Moving day...

Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving weekend. The weather in Miami was 75 and sunny all weekend. Today is my first day at the new office, in the Alfred I. duPont Building. In a couple hours I'm taking off to Savannah on business and won't be back until Thursday. I'll do my best to post while I'm there and if not, my co-blogger -- Anonymous -- promises to post.

Bench trial = $60 million

After a bench trial, Judge Gonzalez awarded $60.9 million to a couple whose son suffered severe brain damage when he was born in a Jacksonville Navy hospital two years ago. It is the largest verdict ever under the Federal Tort Claims Act. (I wonder if it is the largest bench trial verdict.)

A couple of interesting points -- first, the case was originally assigned to Judge Graham who had to transfer the case because of Wilma. Second, the law has changed since the filing of the suit so that damages are now capped at $1 million. More coverage here and here. Plaintiffs lawyers were Ervin Gonzalez and Deborah Gander.

Good article on Padilla...

... can be read here on law.com (by Carl Jones).

Marcia Cooke in the spotlight

I've received a bunch of emails from out-of-towners asking about Judge Cooke, the newest judge in this District, and drawing interest because she is the judge assigned to Jose Padilla's case. One of the comments asks whether the government was "judge-shopping" and others like Prof. Froomkin have flat out said that the government specifically selected Judge Cooke by adding Padilla to a superceding indictment. Perhaps DOJ looked at Judge Cooke's resume and saw that she was a Bush appointee and a former AUSA and thought that she would be a push-over for the feds. Froomkin (who I doubt has ever appeared before her) goes so far as to say "the government should not expect a hostile bench." If this is what the government thought, it is dead wrong. Judge Cooke -- to put it in Chief Justice Roberts' words -- calls a strike a strike and a ball a ball, and will not be pushed around by the government. She is known in this community as a fair judge who listens carefully to both sides and calls it right down the middle. She is well liked by criminal defense attorneys and prosecutors alike. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have tried two lengthy trials in front of Judge Cooke.) In addition, I have posted about this case pre-Padilla here.

The interesting aspect of the case for me is that it shows true weakness by the President. Perhaps the administration lost confidence in its legal arguments due to the Supreme Court next week. Combine this with the recent polls and perhaps the feds figured this was an easy out. We'll see...

On a separate note, isn't Miami always the center of this poltically charged stuff -- Elian, Bush v. Gore, Padilla, and so on. Finally, via How Appealing: "Prepared Remarks of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales at the Press Conference Regarding the Indictment of Jose Padilla": You can access them online here, while the indictment itself can be viewed at this link. And the memorandum from President Bush authorizing the transfer of Jose Padilla from the control of the U.S. Military to the control of the U.S. Department of Justice is here.

Jose Padilla charged in Miami

Jose Padilla, the so-called "dirty bomber", has been charged in a 11 count indictment in Miami. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez is expected to announce the charges during an 11 a.m. ET news conference.

As you may recall, Padilla had filed a cert petition with the Supreme Court seeking review of the question of whether "the President has the power to seize American citizens in civilian settings on American soil and subject them to indefinite military detention without criminal charge or trial."

A response to the petition from the Justice Department was due next Monday. Interesting timing.

UPDATE (by DOM)-- There's lots to read about this interesting case. Check out ScotusBlog for detailed analysis. Also, in response to the comment, Judge Cooke is handling the case. Here is the indictment. I know Ken Swartz represents one of the co-defendants named Hassoun. I'm not sure if anyone has entered an appearance for Padilla yet. Anyone?

Friends of Luis Posada Carriles denied bond

Magistrate Judge Andrea Simonton denied bond to Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat (allies of Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles) because "their mere possession of automatic weapons, grenades and rounds of ammunition amounted to a crime of violence and posed a a danger to the community." More in the Herald article here and the Sun-Sentinel here. AUSA is Randy Hummel and defense attorneys are Dennis Kainen and Kendal Coffey.

News and notes

So I'm sitting here waiting for Bellsouth to install my new phone lines at the new office and I found a computer connected to the internet... Interesting stories today.

First is the DBR article about the internal district rules that were made public. Here's the intro to the article: "The so-called secret rules that federal judges in the Southern District of Florida have been operating by for more than a decade are no longer secret. Under pressure from defense attorneys and the Federal Public Defender Office after an article about the rules was published in the Daily Business Review, the district court in Miami has for the first time made public its internal operating procedures manual. The manual, signed by Chief Judge William J. Zloch Nov. 14, is available for viewing on the court’s Web site. The 20-page manual lays out procedures for how the federal judges assign and reassign cases, how new judges receive cases, jury instructions and magistrate assignments. It also details special powers of the chief judge, which include appointing the chief bankruptcy judge and chief magistrate judge, approving all requests for annual and sick leaves, approving all new courthouse construction projects and architectural plans and reviewing all complaints of judicial misconduct."

Also today's Miami Herald details the sentencing of Haitian informer, Oriel Jean, who got a reduction for his cooperation: "Oriel Jean, the former security chief for ex-President of Haiti Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was sentenced Friday to just three years in prison for his role in helping drug traffickers move tons of Colombian cocaine through Haiti to the United States.
With good reason: The 40-year-old defendant, held in custody since March 2004, gave federal investigators invaluable information on Haiti's drug underworld and the location of fugitives -- and even continued to testify after a cocaine smuggler threatened his life. Indeed, Jean proved to be the prosecution's star witness. At his sentencing hearing in Miami last week, U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez paid Jean a compliment, praising his ''good work'' for the government. The judge then gave him half of the six-year sentence he otherwise would have received for his money-laundering plea deal."

Secret rules no longer secret

A while ago I posted about the "secret" local rules that only the judges had access to. Those rules are now public and available on the court's website dubbed "2006 Internal Operating Procedures."