In support of Judge Rakoff

Judge John L. Kane has now joined Judge Rakoff in calling for reform in the criminal justice system because too many innocent people are pleading guilty.  From the conclusion to Kane's essay in the Marshall Project:

Sentencing should never be easy. It should never be cryptic and it should never be mechanistic, the product of senselessly following a matrix. A judge’s job is to synthesize and harmonize the competing narratives of the persons involved in the events of the crime with the specific intent of inclusiveness. That job stands in stark contrast to the mentality of the Sentencing Guidelines when they are mandatory. If, indeed, a judge now is again required by Supreme Court precedent never to impose a sentence he or she does not believe in, the chances of an innocent person pleading guilty and sentenced accordingly will be drastically diminished.
In this way the Supreme Court, through its recent rulings inUnited States v. Booker and Gall v. United States, has restored over the past decade a meaningful and responsible role to judges at sentencing. It is no longer acceptable for them to be wooden bureaucrats and they must craft sentences appropriate to the circumstances of the case. The searching inquiry required should enable the judge to vacate a coerced plea or one that is made as the lesser of evils. My question then is this: am I and my fellow jurists doing enough each day to implement this mandate, to replace the mindless practice of assembly-line plea bargaining with a process that is based on integrity and that aspires to justice rather than succumbs to the cynicism of convenience?
It is perhaps helpful to think of sentencing in terms of the classical Greek word for “injustice.” The literal translation is “out of balance.” Doing justice is an act of restoring balance. Human nature discourages venturing into this area without a template that allows one to fill in the blanks — and so to follow the rote responses of bureaucracy. But putting the thumb of convenience on the scales of justice is precisely what causes the innocent to plead guilty. It is the inevitable result of a laconic adherence to a thoughtless and passionless process. And we all can do something more about it.

Happy FESTIVUS for the rest of us

An early Christmas present for Pizzi

Wow, the Supreme Court ruled for Michael Pizzi saying that the Governor should revoke his suspension.  But it's not altogether clear whether that means he is going to be mayor again.  From the Miami Herald:

“This is huge, man. This is huge. I won,” Pizzi said in a telephone interview from his car after learning of the court’s decision. “This is the best Christmas present the Pizzi family and the people of Miami Lakes and everyone who cares about the rule of law could ever get.”

The developments don’t guarantee Pizzi’s return to office and only promise more fireworks at Miami Lakes Town Hall, which has seen more than its share of excitement since Pizzi was removed by Scott in August 2013.

Town Attorney Raul Gastesi maintained Monday before Scott revoked the suspension that Miami Lakes has a mayor — Slaton — and stressed that the court had not ordered returning Pizzi to office.

In another only-in-Miami story, one of the Cuban spies that was sent back to Cuba returned to find his wife very pregnant -- BY HIM!  Apparently he was permitted to send his sperm to Cuba months ago as part of the ongoing negotiations.  I kid you not:

 The mystery of that pregnancy emerged Monday, and it will go down in history books as one of the most bizarre subplots in the annals of U.S. diplomacy.

Turns out that Hernández already knew that his 44-year-old wife, Adriana Pérez, was pregnant, and that he is the father, even though he was never physically close to her during his incarceration.

The pregnancy came through artificial insemination, and it was a side deal that paved the way for the much larger and sweeping agreement Wednesday in which Cuba and the United States announced the renewal of diplomatic relations, broken more than half a century ago. Hernández and two other convicted Cuban spies went free as part of the deal.

Call it diplomacy via paternity.

It came about through the office of Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, who has campaigned for years to restore relations with Cuba. In 2010, Leahy began efforts to persuade Cuba to ease up on the harsh conditions imposed on a jailed American in Havana, Alan Gross, a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

In seeking better conditions for Gross, Leahy’s office discovered that Hernández’s wife back in Havana, who reportedly also is an intelligence officer, was hearing the ticking of her biological clock ever louder and was desperate to become pregnant. U.S. officials now say they facilitated the transfer of Hernández’s sperm from the U.S. to the Cuban capital to help improve conditions for Gross, who regained his freedom Wednesday as well and is back in the United States.

“We can confirm the United States facilitated Mrs. Hernández’s request to have a baby with her husband,” said Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesman for the Justice Department. “The request was passed along by Sen. Leahy, who was seeking to improve the conditions for Mr. Gross while he was imprisoned in Cuba.”

Your Monday Morning moment of Zen

11th Circuit rules for Cheney Mason

This is a pretty interesting case:

This case involves a law student’s efforts to form a contract by accepting a “million-dollar challenge” that a lawyer extended on national television while representing a client accused of murder. Since we find that the challenge did not give rise to an enforceable unilateral contract, we hold that the district court properly entered summary judgment for the lawyer and his law firm, Defendants-Appellees James Cheney Mason (Mason) and J. Cheney Mason, P.A., with regard to the breach-of-contract claim brought by the law student, Plaintiff-Appellant Dustin S. Kolodziej.
...
The district court granted summary judgment on two grounds: first, Kolodziej was unaware of the unedited Mason interview at the time he attempted to perform the challenge, and thus he could not accept an offer he did not know existed; second, the challenge in the unedited interview was unambiguously directed to the prosecution only, and thus Kolodziej could not accept an offer not open to him. The district court declined to address the arguments that Mason’s challenge was not a serious offer and that, in any event, Kolodziej did not adequately perform the challenge. This appeal ensued.

The conclusion:

Just as people are free to contract, they are also free from contract, and we find it neither prudent nor permissible to impose contractual liability for offhand remarks or grandstanding. Nor would it be advisable to scrutinize a defense attorney’s hyperbolic commentary for a hidden contractual agenda, particularly when that commentary concerns the substantial protections in place for criminal defendants. Having considered the content of Mason’s statements, the context in which they were made, and the conduct of the parties, we do not find it reasonable to conclude that Mason assented to enter into a contract with anyone for one million dollars. We affirm the district court’s judgment in favor of Mason and J. Cheney Mason, P.A.