The SDFLA Blog is dedicated to providing news and notes regarding federal practice in the Southern District of Florida. The New Times calls the blog "the definitive source on South Florida's federal court system." All tips on court happenings are welcome and will remain anonymous. Please email David Markus at dmarkus@markuslaw.com
Friday, October 19, 2012
Judge Jordan can't wait to see Lincoln
From his opinion yesterday:
Following the 1860 election, President Abraham Lincoln chose a cabinet “comprised of enemies and opponents,” including three men who had been his “chief Case: 11-13117 Date Filed: 10/18/2012 Page: 1 of 29 rivals for the Republican nomination,” because they “‘were the strongest men in the party’” and he “‘had no right to deprive the country of their services.’” DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, TEAM OF RIVALS: THE POLITICAL GENIUS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 319 (2005). When she was elected in 2008 as superior court clerk of Lumpkin County, Georgia, Rita Harkins did not emulate President Lincoln; in her first official act as clerk, Ms. Harkins dismissed her co-worker and former political rival, Sarah Jane Underwood, whom she had defeated in the Republican primary.
The issue we address is whether this firing violated Ms. Underwood’s First Amendment rights. In light of our precedent, we conclude, as did the district court, that it did not.
In other news, do you think that a prosecutor should be able to use a booking photo in closing argument with the words GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY superimposed on top? The Washington State Supreme Court said no in a 5-4 opinion. Via The News Tribune:
The Washington State Supreme Court has overturned four felony convictions of a Pierce County man, saying a deputy prosecutor violated the defendant’s right to a fair trial by superimposing the words, “guilty, guilty, guilty,” over the man’s photo during a PowerPoint presentation in closing arguments.
The state’s high court, on a 5-4 vote, sent Edward Michael Glasmann’s case back to Superior Court for a new trial.
“The prosecutor’s misconduct was flagrant, ill intentioned and we cannot conclude with any confidence that it did not have an effect on the outcome of the trial,” Chief Justice Barbara Madsen wrote for the majority in an opinion released Thursday.
Prosecutor Mark Lindquist said he thought the majority made a bad call.
“The majority opinion is correct in recognizing that prosecutors are quasi-judicial figures,” he said. “We have a duty to seek justice and be fully professional. The opinion takes a strange turn, though, in finding reversible misconduct because a former deputy prosecutor superimposed the word ‘guilty’ on a PowerPoint slide with a booking photo.
“This was unnecessarily melodramatic, but did not affect the outcome.”
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
BREAKING -- MAGISTRATE SHORT LIST
The Magistrate Committee has cut the list to five names and now it's up to the judges to pick your next Ft. Lauderdale magistrate. Here's the list:
Bruce Brown
Patrick Hunt
Corey Steinberg
Alicia Valle
Garth Yearick
Three AUSAs, one AFPD, and one private practitioner. Good luck to the five.
(And thanks to my tipsters.)
Bruce Brown
Patrick Hunt
Corey Steinberg
Alicia Valle
Garth Yearick
Three AUSAs, one AFPD, and one private practitioner. Good luck to the five.
(And thanks to my tipsters.)
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Shameful
Bloomberg has a story today about our country's incarceration rates. It's jaw-dropping. We jail more people than any other country... by a lot. Out of every 100,000 citizens, we jail 730. To give some perspective, Cuba and Russia are right around 500. England is about 150. And how about prisons:
“The model is, if you build it they will come,” said Daniel D’Amico, a professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans. “Because we have all these prisons and all of these other resources funneled into our criminal justice system, we have this ability to enforce things that would otherwise be unenforceable.”
“That includes the drug war, but it’s also including everything from the Martha Stewart types to immigration policies,” D’Amico said. “The scope of things that are now criminal in corporate law is exponentially higher than it was merely twenty years ago.”
The U.S. also leads the world in the number of prisons in operation at 4,575, more than four times the number of second- place Russia at 1,029. U.S. states spent $52 billion to construct and operate those prisons in 2011, more than quadruple the $12 billion spent in 1987, according to data from the Pew Center on the States.
Just insane. We have over 2.2 million people in prison. That's about the size of Houston. I hope there is a question about this at the debate tonight.
“The model is, if you build it they will come,” said Daniel D’Amico, a professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans. “Because we have all these prisons and all of these other resources funneled into our criminal justice system, we have this ability to enforce things that would otherwise be unenforceable.”
“That includes the drug war, but it’s also including everything from the Martha Stewart types to immigration policies,” D’Amico said. “The scope of things that are now criminal in corporate law is exponentially higher than it was merely twenty years ago.”
The U.S. also leads the world in the number of prisons in operation at 4,575, more than four times the number of second- place Russia at 1,029. U.S. states spent $52 billion to construct and operate those prisons in 2011, more than quadruple the $12 billion spent in 1987, according to data from the Pew Center on the States.
Just insane. We have over 2.2 million people in prison. That's about the size of Houston. I hope there is a question about this at the debate tonight.
Monday, October 15, 2012
"The result is that we will end up with a bench populated only by former state court judges and lawyers from government or academia."
That's David Mandel in this article by John Pacenti about the Federal JNC and the process of picking federal judges. He makes a point. None of the the last three judges appointed (or the current one being vetted) come from private practice. Do you think this is a problem?
Here's the intro from the article:
What do Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Chief U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno and former U.S. Attorney Roberto Martinez have in common? They were all political footballs when their nominations were caught between the administrations of President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clinton. The nominations of Roberts to U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Moreno to the Eleventh Circuit expired, and Martinez found himself out of a job at the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami. The lapsed nominations were far from career killers. Roberts is now, of course, the head of the U.S. Supreme Court, Moreno runs federal courts in the Southern District of Florida, and Martinez went into private practice where he has built a reputation as one of the most respected legal minds in South Florida. But becoming a federal judge, U.S. attorney or federal marshal can be tricky and political. And it all starts with the Federal Judicial Nominating Commission. Martinez was joined by fellow former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey and Tew Cardenas partner Thomas Schultz, a former JNC chairman, for a panel discussion titled “Narrowing the Field” on the commission at a meeting of the South Florida chapter of the Federal Bar Association. They said politics plays a big role in the nominating process but not at the commission level. Martinez, Schultz and Coffey have held leadership positions on the commission at one time or another. Coffey currently chairs the 21-member Southern District Conference. The panel’s consensus was that Florida led the way nationally in trying to take politics out of the task of narrowing the field of applicants for Florida’s senators to consider. Each conference recommends up to four applicants to the senators, who make a recommendation to the White House.
Here's the intro from the article:
What do Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Chief U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno and former U.S. Attorney Roberto Martinez have in common? They were all political footballs when their nominations were caught between the administrations of President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clinton. The nominations of Roberts to U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Moreno to the Eleventh Circuit expired, and Martinez found himself out of a job at the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami. The lapsed nominations were far from career killers. Roberts is now, of course, the head of the U.S. Supreme Court, Moreno runs federal courts in the Southern District of Florida, and Martinez went into private practice where he has built a reputation as one of the most respected legal minds in South Florida. But becoming a federal judge, U.S. attorney or federal marshal can be tricky and political. And it all starts with the Federal Judicial Nominating Commission. Martinez was joined by fellow former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey and Tew Cardenas partner Thomas Schultz, a former JNC chairman, for a panel discussion titled “Narrowing the Field” on the commission at a meeting of the South Florida chapter of the Federal Bar Association. They said politics plays a big role in the nominating process but not at the commission level. Martinez, Schultz and Coffey have held leadership positions on the commission at one time or another. Coffey currently chairs the 21-member Southern District Conference. The panel’s consensus was that Florida led the way nationally in trying to take politics out of the task of narrowing the field of applicants for Florida’s senators to consider. Each conference recommends up to four applicants to the senators, who make a recommendation to the White House.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Friday news and notes
Today is Judge William Matthewman's investiture at 12:30. Love Judge Matthewman, but 12:30? That's a rough time for an event. What about lunch?
See Rumpole, you aren't the only one with long lines at the courthouse. This was taken this morning:
What about the debates last night? Good stuff. Joe Biden came out swinging and was strong on substance. But what about all the smiling and facial expressions?
We are taught as lawyers to keep a poker face and we tell our clients the same thing. But is that the best advice? Should we be showing emotion in court in front of the jury?
See Rumpole, you aren't the only one with long lines at the courthouse. This was taken this morning:
What about the debates last night? Good stuff. Joe Biden came out swinging and was strong on substance. But what about all the smiling and facial expressions?
We are taught as lawyers to keep a poker face and we tell our clients the same thing. But is that the best advice? Should we be showing emotion in court in front of the jury?
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Presidential Thursday
President Obama is in town today and will be speaking at UM around 3:30 and then on Brickell around 5. Traffic is going to be an absolute nightmare. Maybe this is one of those days (take a deep breath Tannebaum) that you want to work out of the Starbucks close to home.
Should be a fun night with the VP debate. Ryan vs. Biden should have some fireworks...
Meantime, Justice Ginsburg had this crazy party while her 120-year old parents were away:
Should be a fun night with the VP debate. Ryan vs. Biden should have some fireworks...
Meantime, Justice Ginsburg had this crazy party while her 120-year old parents were away:
With her parents leaving town to celebrate their 98th wedding anniversary, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made plans Friday for a major house party, inviting all her Supreme Court colleagues to what she promised would be “a classic Ginsburg throwdown.”Yes, that's from the Onion....
Ginsburg, a Clinton appointee who traditionally votes with the court’s liberal wing and whose 120-year-old parents explicitly told her not to have any friends over, confirmed that she waited until her mother and father had pulled out of the driveway before texting “it’s on” to her fellow justices and telling them to “get ready to drink [their] asses off.”
“My dad is seriously crazy if he thinks I’m not going to throw an epic rager when I have the house to myself all weekend,” said Ginsburg, whose father, a furrier and haberdasher by trade, reportedly wrote down the mileage on his 1928 Ford Model A so he would know if his daughter took it out for a spin. “As far as I’m concerned, when the cats are away, the mice will play.”
“Besides, I’m 79,” she continued as she prepared a tray of Jell-O shots using the mix favored by her supercentenarian mother for its softness on her toothless gums. “They can’t tell me what to do anymore.”
According to sources, Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito, Stephen Breyer, and Clarence Thomas arrived first, catching a ride to the party in the open-backed Jeep Wrangler of Chief Justice John Roberts, who had earlier persuaded his older sister Kathy to buy beer. Justices Sotomayor and Kagan showed up shortly thereafter, having taken longer than expected to dupe their parents into thinking they were sleeping over at each other’s houses.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)