Souter succession speculation

ABC News Supreme Court correspondent Jan Crawford Greenberg canceled her scheduled appearance today at the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Extravaganza in Birmingham. Instead, she stayed in Washington to contribute to the frenzy of speculation about Justice Souter's successor. (The President is chatting with Souter in the photo, which is from the White House's new Flickr photostream.)

The Wall Street Journal has a fun graphic with scary mugshots of leading contenders. The Economist includes former President Clinton among the hopefuls. CNN lists seemingly everyone imaginable except Bill—including SDFla's Judge Jordan, whom this blog has previously all but endorsed.

As for Souter, he's not yet gone but already seems to be forgotten. Justice Stevens wrote today about Souter that "the Court will suffer a far greater loss than many now realize." That's almost certainly true as even the illuminati of constitutional law seemed at a painful loss today to dig up even one defining, signature Souter opinion in United States Reports. Professor Powe of Texas summed it up: "He couldn’t be my favorite for what he wrote; he was my favorite for what he was." (Souter did write one that shows how crafty he is—Brendlin v. California (2007)—but I'm apparently not on the New York Times' speed-dial.)

"I direct you to wipe your minds clean."

That was Judge Lenard instructing the Liberty City jury to start over with its deliberations, after replacing a sick juror with an alternate. Here is Jay Weaver's article.

Guest Blogger

Professor Ricardo Bascuas has agreed to guest-blog next week. Have fun!

Justice Souter retiring at the end of the Term

WOW!! Big news!!

Here's ScotusBlog:

Justice David H. Souter has decided to retire when the Supreme Court completes its current Term in early summer, the NBC-TV network reported Thursday night. The 69-year-old jurist, who is completing his 19th year on the Court, has passed word of his plans to others, and the White House has been told, according to the network’s account. Other news organizations also were reporting that Souter has made his decision not to continue serving.
By leaving office this summer, Souter will be giving President Obama time to select and seek Senate approval of the new Chief Executive’s first appointee to the Nation’s highest court before the Court returns for a new Term on Oct. 5. That process could be slowed, however, if the President chooses a nominee who would stir such opposition among conservatives that Senate action could be slowed. With Democrats in control of the Senate, however, Obama’s choice almost certainly would win approval.
Even if the President were to pick a decidedly liberal new Justice, it would not bring a strong shift in the current Court’s direction, since four conservatives along with their sometime ally, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, tend to control outcomes on many key issues.

Well, now we can start our who will replace Souter sweepstakes. Any chance it's someone from the 11th or our District? We've had prospects before... In fact, the very first post on this blog urged then-President Bush to appoint a Floridian to the Supreme Court. So, who are our best prospects?

John S. Kastrenakes new Circuit Judge in Palm Beach

Another mistrial?

The Liberty City 6 case looks like it's on the way to another mistrial...

UPDATE -- 4PM -- Judge Lenard dismissed the sick juror. She is hearing arguments about replacing that juror with an alternate. Here's the Herald article.

Original post from this morning addressing the problem:

Here's the Herald article:

Jury deliberations in the third terrorism trial of a group of inner-city Miami men accused of collaborating with al Qaeda were delayed Thursday because a juror has fallen ill and cannot return until next week.
Prosecutors argued that the remaining 11 members of the jury should continue to deliberate without the 12th juror, but defense lawyers opposed that recommendation. Instead, they argued that the judge replace the 12th member with an alternate juror, stressing that the panel had only started its deliberations on Monday.

Why would the government want to proceed with 11? Read on...

Defense lawyers seemed especially concerned about the potential loss of the one juror because he is a black man who they believe might be sympathetic to the six defendants, who are also mostly black. They even asked the judge to suspend the deliberations until the 12th juror, whose illness was not disclosed, could return next Wednesday, as recommended by his doctor. ''He's a black juror,'' defense attorney Louis Casuso said. ``He's one of the very few that has no problems.''
U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard rejected suspending deliberations, saying they must continue because of the length of the trial. ''It's really not an issue of race; it's an issue of illness,'' she told the defense team.

What about adding the alternate:

Lenard told both sides to return later Thursday to argue further over adding an alternate as the 12th juror for deliberations, instead of going forward with the 11 existing members. If the judge decides to add an alternate juror, it would be an Hispanic woman.
The judge would then tell the jury to begin its deliberations anew.
The racially mixed, 12-member jury started deliberations on Monday after a two-month trial, but the one juror fell ill early on Wednesday.
They are deciding whether the defendants, dubbed the Liberty City 6, are guilty of conspiring with the global terrorist group, al Qaeda, to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago along with major federal buildings in Miami and other cities.
The first two trials ended with hung juries and the acquittal of one defendant, a lawful U.S. resident named Lyglenson Lemorin who is facing deportation to his native Haiti.
Prosecutors tried to portray the group's ringleader, Narseal Batiste, as a militant figure who used his Moorish religious organization to recruit followers to destroy the United States. They accused Batiste and his followers of taking an oath to al Qaeda and shooting photographs of target sites in Miami to prepare for their destructive mission.
Defense attorneys attacked the prosecution's case as a setup led by an FBI informant who posed as an al Qaeda representative to lure the men into a fictitious terrorism conspiracy. They said that the men were struggling construction workers trying to help their poor community by establishing the religious group in a Liberty City warehouse.
Awaiting verdicts again on four terror-related conspiracy counts are: Batiste, 35; Patrick Abraham, 29; Stanley Grant Phanor, 33; Rotschild Augustine, 25; Burson Augustin, 24; and Naudimar Herrera, 25. The first two defendants are being held at the Federal Detention Center. The latter four were released on bond after the second mistrial last year.
If convicted on all four charges, including conspiring to provide material support for al Qaeda, each defendant could face up to 70 years in prison.

Supreme Court affirms 11th Circuit...

... in US v. Dean. Chief Justice Roberts opens the opinion this way:

Accidents happen. Sometimes they happen to individuals committing crimes with loaded guns. The question here is whether extra punishment Congress imposed for the discharge of a gun during certain crimes applies whenthe gun goes off accidentally.

With that intro, it's not surprising that the Court said yes and affirmed the 11th Circuit.

In other news, the feds charged a man with trying to get rocket technology to South Korea. Curt Anderson has the story here:

A Korean-American who served prison time for attempting to broker the sale of deadly nerve gas bombs to Iran was indicted Wednesday on new charges of trying to help South Korea obtain advanced Russian rocket hardware and technology.
Investigators also found thousands of e-mails allegedly sent by Juwhan Yun, a 68-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen from Short Hills, N.J., involving other deals for sophisticated radar and air defense systems, short-wave infrared cameras, laser-guided bomb components and missile launch devices.
Yun is quoted in one e-mail as boasting that he has been "the largest one-stop supplier" of sensitive military and similar equipment for South Korea for the past 30 years.

"There is no constitutionally significant difference between masturbating in front of a minor in person versus doing so via web camera."

That's the Eleventh Circuit in USA v. Aldrich. Not sure I have anything to add to that one.

Moving on to other appellate news, the 11th Circuit reversed Judge Highsmith's sentence of probation for James Hendrick, "once Monroe County's powerful government attorney." Here's Jay Weaver's article and here's the opinion. The entire analysis on the sentencing is as follows:

The government cross-appeals Hendrick’s below-guidelines sentence. After
carefully reviewing the record and considering the arguments that the parties
briefed and orally argued, we agree with the government that the sentence is both
procedurally and substantively unreasonable. We accordingly vacate it and
remand for resentencing.

That's it? I understand (sort of) short opinions from appellate courts when they affirm, but to reverse with no analysis...

What say you dear readers? I have taken off moderation, so please be appropriate in the comments.