clean or nonexistent.In the appeals court's view, the pandering provision could apply to an e-mail entitled "Good pics of kids in bed" sent by a grandparent, with innocent pictures attached of grandchildren in pajamas. One sender might be a proud grandparent while another might be a convicted child molester who hopes to trade for more graphic photos with like-minded recipients, the appeals court said. In asking the court to take the case, the Bush administration said the appeals court read the law's language more broadly than is warranted.

Judge Middlebrooks initially found the law was constitutional. Judges Barkett, Wilson and Reavley were the 11th Circuit panel that reversed (in an opinion by Judge Reavley,who was visiting from the Fifth Circuit), finding the Protect Act vague and overbroad. Rick Diaz and Lou Guerra represented Mr. Williams, who is now headed to Washington...