Shameful

Bloomberg has a story today about our country's incarceration rates.  It's jaw-dropping.  We jail more people than any other country... by a lot.  Out of every 100,000 citizens, we jail 730.  To give some perspective, Cuba and Russia are right around 500.  England is about 150.  And how about prisons:

“The model is, if you build it they will come,” said Daniel D’Amico, a professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans. “Because we have all these prisons and all of these other resources funneled into our criminal justice system, we have this ability to enforce things that would otherwise be unenforceable.”
“That includes the drug war, but it’s also including everything from the Martha Stewart types to immigration policies,” D’Amico said. “The scope of things that are now criminal in corporate law is exponentially higher than it was merely twenty years ago.”
The U.S. also leads the world in the number of prisons in operation at 4,575, more than four times the number of second- place Russia at 1,029. U.S. states spent $52 billion to construct and operate those prisons in 2011, more than quadruple the $12 billion spent in 1987, according to data from the Pew Center on the States. 

Just insane.  We have over 2.2 million people in prison.  That's about the size of Houston.  I hope there is a question about this at the debate tonight.

"The result is that we will end up with a bench populated only by former state court judges and lawyers from government or academia."

That's David Mandel in this article by John Pacenti about the Federal JNC and the process of picking federal judges.  He makes a point.  None of the the last three judges appointed (or the current one being vetted) come from private practice.  Do you think this is a problem?

Is it a problem that private practitioners are not applying to the federal bench?
	Yes, we need judges from all different areas
	Yes, we need judges who remember what it's like to run a practice
	Yes, government lawyers and state judges get "Robe-itis" too easily
	No, government lawyers and state judges are dedicated public servants and are extremely qualified
	No, if private practitioners want to apply, there is nothing stopping them
pollcode.com free polls

Here's the intro from the article:

What do Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Chief U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno and former U.S. Attorney Roberto Martinez have in common? They were all political footballs when their nominations were caught between the administrations of President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clinton. The nominations of Roberts to U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Moreno to the Eleventh Circuit expired, and Martinez found himself out of a job at the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami. The lapsed nominations were far from career killers. Roberts is now, of course, the head of the U.S. Supreme Court, Moreno runs federal courts in the Southern District of Florida, and Martinez went into private practice where he has built a reputation as one of the most respected legal minds in South Florida. But becoming a federal judge, U.S. attorney or federal marshal can be tricky and political. And it all starts with the Federal Judicial Nominating Commission. Martinez was joined by fellow former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey and Tew Cardenas partner Thomas Schultz, a former JNC chairman, for a panel discussion titled “Narrowing the Field” on the commission at a meeting of the South Florida chapter of the Federal Bar Association. They said politics plays a big role in the nominating process but not at the commission level. Martinez, Schultz and Coffey have held leadership positions on the commission at one time or another. Coffey currently chairs the 21-member Southern District Conference. The panel’s consensus was that Florida led the way nationally in trying to take politics out of the task of narrowing the field of applicants for Florida’s senators to consider. Each conference recommends up to four applicants to the senators, who make a recommendation to the White House.

Congrats to Bill Matthewman

Friday news and notes

Today is Judge William Matthewman's investiture at 12:30. Love Judge Matthewman, but 12:30? That's a rough time for an event. What about lunch?

See Rumpole, you aren't the only one with long lines at the courthouse. This was taken this morning:

What about the debates last night? Good stuff. Joe Biden came out swinging and was strong on substance. But what about all the smiling and facial expressions?

We are taught as lawyers to keep a poker face and we tell our clients the same thing. But is that the best advice? Should we be showing emotion in court in front of the jury?

Joe Biden's facial expressions during the debate were:
	distracting
	dislikable
	likable
	a good way to show emotion
pollcode.com free polls

Presidential Thursday

President Obama is in town today and will be speaking at UM around 3:30 and then on Brickell around 5.  Traffic is going to be an absolute nightmare.  Maybe this is one of those days (take a deep breath Tannebaum) that you want to work out of the Starbucks close to home. 

Should be a fun night with the VP debate.  Ryan vs. Biden should have some fireworks...

Meantime, Justice Ginsburg had this crazy party while her 120-year old parents were away:

With her parents leaving town to celebrate their 98th wedding anniversary, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made plans Friday for a major house party, inviting all her Supreme Court colleagues to what she promised would be “a classic Ginsburg throwdown.”
Ginsburg, a Clinton appointee who traditionally votes with the court’s liberal wing and whose 120-year-old parents explicitly told her not to have any friends over, confirmed that she waited until her mother and father had pulled out of the driveway before texting “it’s on” to her fellow justices and telling them to “get ready to drink [their] asses off.”
“My dad is seriously crazy if he thinks I’m not going to throw an epic rager when I have the house to myself all weekend,” said Ginsburg, whose father, a furrier and haberdasher by trade, reportedly wrote down the mileage on his 1928 Ford Model A so he would know if his daughter took it out for a spin. “As far as I’m concerned, when the cats are away, the mice will play.”
“Besides, I’m 79,” she continued as she prepared a tray of Jell-O shots using the mix favored by her supercentenarian mother for its softness on her toothless gums. “They can’t tell me what to do anymore.”
According to sources, Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito, Stephen Breyer, and Clarence Thomas arrived first, catching a ride to the party in the open-backed Jeep Wrangler of Chief Justice John Roberts, who had earlier persuaded his older sister Kathy to buy beer. Justices Sotomayor and Kagan showed up shortly thereafter, having taken longer than expected to dupe their parents into thinking they were sleeping over at each other’s houses.

 Yes, that's from the Onion....