Why you gotta love Judge Ungaro

You can almost hear her engaging the Governor's lawyers (via Curt Anderson):

 Gov. Rick Scott intends to take his fight for random drug tests of tens of thousands of state employees all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, a lawyer for the Republican governor told a federal judge Thursday.
But Charles Trippe, who was previously Scott's general counsel and is now in private practice, could not persuade U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro to delay further proceedings in the case while the state appeals. Ungaro said she did not want to become "a political tool" in the controversial issue — and she also said Scott has "probably about zero" chance of winning a Supreme Court case.
"I just don't think it has likelihood of success," said Ungaro, who previously declared Scott's January 2011 drug-testing executive order an unconstitutional violation of the workers' privacy rights.
The case affecting some 85,000 state employees as well as many job applicants is back before Ungaro because the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded her April 2012 ruling in was too broad. The appeals court said in May of this year that some workers can legitimately be tested — such as those in law enforcement and sensitive safety jobs — and Ungaro planned to appoint a special master to come up with a proposed list of those positions.
Trippe wanted Ungaro to delay that exhaustive process so the governor can pursue the Supreme Court appeal, which would likely push the case well into election-year 2014. But Ungaro would not issue that order Thursday, even though an attorney for the American Federation of County, State and Municipal Employees did not object.
"How are you going to avoid it? Do we hope the governor will be voted out of office?" Ungaro said of the legal case. "Is this the idea, keep the ball up in the air, pray he is not re-elected?"
The judge said she would not delay the case unless Scott agreed to scrap the executive order should the Supreme Court decline to review it.
"I certainly can't say that," Trippe replied.
The executive order has been on hold pending the outcome of the lawsuit, filed by AFCSME and the American Civil Liberties Union. Also on hold is implementation of a similar state law that gives agency department heads authority to devise their own drug-testing programs, said union attorney Shalini Agarwal.
Ungaro set another hearing for Oct. 11 and urged the two sides to come up with a way forward. For example, the judge suggested the two sides work together on narrowing down which job categories might be exempt from drug testing and which could be covered by it.
"I have no desire to see the citizens of the state of Florida exposed to any more expense," she said.
Trippe, however, said the governor's office may return to the October hearing "with the same position we have today" seeking to delay the case.
"That's fine," the judge replied. "And, I may deny it."

Wednesday News & Notes

1.  The blog broke the news yesterday of the 4 nominees from the JNC for the federal bench.  Two of these nominees will be selected as our next federal judges:

Beth Bloom, Darrin Gayles, Peter Lopez, John Thornton

2.  Meantime, Judge Will Thomas' nomination is still being held up by Sen. Marco Rubio.  A rally on his behalf was held this morning at the federal courthouse.

3.  Claudio Osorio was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison.

4.   "Grotesque prosecutorial misconduct" leads to a new trial.  This time it's from New Orleans.  Via CNN:

Jury selection was minutes away for five ex-New Orleans police officers accused of shooting unarmed civilians after Hurricane Katrina when a commenter ripped into the defendants on a newspaper website.

"NONE of these guys should had have [sic] ever been given a badge," the commenter, identified only as "legacyusa," wrote. "We should research how they got on the police department, who trained them, who supervised them and why were they ever been promoted. You put crap in -- you get crap out!!!"

"Legacyusa" turned out to be one of the top federal prosecutors in New Orleans. His post was just one of many anonymous barbs that led a federal judge Tuesday to throw out the convictions of those ex-cops in the Danziger Bridge shootings, which left two people dead and four seriously wounded.

In a 129-page ruling, District Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt cited long list of "egregious and inflammatory" comments by at least three Justice Department officials using a variety of online identities. Those comments fueled a "21st century carnival atmosphere" that tainted the 2011 trial and will require a new one, Engelhardt wrote.

"This case started as one featuring allegations of brazen abuse of authority, violation of the law and corruption of the criminal justice system; unfortunately, though the focus has switched from the accused to the accusers, it has continued to be about those very issues," the order states. "After much reflection, the court cannot journey as far as it has in this case only to ironically accept grotesque prosecutorial misconduct in the end."

In a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, the Justice Department said, "We are disappointed with the court's ruling. We are reviewing the decision and considering our options."

  
 Seems like a strange reaction from DOJ.  Why do they defense misconduct?

5.   Locally, bond was denied this morning in a case involving Iran, uranium, African mines, and ICE.  From Curt Anderson:

A West African man was ordered jailed Thursday until trial on U.S. charges that he attempted to broker an illegal deal to ship tons of uranium ore from Sierra Leone to Iran, including a trip to the U.S. with uranium ore samples concealed in shoes inside his luggage.
Patrick Campbell, 33, faces a maximum of 20 years behind bars and up to $1 million in fines if convicted of attempting to violate the U.S. embargo against Iran. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement affidavit filed in federal court says Campbell claimed he could supply enough ore — commonly known as yellowcake — to yield 1,000 tons of purified uranium that could be used for nuclear fuel or weapons.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Seltzer agreed with prosecutors at a hearing that Campbell should not be released on bail, although a trial date has not been set. Campbell is scheduled to enter a plea next week.

Breaking -- JNC cuts list to 4

Your next two federal district judges will be from this list:

Beth Bloom, Darrin Gayles, Peter Lopez, John Thornton

Congrats!!

Interesting to note that all four are sitting state judges in Circuit Court.

JNC interviews today

Good luck to all of the applicants.

After the interviews, the JNC will cut the list to four (for two open seats).  I will post those four names as soon as I have them.

Bonds strikes out

Barry Bonds' conviction was affirmed.  From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Barry Bonds obstructed justice before a federal grand jury when he tried to duck a question about steroid injections with an evasive and irrelevant answer, a federal appeals court ruled Friday in upholding the felony conviction of baseball's home run king.
A jury in San Francisco deadlocked in 2011 on three charges that Bonds committed perjury when he denied, in 2003 grand jury testimony, that he had ever knowingly used steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs.
But jurors convicted him of obstructing the panel's investigation after a prosecutor asked him whether his personal trainer had ever given him injectable drugs. Instead of a yes-or-no answer, he launched into a discourse about his "celebrity" childhood, as the son of ex-ballplayer Bobby Bonds, and his friendship with the trainer, and added, "I just don't get into other people's business."
Bonds appealed his conviction, saying he had testified truthfully. But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said factually accurate testimony can be obstructive if it is intended to throw an investigation off course.
"When factually true statements are misleading or evasive, they can prevent the grand jury from obtaining truthful and responsive answers," said Judge Mary Schroeder in the 3-0 ruling.
Bonds' lawyers were not immediately available for comment. They could ask the full appeals court for a rehearing. His sentence of 30 days of house arrest, 250 hours of community service and $4,100 in fines and court costs has been on hold during his appeal.
Bonds issued a statement on his website Friday that read, in part: "I have instructed my attorneys to ask the court and probation officials to permit me to begin serving my full sentence and probation immediately. Meanwhile, I also intend to seek further judicial review of the important legal issues presented by the appeal that was decided today."

Here's the intro to the opinion:

 Barry Bonds was a celebrity child who grew up in
baseball locker rooms as he watched his father Bobby Bonds
and his godfather, the legendary Willie Mays, compete in the
Major Leagues. Barry Bonds was a phenomenal baseball
player in his own right. Early in his career he won MVP
awards and played in multiple All-Star games. Toward the
end of his career, playing for the San Francisco Giants, his
appearance showed strong indications of the use of steroids,
some of which could have been administered by his trainer,
Greg Anderson. Bonds’s weight and hat size increased, along
with the batting power that transformed him into one of the
most feared hitters ever to play the game. From the late-
1990s through the early-2000s, steroid use in baseball fueled
an unprecedented explosion in offense, leading some
commentators to refer to the period as the “Steroid Era.”1 In
2002, the federal government, through the Criminal
Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service, began
investigating the distribution of steroids and other
performance enhancing drugs (“PEDs”). The government’s
purported objective was to investigate whether the
distributors of PEDs laundered the proceeds gained by selling
those drugs.
The government’s investigation focused on the
distribution of steroids by the Bay Area Laboratory
Co-operative (“BALCO”), which was located in the San
Francisco Bay Area. The government raided BALCO and
obtained evidence suggesting that Anderson distributed
BALCO manufactured steroids to Bonds and other
professional athletes. The government convened a grand jury
in the fall of 2003 to further investigate the sale of these
drugs in order to determine whether the proceeds of the sales
were being laundered. Bonds and other professional athletes
were called to testify. Bonds testified under a grant of
immunity and denied knowingly using steroids or any other
PEDs provided by BALCO or Anderson. The government
later charged Bonds with obstructing the grand jury’s
investigation. After a jury trial, Bonds was convicted of one
count of obstruction of justice in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 1503. He now appeals. We affirm the conviction.

In other news, the U.S. Attorney's office in the Eastern District of North Carolina is not going to put up with prosecutorial misconduct. The whole article is worth a read, but here's the intro from the Charlotte Observer:

In May, U.S. Court of Appeals judges were so upset with federal prosecutors from North Carolina’s Eastern District for persistently hiding or mishandling criminal case evidence that a tongue-lashing, perhaps never heard before in the stately wood-paneled U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals courtroom in Richmond, Va., was delivered from the bench.
“I’ve been an appellate judge for 28 years, and I have never made these kinds of comments to a prosecutor, never,” Appeals Court Judge Barbara Keenan told the prosecutor from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in North Carolina’s 44-county region that stretches from Raleigh to the coast. “But the increasing frequency from your office of this kind of conduct is really troubling, really troubling.”
The circuit judges followed with a ruling two weeks ago in the securities fraud case of United States v. Gregory Bartko, suggesting that a prosecutor had ignored false testimony instead of correcting it during trial, among other concerns. The judges said the case further highlighted a troubling pattern of Eastern District prosecutors withholding evidence from defendants. They asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to review the behavior.
That has led to a shakeup at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the North Carolina Eastern District. Thomas Walker, the appointed U.S. Attorney since 2011, confirmed changes to the top ranks of his staff and said in an interview that he has adopted new rules for handling evidence in criminal cases.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/09/09/4294706/top-federal-prosecutor-in-nc-eastern.html?goback=.gde_1525477_member_273178346#.UjcNJj_ZV8F#storylink=cpy

Do Bloggers irritate judges?

Senior U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf has this post today on that exact subject (re Howard Bashman at How Appealing) at his blog, "Hercules and the Umpire."

Meantime, it appears that Judge Kopf has irritated an appellate judge with his use of language on his blog: 

While he thought the story was inspiring, a distinguished federal appellate judge from another Circuit thought my use of a vulgarity (“suck”) in the post about Shon Hopwood offended good taste.  I am glad the judge cared enough to write, and I sincerely thank him. Although I am not keen on receiving lectures on taste and decorum, the judge’s candid criticism about my use of rough, profane or vulgar language caused me to reflect seriously on his point.
I am of two minds. On the one hand, I understand the great strength of the judge’s point. Among other consequences, jarring language such as the word the judge complained about may unnecessarily diminish respect for other judges. Moreover, judges should model civilized writing if for no other reason than they expect civilized discourse from others. Still further, bad words are simply losing their utility in our coarsening society. On the other hand, I want to demystify the work of federal trial judges. Sometimes, rough language expresses my thoughts in a way that more refined language would mask. Indeed, from where I sit, much of what I see and hear is actually profane and vulgar no matter how I might wish to sanitize it.

I really enjoy reading Kopf's blog as it is a pretty open dialogue from a sitting district judge. He also engages his readers in the comment section. If you haven't already, you should check it out.

If you are interested in Supreme Court "beauty contests," there are two good articles to read:

The first is on Above the Law about how the law firms were selected in the Obamacare cases, and the second is from the Daily Report about a case headed to the Supreme Court between Georgia and Florida where Georgia took bids for the case:

Lawyers who want to defend Georgia from Florida's impending lawsuit over water rights range from a former U.S. solicitor general who regularly charges more than $1,100 per hour to a recent law school graduate who offered to work for free. Those were two of the 29 applications the Georgia Law Department received by Tuesday's deadline. Two other applications were submitted after the deadline, and the department has not yet determined whether they will be considered. This is the first time under Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens that the Law Department has sought bids for potential special assistant attorneys general.

Finally, the 11th Circuit decided that ghostwriting for a pro se litigant isn't so bad.  I wonder which law clerk wrote that opinion.

Judge happenings

Interesting news out of Atlanta regarding negotiations over judgeships for the 11th Circuit and the district seat.  From Robin McDonald's article:

Georgia's Republican U.S. senators have cut a deal with state Democrats that, if approved by the White House, would fill six judgeships on Atlanta's federal appeals and district court benches, Georgia lawyers familiar with the nomination process have told the Daily Report.
The package deal would remove roadblocks thrown up by Senators Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson that have held up the confirmation of Atlanta attorney Jill Pryor, a partner at Bondurant Mixson & Elmore, for the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Pryor was nominated in February 2012.
The deal also recommends the elevation to the Eleventh Circuit of U.S. District Court Chief Judge Julie Carnes of the Northern District of Georgia. Carnes was appointed to her current post by President George H.W. Bush in 1992.
Carnes' move would create a fourth vacancy on the district court in Atlanta, where judges who left in 2009, 2010 and this year have yet to be replaced.
The new bargain includes the nomination of Leigh Martin May, a personal injury and product liability attorney at Butler Wooten & Fryhofer, for the Northern District bench. May was on a 2009 list of potential nominees that was sent to the White House by a committee appointed by members of Georgia's Democratic congressional delegation; May's law partner, James Butler, was a member of that committee. Chambliss and Isakson initially rejected May and others as nominees.
In return for their agreement not to block the nominations of Pryor and May, Chambliss and Isakson would name candidates to the other three district court vacancies. They include Troutman Sanders partner Mark Cohen, whose name the senators put forth first in 2010 for the Northern District bench and in 2011 for the Eleventh Circuit. Their remaining two picks are two state court judges appointed by Republican Governor Nathan Deal—DeKalb County State Court Judge Eleanor Ross and Judge Michael Boggs of the Georgia Court of Appeals.

Meantime, the JNC has cut the list for district judge in the Middle District.  Now it's up to the Senators to pick from these four:  

Paul Byron, Bill Jung, Carlos Mendoza, Waddell Wallace

Trial for Joel Steinger continued

Who can blame Judge Scola... the dude was in a hospital gown.  From Curt Anderson:

 On the eve of jury selection, a federal judge agreed Monday to delay the trial of the alleged mastermind of an $800 million insurance investment fraud scheme because the man suffers from severe pain and health problems caused by a chronic back ailment.

U.S. District Judge Robert Scola granted the postponement after former Mutual Benefits Corp. chief Joel Steinger, 63, tearfully requested time for spinal surgery. Steinger, who uses a wheelchair and is on strong pain medications, appeared in court in a hospital gown. He frequently wrapped a blanket around his chest.

"You can't do this like this. I don't have the strength to go on. I can't take the pain anymore," Steinger said in a voice breaking with emotion. "You know what I'm thinking about now? Getting back to the hospital so I can get more dope."...

Steinger would have needed frequent breaks if trial had gone forward in his current condition, along with a special chair, oxygen bottle and a nurse standing by to handle his needs - all at taxpayer expense. These conditions, Scola wrote, "make his presence throughout the trial a logistical and hygienic nightmare" that surgery may avoid.