News and notes

1. Guilty on all counts for Masferrer. It was front page news for the Herald and the DBR. From what I understand, Judge Moore precluded the defense from the first trial. Start your appellate engines.

2. Fourth Circuit Judge Luttig resigned to go work at Boeing. I'm not a Luttig fan, but we have to pay our judges more or they are gonna keep leaving for higher paying gigs.

3. Tomorrow at noon is the filing deadline for state judges. Lots of coverage over at the Justice Building blog.

Take two...

The jury now has the case in United States v. Masferrer, the Hamilton Bank case. This is the second trial after the first jury couldn't reach a verdict. Ben Greenberg, Peter Outerbridge, and Andrew Levi prosecuted the case. Howard and Scott Srebnick defended.

Special Assesments...

Criminal lawyers are well familiar with special assesments. For every count of conviction, a defendant must pay a $100 special assesment.

Now, Thomas Tew is asking that all members of the Florida Bar pay a $178 special assesment to help pay back victims of Louis Robles. Julie Kay has all the details in her Justice Watch column today. Here is the intro:

The plaintiff attorney in a federal class action lawsuit against The Florida Bar is calling for a $178 special assessment on each of the Bar’s 77,000 members to reimburse victims of disbarred Miami attorney Louis Robles. In motions filed by Miami lawyer Thomas Tew, who represents about 4,000 former Robles asbestos clients, Tew claims that the Bar is being disingenuous in its arguments for refusing to come up with a $13.5 million lump sum payment to cover the clients for the money they lost to Robles. “The Florida Bar evidently believes that the price tag for administering the [Client Security Fund] legally, $178 per active member, is simply too high,” Tew wrote in a recent response to the Bar’s motion to dismiss. “As a result, the constitutional rights of over 4,000 citizens who were swindled by their [Bar-regulated] attorney… have been trampled.”

Tew's proposal strikes me as odd -- why should an entire profession be required to pay almost $200 per person (approx. $15 million) because someone else committed fraud. Thoughts?

Cuban mafia leader to be released

Many of you have been following the "Cuban Mafia" trial in front of Judge Gold. This is the case that was moving at a snail's pace because the lead defendant, 76 year old Jose Miguel Battle Sr., is extremely sick and trial can only be held 3 days a week for a couple hours a day. In fact, a lazy boy chair with a massage function was installed in the courtroom for Battle to sit in. Most times he sleeps through the trial. Trial has been going on for at least 4 months, and was expected (with Battle) to last many more months (which will be followed by a trial on the severed co-defendants). The government finally offered Battle an deal he couldn't refuse. Plead guilty and get a bond with sentencing postponed indefinitely. Battle took it so he could, in his attorney Jack Blumenfeld's words, "die at home rather than in jail.''

Here is the intro from the Herald article by Jay Weaver on the plea:

Jose Miguel Battle Sr., el padrino of the Cuban mafia, has pleaded guilty in the middle of his Miami racketeering trial because of failing health. But it is doubtful the reputed Cuban-American godfather, 76, will live long enough to serve prison time. "He's just very sick,'' said his attorney, Jack Blumenfeld. ``This way, he can die at home rather than in jail.'' The elder Battle, a Bay of Pigs veteran, needs a wheelchair and suffers from kidney and liver failure, diabetes and cardiac problems.

Up in smoke...

A helpful reader points out that the Mexico drug laws don't appear to be going forward:

MEXICO
Fox backtracks, sends drug bill back
President Vicente Fox said he would ask Mexico's Congress to amend a drug decriminalization bill. The decision was praised by the White House, which had voiced serious concerns.
MEXICO CITY - (AP) -- U.S. officials welcomed Mexican President Vicente Fox's decision not to sign a drug decriminalization bill that some had warned could result in ''drug tourism'' in this country and increased availability of narcotics in American border communities.
Fox said Wednesday he was sending the bill back to Congress for changes, just one day after his office had said he would sign into law the measure, which would have dropped criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs.
The president will ask for corrections ``to make it absolutely clear in our country, the possession of drugs and their consumption are, and will continue to be, a criminal offense.''
The White House applauded Fox's decision. Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said U.S. officials had expressed concerns about decriminalizing drugs. ''We welcome the steps that are being taken by President Fox,'' McClellan said Thursday.
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, who had said he was ''appalled'' by the bill because it could increase drug availability north of the border, also said he was pleased by Fox's decision.
''I'm glad that he's listened to the many voices opposing the bill and made changes that will make good enforcement and not legalize drugs,'' Sanders said. ``We have been a partner with Mexico in fighting against illegal drugs, and this will only help in the long-term in that relationship.''
San Diego is a short drive from the border town of Tijuana, Mexico.
Presidential spokesman Rubén Aguilar said on Thursday that Fox had ''in no way'' yielded to U.S. pressure, but acknowledged that Mexico ``took into account the observations of U.S. authorities.''
Current Mexican law allows judges to drop charges if suspects can prove they are addicts and the quantity they were caught with is small enough to be considered ''for personal use,'' or if they are first-time offenders.
The new bill would have allowed ''consumers'' as well as addicts to have drugs, and delineated specific allowable quantities, which do not appear in the current law.
Under the law, consumers could have legally possessed up to 25 milligrams of heroin, 5 grams of marijuana (about one-fifth of an ounce, or about four joints), or 0.5 grams of cocaine -- the equivalent of about four ''lines,'' or half the standard street-sale quantity.

Criminalizing conduct overseas

Orin Kerr has this post about the legalization of drugs in Mexico:

Mexico to Legalize Possession of Small Amounts of Cocaine, Heroin, Marijuana and Other Drugs
by Orin Kerr

According to the Associated Press, President Vincente Fox of Mexico is set to sign a bill that will legalize the possession of ‘personal use’ amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and unnamed “other drugs.”
Millions of Americans live near the U.S-Mexico border. In light of that, the Mexico law raises an interesting question: Is it legal for an American citizen to travel to a foreign country where drugs are legal, to take the drugs in that country, and then to return to the United States? I don’t know, but I’m sure some readers do (purely out of academic interest, of course).

This issue is being litigated in this District in another forum -- sex with minors overseas. In some countries, the age of consent is 16 (in some it's less than that). And in many of these countries, prostitution is legal. Congress, however, has criminalized the act of intending to go overseas to engage in prostitution with a minor (as defined by the U.S.). The Federal Defender's Office has an appeal pending questioning whether Congress has the power to criminalize such an act (thought) where if the person carried out the act, he would be violating no law in the other country. Thoughts?

Motion for bond granted...

Here is the order on the motion discussed in the post below:

Docket Text: ORAL ORDER granting [41] Motion for bond; Bond set for Frank Jesus Onetti; Released on Own Recognizance with electronic monitoring and curfew conditions as to Frank Jesus Onetti. Entered by Judge John Antoon II on 5/1/2006. (DJD, )

The judge set a final hearing on the 2255 petition for September.

Congratulations to Marc Seitles on this victory. More importantly, good luck to Brenertt Onetti, the seven year old boy, who will have his father beside him when he has his surgery.

Sweeping too far?

Immigration sweeps and arrests have been in the news a lot the past few days. (Infrequent) Co-blogger Marc Seitles has decided to represent pro-bono a family who has been caught up in all of this. It is a very sad story about a seven year old boy who has leukemia and is scheduled for bone marrow surgery.

His father was picked up in the sweeps. Turns out that the dad previously pled guilty to having a false social security number (so he could work as a janitor). He did not show up to sentencing because his son was so sick, and he was sentenced in absentia to 6 months. Three years later he gets picked up, right before the boy is scheduled for surgery. On Friday, Seitles filed an emergency habeas motion trying to get the father a resentencing and a bond so that he can be with his son for the surgery. It's being heard today. Here's the Channel 4 story. (The Herald article incorrectly suggests that this is in front of immigration officials today; it's not -- it's back before the district judge).

Seitles is very active in the immigration-turned-criminal arena. On Friday, the DBR (J. Kay) ran an article on the new identity theft statute that the U.S. Attorney's office is using in false document cases, which carries a two year minimum mandatory sentence. Seitles was extensively quoted in the article about a different client of his subjected to this new statute...

I'll update the blog later today on the outcome of the hearing. It's scheduled at 1:30...