Too bad they didn't have Facebook when I was in highschool

Okay, so SFL got us hooked on this Scribd thing, so here goes. Judge Garber issued this very interesting order in a case involving a student who was suspended for starting a Facebook page about the "worst teacher [she] ever met!" The student sued, with the help of the ACLU, saying that she shouldn't have been suspended for exercising her First Amendment rights. The principal filed a motion to dismiss, which Judge Garber denied (for the most part). The student's suit can proceed:

Facebook Order
UPDATE -- The Herald weighs in here:

A student who set up a Facebook page to complain about her teacher -- and was later suspended -- had every right to do so under the First Amendment, a federal magistrate has ruled.

The ruling not only allows Katherine ``Katie'' Evans' suit against the principal to move forward, it could set a precedent in cases involving speech and social networking on the Internet, experts say.

The courts are in the early stages of exploring the limits of free speech within social networking, said Howard Simon, the executive director of the Florida ACLU, which filed the suit on Evans' behalf.

``It's one of the main things that we wanted to establish in this case, that the First Amendment has a life in the social networking technology as it applies to the Internet and other forms of communication,'' Simon said.

SECOND UPDATE -- And here's the NY Times:

Lawyers for Ms. Evans, 19, now a sophomore at the University of Florida, said that they were pleased by the ruling and that they hoped to bring the case to trial in the spring.
One of the lawyers, Maria Kayanan, associate legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said the judge’s decision had clearly extended the protection of First Amendment rights to online writings of a nonthreatening manner.
“This is an important victory both for Ms. Evans and Internet free speech,” Ms. Kayanan said, “because it upholds the principle that the right to freedom of speech and expression in America does not depend on the technology used to convey opinions and ideas.”

BREAKING -- Tom Raffanello acquitted -- by Judge

I'm told that in the middle of jury deliberations, visiting Judge Goldberg issued a judgment of acquittal for Tom Raffanello and his co-defendant. More to come.

UPDATE #1 -- Here's Curt Anderson from the AP on the case.

Federal Bar Judicial Reception

Good times tonight. Most of the judges and magistrates were at the Hyatt for the yearly judicial reception. Apparently before the event, Harvard Law Professors Charles Ogeltree and Alan Dershowitz (oops, apparently Dersh wasn't there) gave a talk to the judges (oops, apparently it was the clerks -- and a few judges also attended) at the courthouse.

SFLawyer has a funny post about the night. On his to do list for the evening:

Find the one judge willing to speak to me (Sam Slom?) and unleash new self-aggrandizing anecdote that reveals my wit, trial skills, wealth, humor, A-type dominance and general good taste.

Who's ready for the long weekend?

TRAFFIC!!!

Holy cow, was the traffic bad today or what?

The jury is out in the Tom Raffanello case. Here's a piece the Herald article explaining the closings:

While prosecutors charged Raffanello with trying to impede the government's case against the offshore banker, defense lawyers said their client never broke the law because all records in his office were stored electronically on a server.
``They were getting rid of junk,'' said defense lawyer Edward Shohat on Wednesday. ``No one tried to hide anything from anybody.''
Defense lawyers also said documents were routinely shredded at Stanford's security headquarters in Fort Lauderdale because they contained sensitive information on investors and company business partners.
Miami lawyer Richard Sharpstein slammed prosecutors, saying they never inspected the computers storing the office records. ``They didn't even look at what they have,'' he said.
Though Judge Richard W. Goldberg called the government's evidence in the case ``slim,'' he nevertheless allowed the case to go the jury.
Raffanello, wearing the pin of his former DEA agency in his lapel, was surrounded by a cadre of lawyers and former federal agents who showed up to support the veteran narcotics investigator who once led cases against Panama strongman Manuel Noriega and Medellín cartel kingpin Fabio Ochoa.
Prosecutors painted a vastly different portrait of the former lawman, saying he was corrupted by his job as security chief for one of the richest men in the world, and blatantly broke the law by destroying records -- despite a federal investigation.
Raffanello was well aware of an order from the receiver not to destroy any documents when he told Perraud to call in a shredding company, prosecutors said, adding that Raffanello was not in a position to decide which records the government should get.
``Their mantra was not to cooperate, but to frustrate,'' charged prosecutor Jack Patrick, saying Raffanello had destroyed important records and then tried ``to find a reason to justify it.''

Raffanello Trial: Charges against former DEA chief survive – for now

That's the headline from the DBR:

The defense in Miami maintains the destruction of papers in a 95-gallon bin was part of a routine shredding schedule and that the documents were duplicated on the firm’s computer servers. “The evidence is at best thin,” said visiting Judge Richard Goldberg. He said he would let the trial go forward but may reconsider the request for a directed verdict of acquittal later. The prosecution rested Monday, and the defense called its first witness late this morning. Sitting at the defense table were prominent Miami criminal defense attorneys Richard Sharpstein and Ed Shohat, who jointly argued the motion, as well as former Miami U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey and Jane Moscowitz. Scheduled character witnesses are former Miami U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis and Michael “Pat” Sullivan, deposed Panamanian ruler Manuel Noriega’s lead prosecutor.