Game on

Dear Curt, David, and Willie—

I'm thinking about applying for that U.S. Attorney gig. I wanted you guys to hear it from me.

Money is no object

I was getting a little desperate for something on the Liberty City 6 trial. Jay Weaver has been redeployed to the Herald's team on the scandal over Father Television's day at the beach. Fortunately, Vanessa Blum came through with something on theme for the SDFla Blog. It's a nice piece on the extraordinary cost of trying this case three times. Grossman Roth's Seth Miles, who was once across the aisle from me during my long stretch in Judge Ungaro's courtroom, has a nice quote, which is good to see. UF Professor Michael Seigel's kicker pretty much nails it, I think: "It's worth it if they are, in fact, terrorists. It's not worth it if they were a bunch of street kids saying stupid things."

Of course, a lot of what we do is relatively expensive. Back in the day, I used to marvel at the extraordinary expense that the U.S.A. put into a simple airport swallower case. If you added up the judge time, AUSA time, AFPD time, USPO time, agent time, court reporter time, interpreter time, and whatever else I'm forgetting, it was probably a good bit of money. But that's what makes our system of justice better than some system of summary or inquisitorial justice, which would be anathematic to the Republic. Anyway, it's not like the government would find a better use for this money. So, might as well let the lawyers, jury consultants, and graphic designers have it.

P.S. The New Times has this short post on its blog about the case.

Paris to answer questions from The Chief's witness chair?

The media are giddy over poor Paris' deposition in connection with Goldberg v. Paris Hilton Entertainment, Inc., a case pending before The Chief. Tew Cardenas represents the receiver for a local company that invested in a movie Paris was in but allegedly did not do enough to promote. Judging from some of the excerpts, I don't really know what they expected her to do. I can't even tell from her answers whether the questions that presumably instigated these were asked by her lawyers or the receiver's:

"Any chance I got, any red carpet, any press, if I was doing something for another product ... I would just bring it up, 'Oh, my new sorority film, it's going to be sexy, it's going to be really hot girls'—like I really, you know, did my best."

About her role as an executive producer:

"I'm not sure what a producer does, but—I don't know, help get cool people in the cast."

And the quote that everyone is jumping on, in response to who paid her cell phone bill:

"I don't know. I'm assuming, like, whoever pays my bills. I never ask about that stuff."

Seems like she's her own worst enemy, doesn't it? I mean, look at her—she's wearing heels on South Beach, and that hipster she's with is too self-involved to let her know that just isn't safe.

Even though this is being reported all over the Internet, only the Associated Press appears to have done original reporting, so these quotes are all we have of her deposition. But SDFla Blog doesn't just pilfer other people's news. We look into these important matters to put our own unique spin on them. (For this, we use D.O.M.'s PACER account.) Here it is:

Apparently, it's going to be a bench trial, if it comes to that. Can you just imagine what this will be like for The Chief? Or for this poor Paris creature? Incidentally, I love that The Chief denies Paris Hilton Entertainment's motion to seal certain documents with this flourish of rhetorical questions:

Many of the documents in Exhibit 1 are not financial records. For example, what is the need to file under seal the resume of CPA David Nolte, the list of his appearances in other court proceedings and his publications? Certainly those items need not be filed under seal. Also, how do the parties intend to proceed to trial and discuss the financial concepts in this case? Will it not be done in an open courtroom? If so, then why should it be sealed now?

That's basically the entire order. Classic stuff. I mean, you can almost hear his voice, can't you?

The birds and the Indians

It turns out D.O.M. reads the comments. I know, I know. I couldn't believe it either. He says to me, "You need to write about civil cases. And someone said you're posting too much. Also, some people want to see pictures of handsome men."

"D, those are anonymous. There's no accountability. They can say anything. You have to treat them like fortune cookies."

Anyway, there's no convincing him, so here's one about a civil case with a picture of a cute bird. That's as far as I'm giving in:

Your gambling losses may help save an endangered Everglades species of hawk from the government's efforts to save an endangered Everglades species of sparrow. The Miccosukee Indians sued the Fish & Wildlife Service alleging that its efforts to protect the sparrows were flooding the hawks' habitat, a third of which happens to be on tribal lands. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed on Tuesday most of Judge Moore's decision in favor of the government. It agreed with the Tribe, however, that the Service had to specify a low-point in the population of hawks that would trigger further review. The Service had claimed that the birds were too hard to count and elected to use water levels as a trigger instead. Noting that the Service seems to have counted the birds every year since 1969, Judge Carnes vacated that part of Judge Moore's decision and remanded the case:

The goal of the Endangered Species Act is to protect populations of species, and using habitat markers when population data is available is like turning on the weather channel to see if it is raining instead of looking out a window.

It's a pretty entertaining read as these things go. The Tribe was represented by Lehtinen Vargas & Riedi.

Zarabozo sentenced to life

Judge Huck imposed five consecutive life sentences plus 85 years on 21-year-old Guillermo Zarabozo for his role in the murders and other crimes committed aboard the Joe Cool. Zarabozo maintained that his accomplice Kirby Archer, who is serving a life sentence, was solely responsible for the killings.

Faculty disapproves Acosta's bid for FIU deanship

The FIU College of Law faculty recommended that the university not offer the deanship to U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta, reports the DBR (whose article is available only with a paid subscription) and the Sun-Sentinel. The faculty endorsed two candidates, Beto Juarez, dean of the DU Sturm College of Law—a fantastic place to spend spring semester teaching criminal procedure and skiing—and Joel Friedman, a Tulane Law professor. The recommendations are not binding on the FIU president and provost but traditionally are seriously considered.

The "maybe-nots" have it (updated)

Have a rough day at the office ahead of you today? I bet Judge Lenard can sympathize. Apparently, "sternly order[ing]" the jurors in the Liberty City 6 trial "to follow the law and obey her instructions regarding their duty to deliberate" (as Curt Anderson put it for AP) did not do the trick. But she is not giving up on them yet. Motion for mistrial denied.

UPDATE: Deliberations are starting again with a new alternate subbing-in for the person now known as "the recalcitrant juror".

A tiresome rant on grammar but you get a free DFW essay out of it

So, the other day I'm at the gym over at the U and one of the undergrads who works there is all excited about his LSAT score and can't wait to apply to law school. I ask him how he feels about grammar and diagramming sentences, and he looks at me like I'm some kind of walking non-sequitur because what he's really good at is arguing.

If only I'd had a copy of yesterday's Flores-Figueroa v. United States in my pocket. This was reported under such headlines as "Justices Limit Use of Identity Theft Law in Immigration Cases" and "High court removes tool for deporting illegals." Those are, of course, much more grabby than the more accurate, "Court rules adverb 'knowingly' modifies entire predicate and its object." Few under 35 would have any idea what that headline meant. (The late, great David Foster Wallace explains why in this brilliant piece that takes a little while to download because it's a pretty big file but is completely worth it.) I can't imagine what they would make of the crux of Justice Breyer's reasoning, which was this:

In ordinary English, where a transitive verb has an object, listeners in most contexts assume that an adverb (such as knowingly) that modifies the transitive verb tells the listener how the subject performed the entire action, including the object as set forth in the sentence.

Dismaying as it is, a world where judges and lawyers don't have a command of grammar—the kind you get from diagramming hundreds of sentences—is anarchic.

The Court's other decisions yesterday would probably reinforce the point (if I had a really good reason to slog through them) because they all involve "statutory interpretation," which is legalese for grammar. Two are about civil procedure issues—a remand of state claims to state court is appealable even though the statute says it isn't and the circuit courts of appeals have jurisdiction to review a denial of a stay of arbitration. One is about liability under CERCLA. (Shell won; that's as far as I want to get into that one.)