Katherine Harris upset by Laura Dern's portrayal

After my post about the HBO movie Recount yesterday, I received an email from Suzanne Schmidt, Joe Klock's PR person, informing me that he and Katherine Harris would be on Hannity & Colmes to "discuss[] how Harris was unfairly portrayed in the film and how the film could be nothing further from the truth." Harris and Klock do a nice job on the show (see above for a short clip), but....

I'm still ready to give Laura Dern an Oscar...

More trouble for Kuehne prosecution and other lawyer news

In what already looks like a doomed prosecution against attorney Ben Kuehne, it just got tougher. Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided Cuellar v. United States, which holds (9-0 per Thomas) that the federal money-laundering statue did not require proof of “appearance of legitimate wealth” and the statute could not be satisfied solely by evidence that a defendant concealed funds during transportation. The Kuehne team will be pouring over every word of the opinion, I'm sure...

In other lawyer news, Goeffrey Fieger was acquitted yesteday. His lawyer, Gerry Spence, remains undefeated! Fieger had this to say (apropos of the above case): "I'm very pleased with the American system and the jury. I thank the jury for listening. I hope this puts an end to political prosecutions in the age of Mr. Bush."

And finally, attorney Mel Weiss was sentenced to 30 months (3 months below the advisory guideline range agreed on by the parties).

Recount

So I finally got around to the HBO movie Recount on my TiVo. I really enjoyed it. It threw me back to those days in 2000 when I was attached to the TV watching the twists and turns of the bitter election fight between Bush and Gore. I actually had dreams (nightmares) last night after watching the film...

There were lots of SDFLA references of course, since we were ground zero.

A guy named Phillip Nolen played Ben Kuehne, but he didn't wear the bowtie! Bruce Altman played Mitchell Berger. Laura Dern was an excellent Katherine Harris. The other main players were also very well cast. I may be mistaken but I thought I saw Kendall Coffee sitting as an extra in the Supreme Court scene at the end...
Anyway, if you want to relive some of those moments, it's well worth it.

Judge Highsmith to retire at the end of the year

So we were one year off in our prediction.

John Pacenti covers the latest news here. We will have more on Judge Highsmith soon.

We also send our condolences to friend of blog, Dore Louis, for the passing of his father Paul Louis. Like Dore, Paul was quite a character and quite a lawyer. Here is the beautiful article from the Miami Herald. The intro:

He was a dogged attorney, whose representation of a young black man convicted of murder by an all white jury led to a landmark 1984 ruling by the Florida Supreme Court.
He kept a cane in his downtown Miami office, not because he needed it to walk. He swung it in the air or banged it on the table to make his point.
Even when his clients couldn't pay their legal bill, Paul A. Louis stuck by them.
''He wouldn't give up when he got into a case,'' said Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Paul Siegel, who worked with him in private practice for more than 25 years. ``The law firm might not get paid, but he kept on it.''
Louis, whose legal career spanned nearly six decades, died Saturday at age 85.
Only a battle with throat and liver cancer could sideline Louis. Even as his health deteriorated, he checked in on cases.
''Literally after his voice was gone he was mouthing the names of clients that the firm still had and asking about the status of the cases wanting to be kept up-to-date to offer yes or no opinions on how to proceed,'' said his son, Marshall Dore Louis. ``His loyalty was just tremendous.''

I'm back!

I admit it -- I was on vacation and just got back late last night... That's the reason for the slow blogging. I'm catching up on mail, DBRs, email, and so on. Ahhh, the joy of returning to work. Just a quick skim of the inbox shows that there are some really interesting things going on -- John Pacenti had a great article in yesterday's DBR about attorney's fees in criminal cases, and in today's DBR, Billy Shields discusses how the Justice Building Blog broke a fascinating story about the removal of a state prosecutor from a homicide investigation. Will have more soon.... In the meantime, send me an email if you know of something interesting happening in the new federal courthouse!