Do letters at sentencing matter?

Former Sheriff Ken Jenne is being sentenced tomorrow (by Judge Dimitrouleas).

He has submitted a bunch of letters (here) for the judge to consider in imposing a reasonable sentence.

SDFLA blog question of the day -- do these letters make a difference with our judges?

Here's the Herald coverage of the letters and here is the Sun-Sentinel coverage.

And if you are interested in prison condition's for Jenne, here's the Herald's take.

See,

Justice O'Connor agrees with me.

Federal Bar Association luncheon

Eleventh Circuit Judges Barkett and Marcus spoke today at the Federal Bar luncheon. It was a really fun, engaging talk. They spoke openly about a variety of issues, including the size of the court, cameras in federal court, the value of oral argument and other.

I'll post more about it soon, but I will note that I asked both of them if they read blogs. Judge Marcus said he read "precious little" on the blogosphere, and Judge Barkett said she did read blogs (although she didn't say which ones).

Here are some pictures:

Judge Davis and Judge Marcus discussing issues of the day and Judge Barkett and Judge Marcus answering questions at the podium.

HMO settlement before Judge Moreno

For coverage of these proceedings, go check out SouthFloridaLawyers -- they're all over it.

Narseal Batiste: Day 5

Today was the fifth day on the stand for Narseal Batiste, the lead defendant in the Liberty City 7 case. He's still on direct. Curt Anderson has all the details and says that he is expected to testify the rest of the week! Is it me or is this way too long for anyone to be on the stand? I love the call for him to testify; it takes a lot of guts and is very high risk, high reward, but this seems to be too much. Thoughts?