It's Elena Kagan

That's the (leaked) word from last night and this morning. Tom Goldstein called it months ago and his coverage over at ScotusBlog is unbelievable. Here's Tom's summary of his recent posts, but there's a whole lot more over there:

1. On February 23, I wrote explaining that Justice Stevens would retire, Justice Ginsburg would not, and the President would nominate Elena Kagan to fill the Stevens seat. Most of the post is devoted to discussing why the President would choose her over other candidates.
2. After Stevens’ retirement, on April 27, I returned to the selection, explaining that I continued to believe that the President would select Kagan, albeit for reasons that had less to do with electoral politics than was true in February.
3. On Saturday, we published a very extensive piece on Kagan, discussing both her professional history and claims made for and against her, as well as the breakdown of likely votes in the confirmation process.
4. Earlier this evening, before the announcement leaked, I discussed at length both the likely confirmation process and the substance of the ten principal issues that will be debated by her defenders and opponents.

Item #3 is a 10,000 word essay about Kagan. If you have some time today, it's worth skimming.

In other news, the DBR (John Pacenti) covers the debate about whether PSIs are really needed after Booker. Professor Rick Bascuas said this: "Today's federal probation officers see themselves primarily as law-enforcement agents rather than agents of mercy." Rick has written extensively on the issue here.

This can't be true, can it?

According to the JAABlog, a Broward judge said: "If the jury comes back not guilty, I'm going to slit my throat" in a DUI case: "Luckily for the Judge's throat, they did come back guilty, after which the defense attorney successfully disqualified Ireland from further proceedings. Now it's up to another judge to read the trial, and sort out a bunch of messy issues. Not to be outdone, another county judge was recently overheard commenting how people of Mexican descent 'love beer.' Only in Broward, baby!" This can't be true, can it?

Tons of great coverage of the Supreme Court while we wait for Obama to pick Stevens' successor.

On why Stevens wears a bow-tie: "The truth is that I can't tie a four-in-hand." The rest of the Washington Post article is great.

SG Kagan had to deal with a dicey political question while at Harvard. Here's Professor Mnookin on how she decided not to fight the feds even though she believed the government was wrong: "Elena is very good at reading the lay of the land, at having a sense of who is where on what issue and what the art of the possible might be, who can be influenced, who cannot. In that sense of being political, she is extremely gifted. She’s very purposeful."

Kagan is also watching the honest services cases very closely. For the criminal practitioners out there, let's make no mistake -- if Kagan is selected, she will not be even close to as liberal as Justice Stevens on criminal justice issues.

Speaking of honest services cases, NACDL and the Heritage Foundation just issued a report explaining how Congress is continuing to criminalize too many acts and is doing so without including a mens rea element. The entire report "How Congress is Eroding the Criminal Intent Requirement in Federal Law" can be read here.

Pictures Pictures Pictures

I know you all are upset with me -- I missed Star Wars day yesterday (May the 4th be with you). So, I won't miss Cinco de Mayo today...

Another day, another attack on JAABlog and Bill Gelin, this time from a lawyer upset with a picture he posted. Here's the basic question -- do the Florida Bar Rules apply to lawyer-run blogs? And if so, did Gelin violate any rules by posting the picture? Bob Norman (and now SFL and Rumpole) have weighed in. I'm sure you can guess my opinion -- Gelin has nothing to worry about on this one. (Yesterday, I had picture day at the blog. True, they weren't like the one posted at JAABlog, but one of them included a state rep looking at naughty pictures. Do the Florida Bar Rules prohibit me from posting that picture? No way.)

Okay, back to the news of the blog. Tony Mauro wrote an article about minority clerks. Our own Judge Martinez is quoted:

Judge Jose Martinez of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida said that, in recent years, he has seen "way more [minority] applicants for clerkships — and they're getting better."
Recruiting minorities for clerkships has long been a challenge, Martinez said, because of missed educational opportunities and also because good candidates often have massive law school tuition debt to pay off. "We're competing for the top-notch minority lawyers with the big firms," Martinez said. "We have to show them it is a long-range benefit to be a clerk — it's a hell of a stepping-stone."
One helpful tool for doing that, Martinez said, has been the American Bar Association's 10-year-old Judicial Clerkship Program, which has provided hundreds of minority law students with internships that expose them to clerkship possibilities on both federal and state courts. The students see that "this is a viable thing for them to do," Martinez said.
But Judge Reggie Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said he has seen no recent increase in minority applicants for clerkships. "I don't receive the numbers I would like," he said. "They have so many other opportunities to make a lot more money than you can make as a law clerk."
Walton, who generally looks for applicants with a couple of years of law firm experience, said it is nearly impossible to hire minorities away from high-paying firms when he can only pay clerks less than $80,000 a year and when the firms are making "a big push to keep them on board." A recent clerk, Walton said, took a $100,000 pay cut from a major Washington firm to clerk for him.
Walton, himself an African-American, added that, with females outnumbering males among black law students, "the most difficult demographic to attract is the African-American male. The disparity is stark."

Picture day

Three pictures of the day:

1. State Senator likes porn:

2. Phillies fan tasered:

3. Supreme Court doors are closed:

and one item without a picture -- apparently the 11th Circuit is investigating a judge.

Monday morning...

Feels like summer is here, no?

SFL already has posted on the FBA BABC. It was a good event. Tons of people showed up, and most of the judges were there. Big shout out to Adam Rabin and Brian Spector for their hard work. From the criminal bar perspective, I thought it was interesting to see the prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers engaging each other on a variety of topics, including sentencing, discovery, cooperating witnesses, and so on. I got a lot out of it. To the left is one such discussion taking place. Good stuff...

Today is Willy Ferrer's first day on the job. Should be interesting to see how things shake out...

We miss you Paris

She wasn't in court today for a follow-up hearing on her case before Judge Moreno. The AP covers the hearing here.

See everyone tomorrow at the Doral for the Bench & Bar conference.

UPDATE -- Even though Paris wasn't in court today, Dan Marino was. He was testifying in O.J. McDuffie's state court med mal case.

Judge Kozinski says we need cameras in the courtroom

And I wholeheartedly agree. From the Above the Law post on his comments:

Kozinski started his talk by going over some of the arguments he has made before [PDF] in support of cameras (e.g., studies show cameras don’t affect the proceedings, quoting his “old boss” Warren Burger — “People in an open society do not demand infallibility from their institutions, but it is difficult for them to accept what they are prohibited from observing.”).
It wouldn’t be like the O.J. trial, which decidedly set the cameras-in-the-courtroom movement back. Kozinski advocates stationary cameras that would not zoom in, zoom out, or otherwise overly dramatize the courtroom events. Kozinski acknowledged that if you were to choose between a O.J. media circus or reports from informed journalists like Nina Totenberg or Linda Greenhouse, one might be happy to live without cameras.
But that’s not usually the choice one has. Kozinski pointed to the “long, slow decline of the newspaper industry” and the “rise of a much more diffuse style of coverage” as a major reason why cameras should be brought into courtrooms. Increasingly, the public is relying on “pseudo-journalists” (aka bloggers) for their instantaneous legal news.
“On the Internet, the loudest voice gets the most attention,” said Kozinski, who said that tends to lead to a distortion of the coverage of a case. He also raised the risks of relying on unknown bloggers, pointing to the case of “Dr. Flea.”

Someone explain to me why our federal courtrooms should be closed to the public.

More associates charged...

...but this time it isn't Rothstein's people; it's Lew Freeman's. Here's the information charging Jose Wong and Steven Jockers. Like Rothstein's COO, they are charged in an information, which is a clear sign that they've already cut a deal. According to the USAO press release:

Jose Wong began working as an employee at LBFP in1992. Wong held various accounting positions in LBFP, and was ultimately promoted to comptroller at LBFP. In this position, Wong performed all the bookkeeping related to LBFP’s operating accounts and managed Lewis B. Freeman’s personal finances. Wong also prepared financial reports, such as bank reconciliations and cash-flow reports, on a number of matters to which Freeman had been appointed as the fiduciary. Additionally, Wong deposited a large number of unauthorized checks payable to LBFP from the fiduciary accounts into the LBFP operating accounts.
Steven Jockers worked as an employee at LBFP since1998. Jockers frequently assisted Freeman and other principals of LBFP in the day-to-day functions required to maintain receiverships, liquidating trusteeships, and assignments for the benefit of creditors. Jockers also did bookkeeping and prepared financial reports, such as bank reconciliations and cash-flow reports, on a number of matters to which Freeman had been appointed as the fiduciary.
It is estimated that Freeman issued more than 100 unauthorized checks and consequently misappropriated more than $6 million from fiduciary accounts he was responsible for safeguarding.

The case is assigned to Judge Lenard.