This year we are slaves...

... next year may we be free men.

That's how Passover Sedar is concluded.

Howard Srebnick has a great quote playing off of that line for his new client, alleged Israeli crime boss Ze'ev Rosenstein: "This year a prisoner in Miami; next year a free man in Israel." U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta responds: "By prosecuting these cartels and the heads of these cartels, in one strike we clean up the streets." The case is in front of Judge Dimitroleous in Ft. Lauderdale. Here's some coverage of the case.

As for Savannah, we are having court this Saturday... No kidding.

So I again apologize for the really slow blogging.

News and notes

Still chugging along up here in Savannah...

Readers have forwarded me some interesting articles today, so here they are:

One is from the Miami Herald about Jack Abramoff's sentencing. Despite the joint motion to continue the sentencing for at least 90 days, Judge Huck only gave a two week continuance until March 29.

Then there's Julie Kay's article in the DBR today about the feud between Judges Hurley and Zloch regarding the Broward courthouse and splitting the District. Here's the intro: District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley is urging the Broward legal community to forget about establishing a new federal judicial district consisting of Broward and Palm Beach counties and to instead fight hard to keep a federal courthouse in Broward.Hurley, speaking to the Federal Bar Association’s Broward chapter late last month also disclosed for the first time that Southern District of Florida Chief Judge William J. Zloch kept his plan to close the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale secret for a full year.Hurley also said Zloch’s plan was approved by South Florida’s federal judges by a single vote and that Zloch never told judges the results of a second vote on the issue.Zloch, who does not talk to reporters, did not return a call for comment.In a December 2004 letter to the Judicial Conference of the United States first reported by the Daily Business Review on Jan. 12, 2005, Zloch laid out a plan to save more than $100 million by, among other things, consolidating court services now performed in Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Miami. Zloch suggested that a new courthouse long proposed for downtown Fort Lauderdale instead be built in West Palm Beach.Zloch also proposed consolidating budget administration services, procurement, personnel computer services functions, and the intake functions of the district and bankruptcy courts.After Zloch’s plan was disclosed by the Review, it was torpedoed by South Florida members of Congress, local elected officials and community leaders. Instead, plans are under way for a combination state and federal judicial complex in downtown Fort Lauderdale.Last May, Hurley took the unusual step of meeting with newspaper editors to denounce Zloch’s “clandestine” effort to close the courthouse. In doing so, he won the gratitude of Fort Lauderdale lawyers, who would have had to commute to Miami or West Palm Beach to conduct their federal practice.“He is a hero to us,” Fort Lauderdale lawyer Terrence Russell, a partner at Ruden McClosky and former Florida Bar president, said after Hurley’s talk at the Federal Bar’s meeting late last month.

More news to follow later tonight if I can squeeze out a couple minutes...

Thanks for Marc Seitles for his posting.

Mandatory Minimums Gone Forever - Just Kidding

Interesting piece in the Congressional Quarterly Today about James "mandatory minimum" Sensenbrenner, the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Apparently, Mr. Sensenbrenner and others on this important committee believe that mandatory minimum sentences are unduly harsh and unfair. Well, not really. Nevertheless, Mr. Sensenbrenner has "agreed to strip many of the mandatory minimum sentences aimed at curbing street gangs and violence against judges from legislation that the House is likely to consider this week." The blog Sentencing Law and Policy discusses the recent article and has an interesting series entitled "Dead Booker Walking." Check it out.

Secret Dockets

It looks like the controversy of secret dockets is becoming part of the federal judicial landscape. Jurist.law.pitt.edu has an interesting article on the issue and explains that there has been a “sharp increase” in secret proceedings in U.S. federal courts. More than five thousand criminal defendants have had their case records sealed, that is more than five times the number from 2003. Hidden federal dockets, where the existence of the case is not disclosed, is also on the rise. Interestingly, as many readers already know, the Eleventh Circuit ruled that secret dockets were unconstitutional in United States v. Ochoa. Are secret dockets the trend of the future?

Blog press

Florida Trend has an article about Florida legal blogs by Cynthia Barnett and mentions SDFLA.

(I'm home for the weekend, and then back to Savannah for trial on Monday. We've zoomed through 50 witnesses. Another 100 to go...)

Judicial Retirement

Magistrate Judge Hugh J. Morgan announced his retirement today. Judge Morgan has served six terms and has been on the bench for almost 25 years. He was the only magistrate to sit in the Florida Keys thus raising questions about whether he will be replaced or the part-time mag position in Key West will be gone forever. Anyone with inside information on what will likely happen feel free to comment.

A Bridge to Freedom?

Judge Moreno issued a landmark decision finding that 15 repatriated Cubans were removed to Cuba illegally insofar as the Coast Guard's decision to remove the refugees "was not a reasonable interpretation of present executive policy." This case highlights the debate about the "wet-foot, dry-foot policy" that allows Cubans to remain in the United States if they reach land. Cuban refugees had reached the old, unused Seven Mile Bridge but the Coast Guard determined that the bridge had been abandoned and that the Cuban refugees had not reached dry land in the United States. Judge Moreno disagreed.

The question of the day is whether Fidel Castro will allow these Cubans to return to the United States...

Read more from today's Miami Herald

It's official...

... the FDC-Miami officials have lost their marbles.

Check out the DBR article today (another Julie Kay special) about the new dress code at the prison -- FOR LAWYERS. Here's the intro:

Going to visit a client in the Federal Detention Center in Miami? Better make sure you’re wearing a conservative suit, and whatever you do, don’t wear gray slacks and a blue blazer. In recent weeks, the FDC has begun cracking down on villainous lawyers who wear nonmatching pants and blazers, gray pants and blue blazers and even khaki pants. And women who wear skirts above the knee or with slits are reportedly being turned away, too. Miami lawyer Bruce Alter said in a phone message he was turned away from the FDC last week for wearing khaki pants, as was Darryl Wilcox, an assistant federal public defender, who was wearing gray pants, a white shirt, red tie and blue blazer. “I was wearing the standard out-of-court outfit,” Wilcox said. “They told me it was too similar to what the Bureau of Prisons guards wear.” While Wilcox was not allowed to enter the jail, the public defender-hired translator was waiting inside with Wilcox’s client, who speaks only Spanish. Wilcox ended up returning to his Fort Lauderdale office without being able to see his client. “I was annoyed,” Wilcox said. “But I guess security is security.”