Roy Altman speaks for new judges at SCOTUS

Very cool honor for Judge Altman who spoke to and on behalf of the new judges (class of '19).  Justice Thomas spoke for the Court, and Justices Sotomayor, Alito, and Kavanaugh attended. Here are some pictures:

Elections matter...

...especially for the Supreme Court.

This week, in a 5-4 opinion, the Court found that a Border Patrol Agent cannot be sued for shooting a teenager from Mexico in the face.

Immune.

Insane.

Inhumane.

And of course it’s Alito writing the opinion. Totally on brand.

The opinion is Hernandez v. Mesa, available here.

The holding in Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents does not extend to claims based on a cross-border shooting.

Justices Thomas and Gorsuch say in a concurrence that they would do away with Bivens altogether!

Alito really is the most partisan Justice we have.

And it’s not even close.

Don’t @ me.

Thank goodness for Justice Ginsburg who writes the dissent and explains that allowing the suit to go forward would not impact national security or any other “concern” that the majority has.

It's Judge Newsom, not Newsome

Judge Newsom has quickly become known as one of the more entertaining writers on the 11th Circuit.  He even makes IP litigation fun.  From the intro:

Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club, a residential community in Boca Raton, Florida, is home to multimillion-dollar mansions, a championship golf course, and even a private marina. It’s also home, as it turns out, to the contentious real-estate rivalry that spawned this trademark litigation.
Royal Palm Properties, a real-estate broker whose specialty is buying and selling homes in Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club, sued its competitor, Pink Palm Properties, for infringing its registered service mark on the phrase “Royal Palm Properties.” Pink Palm Properties counterclaimed, challenging the mark’s validity. A jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida upheld Royal Palm Properties’ mark but found that Pink Palm Properties hadn’t infringed it. The district court, though, overturned the verdict in part, granting Pink Palm Properties’ renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law and ordering the cancellation of Royal Palm Properties’ mark. The question before us is whether the district court correctly flipped the jury’s verdict and granted judgment as a matter of law on Pink Palm Properties’ trademark-invalidation counterclaim.

We hold that the district court erred. To be entitled to judgment as a matter of law, Pink Palm Properties would have had to make quite the showing at trial—such that no reasonable jury could have found that it failed to prove grounds for cancelling Royal Palm Properties’ mark. Based on our careful review of the record, we conclude that Pink Palm Properties didn’t meet this high bar. On neither of its two grounds for cancellation—that the “Royal Palm Properties” mark (1) is not “distinctive” and (2) is “confusingly similar” to previously registered marks—did Pink Palm Properties prove, decisively, that it had won the day. We therefore reverse the district court’s decision to overturn the jury’s verdict and invalidate Royal Palm Properties’ service mark.

I enjoyed this discussion and the footnote especially:*

Pink Palm Properties certainly satisfied the first two Coach House requirements. The “Royal Palm Properties” mark clearly “resembles” the “Royale Palms” marks—the spelling of the dominant words is nearly identical8—and the “Royale Palms” marks were registered several years before the “Royal Palm Properties” mark.

8.Welcome to the author’s life. Compare “Newsom” with “Newsome.”

* Welcome to this author's life as well.  Compare "Markus" with "Marcus."

Stone sentenced to 40 months

The criminal justice world, as well as the political world, are all talking about the Roger Stone sentence.  40 months...

Rumpole has a nice post about it here, calling the sentence too harsh.  He's right of course.  The problem is that so many people see it as lenient because the sentence was below the Sentencing Guidelines.  And that's the problem.  Over 3 years (YEARS!) in prison for a first-time non-violent and elderly offender is not lenient by any stretch.

We've become so accustomed to the Sentencing Guidelines that people -- including judges -- see downward variances as some sort of break.  But once we realize that the guidelines are just made up numbers, which are not based on anything, and that they have completely warped our system into jailing more people for longer amounts of time than any other country in the world, then we will see that downward variances are no break and 3+ years is lenient. 

Maybe we should not call them "downward variances."  That implies that the judge should start off with the guidelines.  Any ideas?

Trump commutes sentence of Judith Negron

In one of the worst examples of the trial tax in this District and around the country, Judith Negron -- a first-time non-violent offender -- was sentenced to 35 years (35 years!!!) in prison for Medicare fraud.  President Trump commuted her sentence yesterday to time served (8 years).  Most people are asking what her connection is to the President, and that's the problem with his commutations.  They are being viewed as individual driven instead of being driven by the unfairness of the system (which is the same criticism of his Stone tweets).  I just wish Trump would use this opportunity to grant more commutations and make some broader statements about the issues with our system.  Let's fix the trial tax and the Sentencing Guidelines.

Here's the WH press release on Negron:

Judith Negron is a 48-year-old wife and mother who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for her role as a minority-owner of a healthcare company engaged in a scheme to defraud the Federal Government.  Ms. Negron has served 8 years of her sentence and has spent this time working to improve her life and the lives of her fellow inmates.  Her prison warden and her counselor have written letters in support of clemency.  According to her warden, Ms. Negron “has always shown herself to be a model inmate who works extremely well with others and has established a good working relationship with staff and inmates.”  This grant of clemency is supported by the Clemency for All Non-Violent Drug Offenders Foundation, Dan Schneider, Matt Whitaker, Adam Brandon, Kevin Roberts, Brett Tolman, John Hostettler, and Alice Johnson, among others.