Judge Carnes strikes back...

... with the threat of more visiting judges.  From the Daily Report:

Lawyers appearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit may soon see more unfamiliar faces when they look up at the bench.

The court's chief judge has declared an emergency, such that cases may be decided by three-judge panels composed of only one of the court's judges, plus two visiting judges.

"We've got eight judges on a 12-judge court," said Chief Judge Edward Carnes, explaining the order he issued on Dec. 30.

The four vacancies on the court occurred when judges decided to leave the court or take senior status. President Barack Obama has made nominations for three of the four openings, but there is no guarantee if or when they'll be confirmed by the Senate. Two Georgia-based vacancies date to 2010 and 2012, while openings arose in Florida and Alabama last fall.

Federal law says that when federal appeals courts decide cases by three-judge panels, at least two of the judges must be members of that particular appeals court. Although the Eleventh Circuit generally does not use judges from outside of its membership to decide the cases it decides without oral argument—about 80 percent of the court's decisions, Carnes said—it liberally uses visiting judges for its oral argument calendar. Sometimes an oral argument panel might even comprise a fully active member of the Eleventh Circuit, one of the court's senior judges on a reduced caseload and a visiting judge from outside the court. Usually, visiting judges are district court judges from within the Eleventh Circuit's territory or senior federal judges from outside the circuit.

But the federal rule requiring a majority of a three-judge panel to come from the circuit's membership has exceptions, including that the chief judge can certify that there is an "emergency." The statute, 28 U.S.C. § 46(b), says such emergencies include, but are not limited to, the unavailability of a judge of the court because of illness.

In other news, John Pacenti covers this crazy case of identity theft:

When Carlos Gomez's identity was stolen, his bank account wasn't drained. But the Miami man went to jail and nearly ended up in prison for a crime organized by an employee at his former bank.
An employee at Wachovia Bank, which was bought by Wells Fargo, admitted stealing Gomez's personal information from an account he closed in 2002 and using it to open up another account in a $1.1 million embezzlement.
Wells Fargo & Co. discovered the fraud and implicated Gomez, among other suspects. Gomez was arrested at gunpoint in his home in front of his three young daughters, jailed without bond for two weeks and spent another seven months on house arrest.
Now that charges have been dropped, the UPS driver wants the bank to pay for destroying his life. His federal lawsuit recently withstood a motion to dismiss by the bank.
"I want to let the world know my story, to see how these banks can be," Gomez said. "At the end of the day, they don't care about you. You are just a number. They didn't care if I rotted in jail for 20 years."

 Finally, Chewbacca has posted some behind the scenes pictures from back in the day.  I liked this one:


 

Federal judges get cost of living increases

From Bloomberg:

All federal court judges -- from U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts down to bankruptcy court judges -- got five-figure raises because of a court ruling that erased pay freezes going back to 1995.

Their salaries rose by 14 percent on Jan. 1, as years of catch-up cost-of-living adjustments were added to their paychecks.
“The law had promised them they would get these adjustments in the years all federal employees got them and Congress blocked them,” Washington lawyer Christopher Landau said in a telephone interview. Landau represented six judges who filed a 2009 lawsuit challenging the denial of pay raises.
During the 1990s, as the size of congressional paychecks became a political issue, lawmakers canceled four automatic cost-of-living bumps for themselves and the judiciary. That led to lawsuits, including a class action that the judges won.
The Court of Federal Claims in Washington issued the final order last month.
In letters to Congress on Oct. 29, 2013 and Dec. 4, 2013, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder informed lawmakers that the Justice Department was no longer contesting the court cases and would consent to applying pay adjustments to all members of the federal judiciary.
There are 781 members of the federal judiciary and 93 vacant judgeships, according to the U.S. Courts website. That figure doesn’t include senior judges -- who take a reduced work load and continue working part time.
New Salaries The chief justice is being paid $255,500, up from $223,500, according to court documents and data compiled by Bloomberg. Associate Supreme Court justices now have a $244,400 salary, up from $213,900. U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges are getting $211,200 a year, up from $184,500. The annual salary of a U.S. District Court judge increased to $199,100 from $174,000.

ABA says Jill Pryor and Julie Carnes are well-qualified

Robin McDonald has more:

The American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary has given its highest rating to two of six candidates nominated by President Barack Obama to federal judicial posts in Georgia.
The 15-member ABA committee unanimously gave Atlanta attorney Jill Pryor and Chief Judge Julie Carnes of the Northern District of Georgia "well-qualified" ratings for their nominations to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
But the committee gave the four nominees for seats on the Northern District of Georgia bench more mixed ratings, with a minority of the panel deeming Judge Eleanor Ross of DeKalb County State Court unqualified for the federal post.
The ABA committee includes two members from the Ninth Circuit, one member for each of the other 12 federal judicial circuits and a chairman. The members are appointed by the ABA president and serve staggered, three-year terms.
The Eleventh Circuit's representative is Miami lawyer Francisco "Frank" Angones of Angones McClure & Garcia in Miami. Angones is a former president of the Cuban-American Bar Association, the Dade County Bar Association and the Florida Bar.

 UPDATE -- the current ABA rep is Peter Prieto.

Better Call Saul!

This looks like a lot of websites in Miami.

Here's a testimonial:

Juror fraud

Cuidado!




From the Court's webpage:

Recently, attempted jury scams have begun to be reported in the Southern District of Florida. Individuals have reported being contacted over the telephone and requested to pay fines for missing jury duty. Our Court never makes requests for payment of fines from jurors over the telephone. Rather, jurors who miss jury duty may be requested to provide an explanation, or directed to appear at court, but they will not be solicited for payment of fines over the telephone. Although jurors may be held in contempt for failing to appear, that sanction is only imposed by a judge in open court with an opportunity for the summoned juror to explain the failure to appear. If anyone is contacted by someone requesting such payments on behalf of the Court, please do not make the payment, and instead immediately contact the Southern District of Florida Jury section at (800) 865-1775 or (305) 523-5190.


These jury scams are occurring with increasing frequency across the country. According to the U.S. Courts web page and video, federal courts never ask prospective jurors to provide sensitive information, such as Social Security or credit card numbers, over the telephone. It also is a crime to falsely represent oneself as a federal court employee. Anyone suspecting a fraudulent call should contact the clerk's office at their nearest district court.

Examples of juror scams:

• Victims are falsely being told they missed jury duty and must pay a fine or face arrest. The scams have occurred most frequently in the District of New Mexico, but federal court officials in Utah and Colorado said they recently received similar complaints. In the New Mexico scam, callers posing as court employees are demanding payment of a $400 fine, even though victims never received a jury summons. Victims are being advised to purchase a MoneyPak prepaid credit card, call a designated phone number, and read off the card number.

• In the Western District of New York, victims are being sent a fictitious arrest warrant on a criminal charge and offering a chance to avoid arrest through the payment of a specific amount.

In other news, Justice Sotomayor doesn't wear dentures. 




But she's best friends with a dentist.

Wednesday News & Notes -- judicial nomination edition

1.  Lots of media coverage about the White House leaving Will Thomas' name off of the list of renominated judges.  Here's the HuffPost:

The White House has thrown in the towel in trying to confirm William Thomas to a federal court seat in Florida, signaling an end to a puzzling case of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) blocking his own judicial nominee.
In a pile of about 200 nominees President Barack Obama resubmitted to the Senate at the start of the year, Thomas was noticeably absent. An administration official confirmed Tuesday that his resubmission isn't coming.
"The nomination of Judge William Thomas was returned by the Senate and Senator Rubio has made his objection clear, so the President chose not to renominate him," the official told The Huffington Post.
Thomas would have made history, if confirmed, as the first openly gay black man to serve as a federal judge.
Rubio has been single-handedly blocking Thomas for months, despite recommending him to Obama in 2012 as a nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Rubio indicated in September he would not submit his "blue slip" to the Senate Judiciary Committee -- a courtesy, but not a hard rule, honored in the committee that allows a home-state senator to advance or hold up a nominee. Florida's other senator, Bill Nelson (D), submitted his blue slip months ago.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, has hinted in the past that he would revisit the blue slip process if Republicans abuse it. Asked for his thoughts on the White House sinking Thomas' nomination after Rubio used the blue slip rule to block him, Leahy said only, "Let me find out about that one."
There's a particular urgency to filling this Florida judgeship, which has been vacant for more than 20 months. The court backlog is so bad that the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts has deemed it a “judicial emergency."
Rubio spokeswoman Brooke Sammon said Tuesday she had nothing new to say regarding why Rubio became so adamant about blocking Thomas. She pointed to a past comment on the senator's concerns with the nominee.
"The nomination of Judge Thomas has also been thoroughly reviewed, and Senator Rubio has determined that Thomas’s record on the state court raises serious concerns about his fitness for a lifetime federal appointment. Those concerns include questions about his judicial temperament and his willingness to impose appropriate criminal sentences, particularly in the two high-profile cases of Michele Traverso and Joel Lebron last year. After reviewing Thomas’s record, Senator Rubio cannot support moving forward with the nomination," Sammon said.
HuffPost previously reviewed materials provided by Rubio's office that outlined the senator's justification for sinking Thomas' nomination, and nothing egregious stood out in either of the two cases. Instead, Rubio appears to be critical of Thomas for being too lenient in one case and too emotional in the other.
Florida Democratic lawmakers say Rubio's opposition is political as he tries to win back support from tea party members after angering them by advocating comprehensive immigration reform in 2012. Rubio's name has also been floated as a potential 2016 presidential contender.
"Judge Thomas is a well-qualified jurist," Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) told HuffPost in the fall. "There is a serious underrepresentation of minorities on the bench and partisan obstructionism isn’t making it any better."

I'm not sure how the process works now.  Will the JNC reopen the interview process for that slot or will it send up the names it sent previously?

2.  Meantime, the Dems are not too happy with the President about the nominees in Georgia:

U.S. Rep. David Scott, D-Atlanta, has asked to testify against President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees for Georgia, another twist in a public dispute that pits Georgia’s Democratic members of Congress and civil rights community against the first black president’s White House.
Scott wrote a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., on Friday to request an appearance at a yet-to-be scheduled hearing on a slate of six Georgia nominees.
Democrats have complained of being shut out of negotiations between White House officials and Georgia’s Republican senators, who have the power to block committee consideration for home-state judicial nominees by “blue slip” custom enforced by Leahy. Democrats are upset that only one of the six nominees is a minority, that Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Michael Boggs voted to keep the 1956 version state flag – with its Confederate battle emblem -- when he was in the state Senate and that attorney Mark Cohen defended the state’s voter ID law (even though he did so on behalf of then Attorney General Thurbert Baker, a Democrat).
Wrote Scott:

“If confirmed, the federal bench in Georgia will not reflect the current demographics of the state for at least another generation.  There will soon be only one active African-American district court judge in Georgia.  In addition, the views of some of these nominees reflect the regressive politics of the past.  I want to share some very important and critical background information with the Committee before these nominations are considered.
“It is an abomination that these nominees for lifetime appointment were drafted in secret, not vetted by any legal groups among the President’s supporters, and announced on a holiday weekend. We must not allow lifetime appointed judges to be rammed through the hearing process without sufficient input from the people who will be affected by their future judicial actions.”

 3.  There's also an opening in Alabama:

Civil rights advocates are encouraging President Barack Obama to nominate an African-American to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which would be a first from Alabama.
The high-level court, one step below the U.S. Supreme Court, has had only two black judges in its history, both from Florida.
The latest opening — created when Judge Joel Dubina of Montgomery took semi-retirement in October — will be the first chance a Democratic president has had to appoint someone from Alabama to the 11th Circuit, which was created in 1981.
Race is a significant issue for the Deep South circuit, which has a combined black population of about 7.2 million. The 11th Circuit hears appeals from Florida, Georgia and Alabama, and is a source of many high-profile discrimination cases involving voting, employment and redistricting.
Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, is the lone black member of Alabama’s congressional delegation and said diversity should be a priority.
“I think now is not the time to falter on the president’s commitment to diversifying the bench, and that is especially true on the 11th Circuit,” Sewell said Tuesday. “Alabama has some very talented African-American lawyers who should be considered.”
And U.W. Clemon, Alabama’s first black federal judge who is now in private practice in Birmingham, is also hoping for a black nominee.
“It would be historic,” Clemon said.
The Alabama Democratic Party and an advisory committee to Sewell have interviewed several black candidates for the 11th Circuit job, and many of their names have been forwarded to the White House for consideration.

The President has resubmitted 64 judicial nominees to the Senate...

...including Robin Rosenbaum and Jill Pryor.  

Notably, William Thomas was left off of the list.  This really is too bad as he never got his chance for an up or down vote with the Senate.  The federal judiciary's loss is the state court's gain.  

"At the cost of being blunt, permit me to resort to scatological commentary to tell you Joel that you're about the most untrustworthy, double-dealing sack of s--t I've met I can't remember how long."

That's your quote of the day from a bankruptcy court filing by Sandy Rosen, a retired attorney and bridge player, in a letter to Joel Tabas.  John Pacenti covers the story here.

Oh, and FYI:

sca·tol·o·gy  (sk-tl-j, sk-)n. pl. sca·tol·o·gies

1. The study of fecal excrement, as in medicine, paleontology, or biology.