Muzzled

No more Pit Bull ads. Ft. Lauderdale lawyers John Pape and Marc Chandler were reprimanded and ordered to attend advertising classes for their infamous pit bull ads (and 1800pitbull #). Here's the AP article and here's the opinion.

Opening statements in Masferrer

Apparently they picked the jury with blazing speed in the Hamilton Bank trial -- opening statements were yesterday. The Miami Herald covers it here. AUSA Ben Greenberg started out his opening, arguing: ''This case is about Eduardo Masferrer's lies and his greed." Howard Srebnick countered, "'This is a case about one man, one citizen disagreeing with his government. . . He disagrees with his government's accounting rules."

Supreme Court denies cert in voting case

The Supreme Court denied cert today in the case involving Florida's lifetime ban on voting rights for convicted felons. Here's the AP story from the Sun-Sentinel. More coverage at Scotusblog.

Hamilton Bank trial to start

Former Hamilton Bank chief executive Eduardo Masferrer's criminal trial starts Monday in front of Judge Moore. He is defended by Howard and Scott Srebnick. The case was transferred from Judge King (pursuant to a secret policy manual) when he recused himself from all criminal cases, which I discussed here.

UPDATE 11/14 -- Speaking of secrecy, the Daily Business Review's cover story today is "Secrecy Slapdown." It discusses in great detail the secret docket problems of this District and the recent Ochoa decision telling the court not to engage in secrecy any longer. I'm trying to get a working link to the article (here it is)... In the meantime, here's the intro:

Last month, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals chastised judges of the Southern District of Florida for completely hiding cases from public view by placing the cases on a secret court docket. “We … exercise our supervisory authority to remind the district court that it cannot employ the secret docketing procedures that we explicitly found unconstitutional,” the panel said in its unusual reprimand. Defense attorneys, civil liberties groups and the news media celebrated the panel’s words, which came in the course of upholding a drug lord’s conviction and sentence of more than 30 years in prison. Now, one of the South Florida federal judges who agreed to hide a case admits that she made a mistake and vows never to do it again. “Judges are not gods,” U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz, a seven-year veteran of the federal bench, said in an interview. “Like any human being, we make mistakes. When your mistake is pointed out, you reconsider your action and you promptly make a correction.”

JNC interview

I've just been absolutely swamped lately. I was in Savannah the last two days, and at the end of the month I'm starting my own law practice downtown and trying to get that up and running is insane... But I did have a minute to read a great article in the DBR today (by Julie Kay) about the JNC interview process. The article makes it seem like Acosta got some tough questions. Most believe that he is a shoo-in for the position. The article also mentions that many were disappointed that neither of the two women applicants made the final cut. Here is one snippet from the article:

The commission spent nearly an hour grilling Acosta, who is considered by some a shoo-in for the post due to his Bush administration connections. “An issue that is still hanging out there is your lack of trial experience,” said Scott Srebnick, a Miami criminal defense attorney. “In terms of street credibility, will you be able to make the tough decisions? If you decline a case an agency has been working on for awhile … will the agents think, ‘What does he know, he hasn’t really tried any cases?’ ” Acosta replied that as head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division since 2003, he took on some of the hardest cases. “I haven’t had any pushback from law enforcement,” he said. “Look, the issue of credibility has come up before,” he said. “One-third of all U.S. attorneys across the country have no trial experience. At the end of the day, it’s not just about what your experience is but whether you can sit across the table and know the facts and have the confidence to say, ‘Look, I disagree,’ or ‘Look, this is the argument we need to make.’ ” “The U.S. attorney’s office runs itself,” he added.

JNC recommendations for U.S. Attorney

The JNC sent up three names for U.S. Attorney -- Alex Acosta, Tom Mulvihill, and Ed Nucci.

More en banc coverage

Today, Carl Jones of the Daily Business Review covers the 11th Circuit's decision to rehear en banc the Cuban Spy case. I'm quoted in the article:

Miami criminal defense attorney David Oscar Markus, who’s not involved in the Cuban spy case, said the 11th Circuit doesn’t often grant en banc review of a panel decision. “It’s very rare,” he said. “If it happens a couple of times a year, it’s a lot. But you know what? It was very rare what the panel did.” Markus said there are two possible reasons why the court granted en banc review. “One possibility is they have taken the case to show unity from the court [in overturning the convictions and ordering a new trial],” Markus said. “The other possibility is the rest of the court just disagrees [with the panel] and wants to quickly get rid of this opinion.” Markus noted that the August panel ruling was the first known case of an appellate court overturning a district court judge on a venue question. Another unusual aspect of the case, he said, is that it typically takes months for the full circuit court to decide to rehear a panel decision. The speed with which the court granted en banc review, just weeks after Acosta’s request, took almost everyone by surprise. “Boom, the opinion
came out, the government asked for review, and review was granted almost immediately, which I think does not bode well for defenders of the opinion,” Markus said. No more than two of the judges on the original panel will be able to rehear the case and defend it, Markus said. Judge Birch was the only active member of the 11th Circuit to decide the original case, while Judge Kravitch has the option to take part in the en banc review. Judge Oakes was sitting by designation. Markus said if Judge Kravitch chooses not to participate, a single judge from the original panel “puts a greater onus on Judge Birch to get a consensus on the court.”

The next U.S. Attorney for the district will be...

...one of the six individuals detailed in this Herald article by Jay Weaver. Those are: Alex Acosta, Ken Blanco, Tom Mulvihill, Susan Tarbe, Ed Nucci, and Cynthia Hawkins. Most say that it's hard to imagine that it won't be Acosta, especially after he was named on an interim basis. But initially there was a lot of talk that the job was Tarbe's. I haven't heard anything lately. Anyone else? I wrote on this topic a while ago here.