Deja vu all over again

1.  What a game. Fun stuff. It's always amazing to me how close the odds-makers pick the spreads, even on the prop bets. Just an example -- the over/under on Kelly Clarkson's rendition of the National Anthem was 1:34 and she came in at 1:34 exactly.

2.  Best ad of the game:

3. In the other big game over the weekend, the Canes beat Duke in NC for the first time. Bubble team right now...

4. Closer to home, there is a debate about the word "Gypsie":

A Fort Lauderdale family of accused psychic swindlers has come under fire for allegedly conning clients out of $40 million, but one defense attorney in the case says the fortune-telling business isn’t the only thing on trial — the family’s ethnic heritage, too, has become a target. At issue: the word “gypsy,” which has been mentioned several times in the case against the Marks clan, a three-generation psychic family of Romanian Gypsy descent. Defense attorney Fred Schwartz says the word constitutes a slur, and is comparable to the N-word being leveled at African-Americans. “The connotation of the word ‘gypsy’ is a group of wandering people who go from city to city committing crimes,” said Schwartz, who accuses prosecutors of employing the word as a “tactical advantage” that will make the Marks family seem guilty. The case is expected to go to trial later this year. ***

Hogwash, say prosecutors, who insist there’s nothing inherently derogatory about saying gypsy. In court filings, Assistant U.S. Attorney Laurence Bardfeld said all the G-word hoopla amounts to nothing more than a defense team “trying to ‘muddy up the waters’ in an attempt to discredit the government.” Bardfeld noted that defense attorneys, too, had used the disputed word in open court, and he even cited several dictionary definitions of the word as further proof of its inoffensiveness. From the Oxford English Dictionary: “A member of a wandering race (by themselves called Romany), of Hindu origin, which first appeared in England beginning of the 16th [century] and was then believed to have come from Egypt.” Lastly, Bardfeld singled out one of the family members on trial, Ricky Marks. Marks has posted several family videos on YouTube in which he uses the word gypsy, including a “Gypsy Super Bowl Trip” video that also showcases the family’s collection of luxury cars — the fruits of their lucrative psychic enterprise.

5.  Yes, Rumpole, Justice Scalia even says he is "defendant-friendly."

6.  And from my favorite item of the weekend, the inmates in Vermont are pretty funny:

Prison inmates who make decals for the Vermont State Police slipped a pig into the official seal, and up to 30 patrol cars wound up sporting the subliminal epithet, the Burlington Free Press tells us. The police emblem features a cow, an evergreen tree and snowy mountains (along with three unidentifiable creatures). Back in 2008, an inmate artist at the Northwest State Correctional Facility went into the computer file and modified one of the cow's spots to resemble a pig, the common derogatory term for police, Vermont Corrections Commissioner Andy Pallito told the Free Press, like USA TODAY a Gannett paper. In 2009, the state police ordered 16-inch door decals. Pallito said he believes 60 altered decals were made. Some new cruisers have two, while older cars may have just one if a door was replaced. New decals, costing $780, are expected Monday. State officials learned of the prank Thursday. They blamed quality control at the Vermont Correctional Industries Print Shop in St. Alban. Prison authorities are trying to identify the inmate behind the Rorschach test.

Bad week of blogging

Sorry for the slow blogging this week. There just wasn't much happening in the District. I have confirmed that Bill Matthewman is going to be the new Magistrate in WPB, which is very cool. He will join Dave Brannon as the new dynamic duo up north. Brannon had his going away party last week at the PD's office, and I heard it was a great event with judges and lawyers toasting him. Have a nice Superbowl weekend. Your moment of zen:

New Times covers Pakistani Terrorist case

Here; it's their cover story. Khurrum Wahid gets some nice coverage:

Khurrum Wahid is the attorney representing the younger imam, Izhar Khan. He is a former public defender with an open face and a relaxed, scruffy goatee — the look of a working dad who can't be bothered with pretense. He says the case against the imams is based on rhetoric — the rants of an older man talking to his children. "Does rhetoric make you a terrorist?" And Izhar, he adds, is just a sweet kid who did his father's bidding. Born in Pakistan and raised in Canada, Wahid is now thoroughly American. He roots for the Dallas Cowboys. And he was working as a public defender in Miami when the twin towers fell. Wahid began representing immigrants detained for questioning in the wake of the terrorist attacks. When he opened a private practice in 2004, he started taking cases other lawyers might shun. He defended the man who was convicted of plotting to bomb New York City's Herald Square subway station in 2004, as well as Boca Raton doctor Rafiq Sabir, who was convicted of conspiring to treat wounded Al-Qaeda militants. He also recently represented Rais Bhuiyan, a convenience store clerk in Texas who tried to prevent the execution of the man who shot him in the face after 9/11. *** "I think people are more accepting of me representing a serial rapist than they are of me representing an imam [accused of] giving support to the Taliban," Wahid says.

Go Dore Go!

Nice win today for friend of blog Dore Louis (as well as Joe Rosenbaum and Marcia Silvers) before Judge Cooke. Jay Weaver has the details on this crazy case:

In October, his criminal case on cigarette smuggling charges ended in a mistrial when the FBI arrested a juror who tried to extort money from the defendant’s family in exchange for the promise of a “not guilty’’ verdict. On Monday, a federal judge threw out the charges altogether, saying prosecutors failed to make their case against the Davie construction executive at his second jury trial. Marrero’s two-step journey rarely, if ever, happens in Miami federal court. “They were prosecuting an alleged fraud that occurred in Europe in a U.S. court,” said Marrero’s attorney, Joseph Rosenbaum. “They never should have charged him in the first place.” A year ago, Marrero, 48, was charged with conspiracy and money laundering. The indictment accused him of trying to “enrich himself” by buying cigarettes overseas, hiding the cartons inside cargo containers at the Port of Miami and shipping them to Portugal, Ireland and Germany — without attaching proper documents or paying customs duties. But U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke granted Rosenbaum’s motion for acquittal after the prosecution rested its case, saying the statute of limitation in the conspiracy case dating back to 2001 had expired. Cooke’s judgment of acquittal followed a guilty plea earlier this month by one-time juror Italo Campagna, just as Marrero’s second trial was getting underway. Campagna, 55, of Miami, was charged with soliciting a bribe after demanding between $50,000 and $100,000 from Marrero’s relatives to sway the 12-person jury during the first trial in October. Marrero and his family immediately contacted authorities.

Heron!

I wish I had some SDFLA news for you, but I don't, so here are your Monday morning videos:

Ugly fight over federal judges

Robin McDonald covers the dispute here in which the two Georgia senators agree that Jill A. Pryor and Mark H. Cohen should be federal judges, but they want Cohen to go to the 11th and Pryor to the district court even though President Obama is vetting them for the opposite positions:

Republican Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson on Tuesday sent a letter to the White House saying they would support Cohen, a partner at Troutman Sanders, for the 11th Circuit vacancy, and back Pryor, a Bondurant Mixson & Elmore partner, for a vacant post on the district court.
In an eight-line letter to the White House counsel, the senators also resurrected the name of a third candidate, U.S. Magistrate Judge Linda T. Walker, whose nomination for another district court vacancy was returned to the White House in December at the apparent request of the president's staff. The letter, on Isakson's stationery but signed by both senators, notified White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler that the senators would return "blue slips" to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Cohen for the 11th Circuit and Pryor and Walker for the district court. A blue slip is the Senate's traditional indication that a nominee has received the approval of his or her home state senator. But the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary has been vetting Pryor for the 11th Circuit post, according to Fulton County Superior Court Senior Judge Melvin K. Westmoreland. 

Meantime, Senators are threatening to stall all appellate appointments over the recess appointment dispute with the President.  Even though Judge Jordan has support from both sides of the aisle, such a move would hurt his chances.  Apparently, Senator Rubio has said that he is not going to support an across the board rejection of Obama's nominees.  For Judge Jordan's sake, I hope that politics don't jam him up.

FIU hosts Justice Alito at moot court finals

Dean Alex Acosta was rightfully beaming tonight, as his law school had its final round of moot court with a bench of Justice Alito, Judge Marcus, and Judge Barkett.  Here is Acosta introducing the final round with the judges in the background:

Lots of judges in town came to the festivities.  Here's a picture of Judges Huck and Altonaga with the panel:

The participants were Sherman Davis, Matthew Rogoff, Nicholas Greene, and Jeremy Chevres; and the issues hit close to home -- the GPS/4th Amendment issue (couldn't Justice Alito have convinced the Court to release Jones next week?!) and the Padilla retroactivity issue. Everyone did a nice job.

73-year old man pleads guilty in large fraud case

Via Curt Anderson:

A prominent businessman pleaded guilty Wednesday to fraud in a $135 million real estate scheme that fleeced hundreds of investors, including the Roman Catholic prep school he once attended.
Gaston Cantens, 73, faces up to five years behind bars after pleading guilty to a single count of wire and mail fraud conspiracy. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams set sentencing for April 4.
Cantens also lured investors from Miami's close-knit Cuban-American community, many of them elderly and some Roman Catholic priests.
One victim, 80-year-old Eduardo Arango, said he lost about $800,000 investing with Cantens. He called the plea agreement "a sweet deal" because Cantens could have faced more charges and a longer prison sentence.
"Most of the victims were people who are very aged. They lost whatever their resources were. They have suffered," Arango said.

Another GOP debate tonight.  Too bad Ali-G isn't the moderator:

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/01/25/2957872/religious-fla-prep-school-a-victim.html#storylink=cpy