"Respected blog"

"Respected blog"

That's how awesome Sun-Sentinel reporter Paula McMahon described the blog, giving this site credit for breaking the news about Trump's 3 judicial picks, Rudy Ruiz, Rodney Smith, and Roy Altman:

All three have strong links to Miami-Dade County: They are Circuit Judges Rodolfo “Rudy” Ruiz and Rodney Smith, who are serving state judges in Miami-Dade County, and former federal prosecutor Roy Altman, who is now in private practice.
This is the president’s first opportunity to shape the bench in South Florida for decades to come. But none of the three men, or the other seven candidates, are considered controversial selections, local judges and attorneys said.
White House officials have indicated the president wants to schedule Senate confirmation hearings for the trio. They are not technically nominees yet and will have to pass an extensive background check before they could be formally nominated. All three received official phone calls notifying them they had made the cut, several sources said.

The president had been expected to name all of his choices for five vacancies but has not done so yet. It is unclear why.

It's definitely a changing of the guard here in South Florida, where the new wave of judges, both from Obama and now from Trump, are changing the feel of this Court.  Lee Stapleton talks about this a little bit in her beautiful tribute to Magistrate Judge Bill Turnoff:

From 1982 to 1986, Bill Turnoff presided over the major crimes unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida — the busiest section in the busiest office in the country. Every day, full-tilt boogie.

In 1984, after few years as an associate at a big firm, I decided I needed more adventure and more experience — after all, that’s why I’d come to Miami in the first place despite dire warnings from classmates and others that Miami was a dangerous place. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, then just Kathy Williams, and I started at “The Office” in June 1984.

After a mandatory stint in appeals, I went to major crimes. My chief, Bill Turnoff, was from Philadelphia. You only need to hear one sentence out of his mouth to pick up the accent. A Cornell law school grad, he sat in a smallish corner office on the seventh floor. Mr. Potato Head sat on his desk. The air was redolent of pipe tobacco, and his door was always open.

BT ran his crew with military precision. He had to — every day brought new waves of events and new waves of arrests. There weren’t many of us, and the Department of Justice had to send extra pairs of hands, known as “Bucket Brigaders.”

Despite the chaos outside our doors, major crimes was run as a quality operation, with standards as exacting as any white-shoe law firm. Bill worked long hours, reading our indictments, affidavits for search warrants, pleadings, sentencing memos — most pieces of paper that were filed with the court. He was exacting. No editor at a national newspaper or magazine could have had higher standards than Bill. If he found a comma out of place, a typo or a grammatical error, he circled it in red and brought it back to the assistant U.S. attorney who had presented the defective document to him. No comment, just handed back to the person for as many drafts as necessary for perfection. I was a former newspaper reporter used to editors and editing, but because I so adored the guy and didn’t want to disappoint him, I proofed everything multiple times before presenting it to Bill.

Federal prosecutors go to court. In those days, pretty much every day we made the trek from 155 S. Miami Ave. to the federal courthouse. It was a bitch to do that in the summer, especially in a suit and panty hose. Bill expected his prosecutors, even rookies, to be TV-quality lawyers. It was up to the more senior AUSAs to keep an eye on the newbies. That being said, with so many cases, there was only so much time to babysit junior AUSAs. There was a strong on-the-job-training element to learning how to try a case. We were supposed to have a senior person with us for our first two trials. I got through my first one thanks to Mark Schnapp, But an hour into my second trial, the senior AUSA had to leave to go to another courtroom. I have come to believe that “training” is no substitute for “doing.”

Wednesday happenings

1.  Nice win for Marc Seitles and Ed Kacerosky, which is covered by John Pacenti in the DBR:

For Seitles, it was the equivalent of going all in during a poker round. He waived attorney-client privilege and laid out what he had for prosecutors. Seitles decided to take "a different road with this case" for the man who was Colombia's air security secretary from 2002 to 2005.
"I never worked harder on something in all my life," he added.
The U.S. attorney's office had no comment on the charge being dropped. The document dismissing the charge Friday supplied no explanation.
Both Seitles and Kacerosky started working pro bono, knowing Ortega's family could no longer afford the long hours it took to root out the truth. Even though the government said it had a cooperating witness, Kacerosky found a co-defendant who told him authorities had arrested the wrong Carlos.
They went through hundreds of hours of phone calls. They found Colombian authorities mixed up not only two airplane brokers named Carlos, but a third who was nicknamed Carlos.
Ortega's family was in tears when they picked him up outside jail.

2.  The lawyer under the microscope of Judge Turnoff took 5 more than 80 times.  Via The Sun-Sentinel:


Disbarred lawyer Emmanuel Roy got a chance Tuesday to explain himself in a South Florida case where a federal judge found Roy behaved so outrageously that he should return $275,000 in exorbitant fees to a former client.
Instead of explaining, Roy invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination — more than 80 times in less than an hour — when called to testify in federal court in Miami Tuesday by the lawyer who is now representing Roy's former client.
"I'm exercising my Fifth Amendment right," Roy said in response to questions from lawyer Paul Petruzzi.
The answer was the same regardless of the question — does Roy have any bank accounts, has he hidden assets in other people's names, does he currently live with his wife, could he identify himself in a photograph? It got so repetitive that Roy, who is also facing mortgage fraud charges in New York, abbreviated his answer to "Exercising my Fifth Amendment right" over and over again.

3.  Jay Weaver covers Judge Moore's decision concerning in-state tuition prices for students who live in Florida but have non-resident parents:

A federal judge in Miami has ruled the state is discriminating against potentially thousands of U.S. citizens who live in Florida, by charging them higher out-of-state tuition as nonresident students simply because their parents may lack legal U.S. residency.
U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore found Tuesday that Florida's rule classifying such students according to their parents' undocumented immigration status violates the Constitution's equal protection provision.
"By virtue of their classification, (these Florida students) are denied a benefit in the form of significantly lower tuition rates to the state's public post-secondary educational institutions," the judge found in a 19-page opinion that was highly critical of the state's policy.
"This creates an additional obstacle for (them) to attain post-secondary education from one of the state's public institutions that is not faced by other residents."
Moore, who was nominated by President George H.W. Bush and confirmed in 1992, further found the policy "does not advance any legitimate state interest, much less the state's important interest in furthering educational opportunities for its own residents."

Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/09/04/2675656/judge-rules-against-florida-policy.html#storylink=cpy

Michael Caruso informally sworn in yesterday as Federal Defender

That's Judge Williams doing the honors.  The formal investiture will be announced sometime soon.  Congratulations to well-deserving Michael Caruso.

The Apple/Samsung trial has Judge Koh.  But we have Judge Turnoff, who had these gems yesterday (via Sun-Sentinel):

In September, the judge found the two men in contempt of court and ordered them to repay every dime of the fees or explain why they couldn't pay. The two ignored the order for months. Roy had to be arrested in New York last month to answer to the judge.
Mayas had claimed he sold the Miramar home but underwent a change of heart or mind after the judge spelled out the consequences of continuing to test his patience.
Then Mayas skipped a court hearing last week, in part he said, because he got sick after undergoing a colonoscopy. But the judge wasn't buying it .
"There's simply no excuse'' for his failure to show up in court last week, Turnoff told Mayas.
When Coulton's lawyer, Paul Petruzzi, told the judge Mayas had not handed over the keys to his vehicle and his Monarch Lakes home, the judge demanded he turn over the keys in court.
As Mayas fumbled with his briefcase and his keyring for what seemed an unnecessarily long time, the judge cracked: "I bet the colonoscopy was easier than this."
With the house keys in hand and a promise the car would be turned over within hours, Petruzzi said it was a small step toward making things right.
But he said Coulton wasn't particularly enjoying watching his two former lawyers put through the legal wringer.
"This will barely make a dent in what they owe to my client," Petruzzi said. "[Coulton] would be a lot happier if he could just go back in time and have hired a proper lawyer from the start."

"I have bent over backward ... I have extended every due process to Mr. Roy that the record reflects he denied to his own client."

That was Judge Turnoff in jailing Emmanuel Roy, the former lawyer who is alleged to have ignored numerous court orders.  SFL has covered this story along the way, but it's worth writing about here as well.  Some interesting tidbits from the Sun-Sentinel:

The judge found Roy had focused his efforts on wringing cash and other valuables out of Coulton's family.
Roy even flew to England and took a $23,000 wedding ring from the finger of Coulton's wife at a meeting, the judge found. He also took a Porsche, tens of thousands of dollars and a Coconut Creek townhouse, the judge found.
Turnoff gave Roy and Mayas 10 days to comply with his order last September but Roy never responded so the judge eventually issued a warrant for his arrest after he failed to show for a July 6 hearing.
On July 12, Roy wrote to Turnoff that he had "always shown great respect to the court."
"I trust that the court will not conclude that I have decided to stump [sic] my nose at it, for any party who does so does it as his own peril," Roy wrote.
Five days later, Roy was arrested in New York on the judge's warrant. He was refused a bond and transferred -- via Oklahoma -- to face the judge, arriving Wednesday at Miami's Federal Detention Center.
Finally facing Judge Turnoff in court Thursday, Roy didn't get into details about the Coulton case. He claimed he's now penniless though he told authorities he had a net worth of about $700,000 in 2009 when he was charged with wire fraud in a federal mortgage investigation in New York. He has pleaded not guilty and is going to trial on that case next month.
Though Turnoff was clearly astounded by Roy's actions, he said he is keeping an open mind and gave Roy and his lawyer time to prepare for an Aug. 16 hearing where Roy can explain himself before the judge makes a final ruling.
...
Turnoff ruled Roy can be released on a $250,000 bond if he can put up $5,000 cash and promises to return for the hearing next week.

If you are looking for a something a little more light-hearted, check out this Jerry Seinfeld short with Ricky Gervais.

Or, if you are a Supreme Court junkie, here's a case from the upcoming Term on whether a house boat is a boat or a house:

As yachts go, Fane Lozeman’s vessel was no Queen Mary. First of all, the two-story, 60-foot boat had no name, motor or way of being steered. She drew only 10 inches of water and had glass French doors on three sides, making the idea of an ocean passage nonsensical. Tied up at the dock in North Beach Village, Fla., she was the functional equivalent of a house down to the sewer line and electrical lines snaking onshore.
That didn’t stop town authorities from getting an order under marine law to seize the vessel and tow it to Miami, after Lozeman failed to heed local ordinances and pay his dockage fees. Now the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to decide the question of whether the term “vessel” applies to anything that floats, or should be reserved for things intended to move from place to place. 

Monday morning

Seinfeld has this new web-only TV show.  I like.

SFL is covering the Emmanuel Roy case before Judge Turnoff and this letter.  SFL highlights this line:  "I trust that the court will not conclude that I have decided to stump my nose at it, for any party who does so does it as his own peril."  Too funny.

And here's the Herald interviewing Ervin Gonzalez: 

Q. What was your first job?
I worked as a bag boy and stock man at Winn Dixie while in High School at LaSalle high.
Q. What advice would you give to today’s law students?
Find and pursue your passion.
Q. What’s the last book you read.
“The last Boy,” a biography about Mickey Mantle.

The 11th Circuit is in town, and I have an argument tomorrow morning, so I'll be off-line until after that...

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/23/v-fullstory/2907544/miami-lawyer-ervin-gonzalez-tackles.html#storylink=cpy

"Their conduct was outrageous, disgusting, abhorrent. [I] would go so far as to describe it as being the most outrageous in … 25 years on the bench."

That was Judge Turnoff in the contempt hearing of two lawyers whose conduct has gone from bad to worse.  The Sun-Sentinel has the details here.  From the end of the article, explaining Paul Petruzzi's efforts to get his client's money back:

While it looked as if Turnoff might lock up Mayas because of his actions, the judge stopped short of that on Friday. Instead, he ordered Mayas to report daily to pre-trial release officers, surrender his passport — and hire a lawyer who is qualified to represent him in federal court.

The judge gave both sides 10 days to file legal arguments about the contempt issue, and indicated he expects to see Mayas and Roy together in his courtroom very soon so he can hear the full story.

Outside court, Petruzzi said he suspects “pigs will fly” before his client gets any money from Roy or Mayas or they pay Petruzzi's $7,500 — and rising — bill, as ordered by the judge.

“But I'm not going to stop until we do [get the money], because it's wrong,” Petruzzi said. “Neither of these guys ought to be practicing law anywhere.”

Meantime, the Ninth Circuit is trading jabs in a mining case of all things.  From the WSJ blog quoting from the dissent:

“No legislature or regulatory agency would enact sweeping rules that create such economic chaos, shutter entire industries, and cause thousands of people to lose their jobs. That is because the legislative and executive branches are directly accountable to the people through elections, and its members know they would be removed swiftly from office were they to enact such rules,” he wrote.
“Unfortunately,” he added, “I believe the record is clear that our court has strayed with lamentable frequency from its constitutionally limited role.”

Last week was a good one for Mike Tein.  He was cleared by the Bar and his client in a lengthy medicare fraud case was found not guilty of two counts and hung on another.  The Miami Herald covers the case in which the DOJ prosecutor, Jennifer Saulino, obtained guilty verdicts for the other defendants:

The 12-person Miami jury convicted psychiatrists Mark Willner of Weston and Alberto Ayala of Coral Gables, the medical directors for American Therapeutic Corp., for their roles in a $205 million scheme to fleece the taxpayer-funded program for the elderly and disabled. The jurors found them not guilty on other healthcare fraud offenses.
In addition, the jury convicted Vanja Abreu, Ph.D, program director for American Therapeutic in Miami-Dade, of the same healthcare-fraud conspiracy offense, and two other defendants, Hilario Morris and Curtis Gates, of paying kickbacks to residential home operators in exchange for providing patients.
However, the jurors, who deliberated for five days after a nearly two-month trial, could not reach conspiracy verdicts against Lydia Ward, Ph.D., program director for American Therapeutic in Broward, Nichole Eckert, a Fort Lauderdale therapist, or Morris and Gates. Justice Department lawyers said they plan to retry those defendants on the deadlocked counts.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/01/v-fullstory/2827660/miami-medicare-fraud-jurors-tell.html#storylink=cpy

  One final note -- the NY Times has this op-ed about federal judges writing their own opinions:

THERE is a crisis in the federal appellate judiciary. No, I’m not referring to the high number of judicial vacancies or overloaded case dockets — though those are real problems. The crisis I have in mind rarely is discussed because it raises too many embarrassing questions. I’m talking about the longstanding and well-established practice of having law clerks ghostwrite judges’ legal opinions. We have become too comfortable with the troubling idea that judging does not require that judges do their own work.

With so much news and controversy about what federal appellate judges say in their opinions, it would be natural for a layperson to assume that such opinions actually come from judges’ own pens (or keyboards). But ever since the beginning of the law-clerk age, which dates back at least 70 years, most judges have been content to cast their vote in a case and then merely outline the shape of their argument — while leaving it to their clerks to do the hard work of shaping the language, researching the relevant precedents and so on. Almost all federal appellate judges today follow this procedure. 

***

There is also the matter of intellectual integrity. Put simply, it cannot be accepted as legitimate that judges can put their names on opinions that they did not write. It’s not quite plagiarism, but it puts me in mind of the product known in the academic world as “managed books”: a professor will use research assistants to not only research a project but also write a first draft — but nonetheless the professor claims the work as his own. The managed books approach has been condemned as an affront to intellectual integrity. There is no principled reason the judicial counterpart should not be similarly condemned. I am reminded of Henry J. Friendly, the great judge of the Second Circuit, who explained that he wrote his own opinions because “they pay me to do that.”

Younger members of the judiciary need to take a hard look at themselves and ask how what they are doing stacks up against the known examples of judging at its highest level — not just Judge Posner and his contemporaries who write, but also gifted writers among judges of earlier eras like Learned Hand and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. The next generation will need to accept the opportunities and challenges of appellate judging and dare to do all the work that befits a judge.

 I think the piece way overstates the "crisis" about this issue...  But what do you all think?