Happy 12th Birthday to the Southern District of Florida Blog

Happy 12th Birthday to the Southern District of Florida Blog!

Twelve years ago in 2005, on the July 4 weekend, I started this blog and it's been a fun run of over 3,200 posts and over 5 million page views.

To put the 12 years in perspective:

The Wilkie Ferguson courthouse was not yet open.
Judge Zloch was Chief Judge of the District.
Mel Martinez was one of our Senators.
Alex Acosta had just been named Acting U.S. Attorney.
The Supreme Court had five different Justices than today: Rehnquist, Scalia, Stevens, Souter and O'Connor.
There was no Twitter.
My firm had one lawyer, me (it now has 5).
I had one daughter (I now have 3).
My commute was 20 minutes (it's now 45).
We still don't have a Floridian serving on the Supreme Court, which was the very first post!

Thanks again to all of you for reading and for the tips.  I still very much enjoy keeping tabs on the most interesting and exciting District in the country.

Top anticorruption prosecutor in Colombia arrested for ...

The top anticorruption prosecutor in Colombia was arrested for ...

you guessed it, corruption.

And of course there is Miami connection.  From the NY Times:

Colombia’s top anticorruption prosecutor was arrested Tuesday in his country’s capital after Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Miami said they had recorded him in South Florida at meetings where a former Colombian governor was asked to pay bribes in exchange for favorable treatment and names of witnesses.

The arrest is a blow to Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, whose conservative critics have accused his administration of mismanagement. In April, more than 10,000 people took to the streets to protest what many say is widespread graft.

The prosecutor ensnared in the latest case, Luis Gustavo Moreno Rivera, 35, is the director of the anticorruption unit of the attorney general’s office in Colombia. Mr. Moreno was under scrutiny by federal investigators in the United States because of accusations that he planned to seek a bribe from a criminal defendant while in Miami this month to deliver an anticorruption presentation to the Internal Revenue Service.

“With indignation and profound institutional pain,” the Colombian attorney general’s office said Tuesday, Mr. Moreno was held after Interpol issued a red notice “for conduct that seriously damages our institutional integrity.”

Meet your newest Magistrate Judge

Congrats to Shaniek Maynard, who was sworn in this week as our newest Magistrate Judge.  She will be stationed in Ft. Pierce.

(The blog first reported on the District's choice back in March).

Last day of the Term

This is a really funny note from Justice Rehnquist to Justice Marshall, expressing end-of-school-itis.  Today is the last day of the Term, and you can get all of your news at SCOTUSblog.

Funny Things Happen At Trial

Last week, the Supreme Court gave permanent resident Jae Lee, a second chance to stay in the United States after bad advice from his lawyer led him to plead guilty, leading to Lee's deportation.  The twist here is that Lee's chances to win at trial were almost nil and therefore, he would get deported anyway.  So can a lawyer be ineffective for telling a defendant to plead guilty where the proof of guilt is overwhelming?

Chief Justice John Roberts, in his opinion for the court, said yes and explained that pleading guilty was a certain deportation and going to trial was an "almost" certain deportation.  Had Lee known this, he would have opted for trial even in the face of overwhelming odds.  I particularly liked NACDL's* amicus (available here), which explains that "funny things happen" at trial:

For all types of litigants, “there is no such thing as a sure winner . . . at trial” and “juries are inherently unpredictable.” Miller UK Ltd. v. Caterpillar, Inc., 17 F. Supp. 3d 711, 739–40 (N.D. Ill. 2014). Taking a case to trial may be more than just a “Hail Mary.” See Pet’r Br. at 30. Instead, it is a key part of criminal procedure that has nothing to do with “whimsy” or “caprice,” and everything to do with putting the government to its proof. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 695 (1984).
Funny things happen on the way to, and at, the forum.12 The annals of criminal law are replete with unexpected developments and shocking results in the courtroom. A variety of factors influence a jury ver- dict, or a non-verdict. Trial practices affect trial out- comes. For example, juror note taking practices, the jury’s ability to ask the witnesses questions, the jury’s opportunity to discuss evidence before delibera- tion, jury instructions, juror sequestration, and the length of the deliberations may affect the outcome of a trial. Paula L. Hannaford-Agor, When all eyes are watching: Trial characteristics and practices in noto- rious trials, 91 Judicature 197, 200 (2008). Mr. Lee may reasonably weigh these factors, as well as those that affect a hung jury, against accepting his plea bargain. See Paula Hannaford-Agor et al., Why Do Hung Juries Hang? 251 Nat’l Inst. Justice J. 25, 26– 27 (July 2004). Many factors influence a hung jury, separate from jury nullification—the quality of the evidence, the degree to which jurors believe that the law they are instructed to apply is fair, and the jury deliberation process. Id. For example, a survey in the early 2000s revealed “39 percent of potential white jurors and 50 percent of potential black jurors would be ’very willing’ or ‘mostly willing’ to acquit, despite evidence of guilt, in a first-time, nonviolent drug pos- session case.” DeBartolo, 790 F.3d at 779 (citing Lawrence D. Bobo and Victor Thompson, “Racialized Mass Incarceration: Poverty, Prejudice, and Punishment,” in Doing Race: 21 Essays for the 21st Century 343 (Hazel R. Markus & Paula Moya eds., 2010) (Fig. 12.9)).
 

*Full disclosure -- I am on NACDL's Supreme Court amicus committee, but did not participate in this brief.