Larry Handfield pleads guilty to tax fraud

David Ovalle has the story here detailing the plea in which Handfield will serve one year probation:

Prominent Miami criminal defense attorney Larry Handfield, the former chairman of the Public Health Trust, Jackson Health System’s governing board, has quietly pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns.
The criminal conviction is a surprising chapter in the career of Handfield, 57, one of South Florida’s most prominent African-American lawyers and civic leaders.
Handfield will serve 12 months of probation after he pleaded guilty late last month in Miami federal court to two misdemeanor tax-evasion charges. He must repay $78,842 in restitution to the government.
He is now facing an inquiry from the Florida Bar, which regulates the state’s lawyers.
“This was a seven-year-old matter, and when it was brought to my attention, I fully cooperated with the government and the matter was resolved with a misdemeanor,” Handfield said Monday.
Handfield said he has already paid the government the money and he expects his probation to be terminated by the end of the month.
Handfield, a Miami native, is well known in South Florida legal circles. Over the years, governors have appointed Handfield to several statewide commissions — including Florida’s Commission on Ethics.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/12/23/3834811/prominent-miami-attorney-larry.html#storylink=cpy

Happy Festivus!

Even Florida has a Festivus pole:

  A Nativity scene, a Festivus pole and a chair holding fake pasta with eyeballs and an accompanying “provHerb” from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster have been allowed to be shown as displays at the Florida Capitol.
However, the officials making the decisions are drawing the line with Satan.
The Department of Management Services emailed The Satanic Temple on Wednesday, telling the group its proposed display of an angel falling from heaven into an open fire was “grossly offensive.”

Here's a picture of Chaz Stevens and his Festivus pole in the Florida Capitol:

 

Here's a picture of the rejected satanic display:

 

And the spaghetti display, which was allowed (the sign says “A closed mouth catches no noodly appendages. – ProvHerbs 3:27.”):

:

 

Judge Middlebrooks dismisses Spence-Jones lawsuit

Hot off the presses, here's the 64-page order:

Middlebrooks Order Dismissing Spence Jones

Julie Carnes nominated to the 11th Circuit

From the AP:

President Barack Obama has nominated a federal judge from Atlanta to serve in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
White House officials said in a statement Thursday that U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Georgia, Julie E. Carnes, has been nominated to serve in the court of appeals.
Officials say Carnes has served as a federal judge in Georgia since 1992, and has been the District Court's chief judge since 2009.
Officials say Carnes was born and raised in Atlanta, graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1975, and served on the editorial board of the Georgia Law Review.
White House officials say Carnes began her legal career as a clerk for a U.S. Court of Appeals judge in 1975.

Some additional facts:  She was an AUSA before becoming a judge.  She was nominated by President Bush to the district court.  She clerked on the 5th Circuit (Lewis Morgan) and also served on the Sentencing Commission. 

Nice appellate win for the Federal Defenders

It's not too often that the 11th Circuit sides with the defendant in an appeal involving the 4th Amendment.  But Judges Tjoflat, Pryor, and Fay issued United States v. Timmann yesterday, which discusses the emergency aid and protective sweep exceptions to the warrant requirement.  Here's one excerpt:

The situation the officers confronted in the instant case bears none of these indicia of an urgent, ongoing emergency. The officers here did not receive an emergency report regarding an ongoing disturbance, but rather a service call regarding what appeared to be a bullet hole, which circumstances known to the officers indicated had been made at least 39 hours prior to when the officers made entry.5
When Officer Martin first arrived at the apartment building, she did not encounter a tumultuous scene, nor were the officers met with chaos when they returned to the building the next day. The officers observed no violent behavior, nor did they see or hear evidence that a fight had taken place or that anyone had been injured, other than finding a single bullet hole.

Nor did the officers have any information that would lead them to suspect that Timmann might be suicidal, or that he might be home (in fact, the absence of his work vehicle indicated that he was likely not at home). Considering the totality of the circumstances, it was not reasonable for the officers to believe that someone inside Timmann’s apartment was in danger and in need of immediate aid. Therefore, we find that the District Court erred in holding that the emergency aid exception justified the officers’ warrantless entry into Timmann’s apartment.

Congratulations to AFPD Brenda Bryn for the appellate victory and AFPD Chantel Doakes for preserving the issue in the trial court.