CONGRATS TO WILLY FERRER

Jay Weaver is reporting that the White House has officially nominated Wilfredo Ferrer to be U.S. Attorney of the District:

His résumé was an easy sell: He is a one-time federal prosecutor in Miami and is currently chief of Miami-Dade County's federal litigation section. He's also the former deputy chief of staff to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno.
The son of Cuban immigrants also was valedictorian at Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High, first in his class at the University of Miami, and president of his class at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
"First of all, he understood better than anybody I've worked with how the federal government works with local and state governments, " Reno said in an earlier interview. "If I wanted to write the book about how to be the U.S. attorney, Willy would be one of my models."
If confirmed by the Senate, Ferrer would replace U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sloman. Ferrer, 43, married with two sons, would be the fourth lawyer of Cuban descent to fill the prominent job -- but the first appointed by a Democratic president.

Congrats to Willy! Hopefully Kathy Williams' nomination will come soon!

"On October 4, 2010, Elena Kagan Will Ask Her First Question As A Supreme Court Justice"

That's Tom Goldstein over at ScotusBlog, predicting that Justice Stevens will retire and that SG Kagan will take his place. The whole thing is worth a read, but here's the conclusion:

So, here is how I expect the next few months to play out. In the spring, Justice Stevens will announce his retirement. In May or June, the President will nominate Elena Kagan. Explaining that her paper record is a thimble-full of Sonia Sotomayor’s, Senator Leahy will schedule hearings and Senator Reid will schedule a floor vote before the summer recess. The only theme that will give opponents any success is that she fails to express her views on anything. She will then be confirmed by a vote of 61 to 39. Ok, that last prediction about the exact vote could be off by a bit, but I feel pretty confident about everything else.

Lew Freeman who?

Lew Freeman finally surrendered today on an information, charging one 20 year count. The best thing that ever happened to Freeman is Scott Rothstein. No one seems to care about this case anymore even though Freeman was as well known as Rothstein. But the losses in this case are only 2.6 million instead of a billion...

Sidney Aronovitz Courthouse

The naming ceremony for the federal courthouse in Key West is this morning. It will now be called the Sidney Aronovitz courthouse. Here's the Wiki entry for Judge Aronovitz, who was born in Key West.

Update: Here's two photos from the event from a tipster:

"The great Sony PlayStation caper"

That's the quotable Mike Tein on the new indictment accusing his client and others of exporting video games and other electronic products to a shopping mall in Paraguay that allegedly served as a front to finance the terrorist group Hezbollah. Here's the Herald article and more Mike Tein quotes:

"Believe it or not, this indictment actually charges these gentleman with supporting Hezbollah by shipping them Sony PlayStations,'' Tein said. "I guess that's a new type of weapon of mass destruction.''