Acosta at the Federal Bar Luncheon

Interim (soon to be permanent*) U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta spoke today at the Federal Bar Association Luncheon, praising the assistants in the office, even pointing out many by name. He also cited the large proseuctions currently pending in the district (Abramoff, the Rodriguez brothers, Rosenstein, Hamilton Bank, and others). He mentioned that he was going to focus on training young lawyers in the office and on paying them more (which will require hiring less attorneys) so that he can compete with hiring practices in Miami. The speech was about 15 minutes.

* Acosta emphasized that the articles saying his nomination was imminent were premature and that is only an interim U.S. Attorney.

$10 million bail...

... for Ze'ev Rosenstein "over the objections of federal prosecutors, who said they were concerned that Rosenstein had ready access to huge assets and could readily flee the United States." Rosenstein is represented by Roy Black. AUSA is Ben Greenberg. Magistrate Judge is E. Torres.

Welcome (permanently) Alex Acosta

All reports (here is Jay Weaver's Herald article from Saturday and Julie Kay has a piece in Monday's Daily Business Review) are that Alex Acosta has lost the interim from his title and is now the permanent U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, the best and busiest district in the country. Welcome Mr. Acosta and congratulations.

I'm thinking of posting my requests for the new administration. If you have any suggestions, put them in the comment section and I'll add them to the list.

Congress may not burn the house to roast the pig.

So says the 11th Circuit in US v. Williams, discussed below by Marc Seitles. Here is Carl Jones for law.com on the case.

PROTECT ACT PROVISION DECLARED UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Today, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in United States v. Williams, No. 04-15128, handed down a signficant decision holding that the PROTECT ACT's provision that prohibits the promotion of child pornography is facially unconstitutional as overbroad and vague. This case originated in Judge Middlebrooks' division. And Louis I. Guerra preserved the issue and won on appeal.

Here is an excerpt from the decision -

"In the wake of Free Speech Coalition, sexually explicit speech regarding children that is neither obscene nor the product of sexual abuse of a real minor retains protection of the First Amendment. We believe the Court’s decision in Free Speech Coalition leaves Congress ample authority to enact legislation that allows the Government to accomplish its legitimate goal of curbing child abuse without placing an unacceptably heavy burden on protected speech. Certainly Congress took many cues from the Court in drafting the legislation at issue in this case.
Given the unique patterns of deviance inherent in those who sexually covet children and the rapidly advancing technology behind which they hide, we are not unmindful of the difficulties of striking a balance between Congress’s interest in protecting children from harm with constitutional guarantees. However, the infirmities of the PROTECT Act pandering provision reflect a persistent disregard of time-honored and constitutionally-mandated principles relating to the Government’s regulation of free speech and its obligation to provide criminal defendants due process. Because we find the PROTECT Act pandering provision, 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(3)(B), both substantially overbroad and vague, and therefore facially unconstitutional, we reverse Williams’s conviction under that section."

Here's the whole opinion.

Big Money in Torture Case

Judge Joan Lenard ordered that a retired Honduran military officer pay $47 million dollars to victims of torture, murder, and kidnapping. A San Francisco human rights group, the Center for Justice and Accountability, brought the suit against former Lt. Col. Juan Evangelista Lopez Grijalba. Read more from today's Miami Herald.

More on Scalia

I'm not sure why (perhaps I'm catching up from the 6 weeks of trial), but I can't get enough of the Scalia story. So here's some great stuff out there for those that are interested:

1. Scalia's letter to the editor of the Boston Herald. This isn't the first time Scalia has written to an editor. See this!
2. Wonkette (formely Article III Groupie) on Scalia.
3. The Sopranos take on the gesture (I'm not kidding).
4. The best coverage of all, a must-read article by Slate's Dahlia Lithwick.
UPDATE -- 5. The Colbert Report responds to Scalia. Hat tip Richard Rosenthal.
For the more intellectual readers out there, here is some great analysis of the Padilla cert denial.

Enjoy.

Padilla cert denied

The Supreme Court denied cert in Jose Padilla's case this morning, giving the green light to the criminal prosecution here in Miami. It wasn't your ordinary cert denial as it had a number of opinions. Here is ScotusBlog's coverage:

Court refuses to hear Padilla appeal
Posted by Lyle Denniston at 10:02 AM
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear the appeal of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held in a military jail for more than three years as an "enemy combatant." The Court, however, declined to dismiss the case as moot, as the Bush Administration had urged. Only three Justices voted to hear the case, according to the order and accompanying opinions.
The decision was a victory for the Bush Administration in one significant sense: by not finding the case to be moot, the Court leaves intact a sweeping Fourth Circuit Court decision upholding the president's wartime power to seize an American inside the U.S. and detain him or her as a terrorist enemy, without charges and -- for an extended period -- without a lawyer.
The Administration was so eager to have the case out of Court that it was willing to let the Fourth Circuit decision disappear, which would have been the result of a dismissal of the appeal on mootness grounds.
Three other Justices took the unusual step of issuing an opinion to justify the denial of review. They said that "there are strong prudential reasons disfavoring" Court review. Padilla is due to go on trial on criminal charges in civilian court, and "any consideration of what rights he might be able to assert if he were returned to military custody would be hypothetical, and to no effect, at this stage of the proceedings."
In an opinion written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, and joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justice John Paul Stevens, those three conceded that Padilla "has a continuing concern that his status might be altered again." That, however, "can be addressed if the necessity arises."
Kennedy wrote that "Padilla's claims raise fundamental issues respecting the separation of powers, including consideration of the role and function of the courts." That, he said, "also counsels against addressing those claims when the course of legal proceedings has made them, at least for now, hypothetical. This is especially true given that Padilla's current [civilian] custody is part of the relief he sought, and that its lawfulness is uncontested."
Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter said they would have heard the case (Padilla v. Hanft, 05-533). Ginsburg wrote a separate opinion making the argument that the case was not moot, and should be reviewed. Breyer and Souter simply noted their votes in favor of review. It takes four votes to grant review, however.