Thursday's news and notes

1. The dude who disrupted the Supreme Court got time served. From the AP:

A demonstrator who interrupted arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court in February and whose group posted video of the protest online, a first for the court, has been sentenced to time served.

Noah Kai Newkirk of Los Angeles pleaded guilty Tuesday in connection with the Feb. 26 disruption, after which he served a night in jail. After Tuesday's hearing, a Supreme Court policeman gave Newkirk a piece of paper that notified him he is also barred from the court grounds for a year.

After video of his protest was posted online, the Supreme Court, which forbids cameras and all other electronic devices, tightened its security screening. Newkirk declined Tuesday to say how the video of his protest was shot.

Newkirk, a member of the group 99Rise, told a D.C. Superior Court judge overseeing his case that he spoke out to protest the "unprecedented amount of money" corporations are spending on elections. He said the Supreme Court played a role in "deepening that corruption."
...
Newkirk's attorney, Jeffrey L. Light, told the judge Newkirk has no intention of returning to the Supreme Court. But Newkirk said outside the hearing that "it's a hypothetical possibility there may be others."

2. While keeping the Court closed to cameras and punishing those who disrupt the Court, Justice Scalia told a student that he should consider revolting:. From the WSJ:

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, after delivering prepared remarks before a standing-room-only crowd at the University of Tennessee College of Law on Tuesday, was asked by a student about the constitutionality of the income tax.

Justice Scalia, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel, replied that the government has the right to take his money. “But if reaches certain point, perhaps you should revolt,” he reportedly told the young man.

The justice, who was invited by the law school to present its annual “Rose Lecture,” delivered what he described as his “stump speech.”

He talked about the time he joined with the majority in 1989 in declaring that flag-burning was constitutionally protected speech.

“You’re entitled to criticize the government, and you can use words, you can use symbols, you can use telegraph, you can use Morse code, you can burn a flag,” he said, according to the News Sentinel.

Justice Scalia also said that he and his colleagues on the bench don’t care which party controls the White House, saying the clash of opinions among the justices isn’t partisan.

And he, naturally, offered a defense of his theory of originalism, the belief in a Constitution that’s fixed and unchangeable.

“The Constitution is not a living organism for Pete’s sake,” the justice said, according to the report. “It’s a law. It means what it meant when it was adopted.”

3. Another Rothstein indictment. This time it's Irene Stay. From the Sun-Sentinel:

Federal prosecutors filed a criminal charge Wednesday against Scott Rothstein's former bookkeeper, who became the chief financial officer of his law firm, court records show.

Irene Stay, now Irene Shannon, 50, of Miami, was charged with a lone count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and bank fraud. Prosecutors said she is the 18th Rothstein accomplice to be held accountable.

Shannon played a vital role in Rothstein's $1.4 billion Ponzi scheme, which he operated from 2005 to 2009, according to investigators.
Her job involved overseeing all of the law firm's accounting work from the secured inner sanctum that Rothstein had built in his Las Olas office, according to investigators from the IRS and FBI.

Some of Rothstein's investors alleged in a civil lawsuit that when Rothstein's law partners confronted Shannon after he fled to Morocco in late October 2009, she began crying and repeating the phrase, "I don't want to go to jail."

Fort Lauderdale jeweler Patrick Daoud gets house

Another Judge Marra/Fred Haddad matchup. From Paula McMahon:

Well-known Fort Lauderdale jeweler Patrick Daoud was sentenced to ten months of house arrest and two years of probation on Friday for helping to hide a huge 12.08 carat yellow diamond that Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein's wife was attempting to conceal from federal authorities.

Daoud, 55,the owner of Daoud's Fine Jewelry in Fort Lauderdale, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice last year.
***
His crime, prosecutors said, was lying about the diamond under oath when he was summoned to a deposition in federal bankruptcy proceedings in November 2011. He testified that he never received or kept the diamond and later, in June 2012, returned it to Weisman.

"He had the opportunity to do the right thing and chose not to," Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence LaVecchio said in court.

Daoud's lawyer, Fred Haddad, said that Daoud was "deliberately kept in the dark" and knew nothing of Rothstein's attempt to hide jewelry and other assets to try to keep her financially afloat after her husband's $1.4 billion investment fraud scheme was exposed in October 2009.

Daoud panicked when he figured out what was going on and got involved in a "misguided attempt to protect" Weisman – who he knew from attending charitable events – and his investment, Haddad said.

"Aside from losing a large sum of money in purchasing the ring, the embarrassment in a community where he is so well-known, [Daoud] has also been branded a felon, with a resultant loss of business," Haddad wrote.

When U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra asked Daoud if he wanted to say anything before he was sentenced, Daoud hesitantly replied: "I'd rather not."

Judge Pryor says judicial branch disrepected by AG Holder

Some fireworks from the Sentencing Commission last week when 11th Circuit Judge Pryor said that AG Holder disrespected the judicial branch by not opposing the proposed two level decrease in the drug guidelines. More from NLJ:

The United States Sentencing Commission Thursday unanimously approved an amendment to revise sentencing guidelines for non-violent drug offenders, but not before one commissioner accused Attorney General Eric Holder of having “disrespected” the judicial branch’s role in sentencing reform.

“I regret that, before we voted on the amendment, the Attorney General instructed Assistant United States Attorneys across the Nation not to object to defense requests to apply the proposed amendment in sentencing proceedings going forward,” Judge William Pryor, Jr. said at a public hearing in Washington. “That unprecedented instruction disrespected our statutory role, ‘as an independent commission in the judicial branch,’ to establish sentencing policies and practices under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984.”

Nevertheless, Pryor voted with the seven other Republican and Democratic judges to reduce sentencing guidelines involving drug offenders.

In August, Holder revealed his “Smart on Crime” initiative, which includes recommendations for reduced sentencing, without consulting with the Sentencing Commission—an independent agency within the judicial branch tasked with setting such policies. Although the sentencing reforms themselves were not controversial, Holder’s cavalier approach to separation of powers, including a March memo in which he “instructed the Assistant United States Attorneys across the Nation not to object to defense requests to apply the proposed amendment in sentencing proceedings going forward,” irritated commissioners and alarmed supporters of constitutional separation of powers.

The amendment approved Thursday, aims to reduce federal prison overcrowding by reducing non-violent drug trafficking offenders’ sentences by 17 percent.

Holder did not attend the meeting. Instead, Commissioner Jonathan Wroblewski responded to what he called Pryor’s “very, very, very serious charge.” Wroblewski insisted that what the Attorney General did was “not only lawful, but in the greatest respect of the Justice Department,”

Chief Judge Ricardo Hinojosa stated that he was “surprised” by Wroblewski’s statement. He concurred with Pryor that Holder is setting a “dangerous precedent,” noting that two years ago, the Justice Department testified that it was not ready for reductions in sentencing, but that “all of a sudden, because the Attorney General says so” the DOJ has changed its course.

The meeting concluded with Chief Judge Patti Saris applauding the commission for its unanimous vote. But observers joined Pryor and Hinojosa in condemning Holder’s high-handed approach to constitutional boundaries.

“For those committed to the rule of law, the question now goes beyond whether reducing sentences for dealers in dangerous drugs is wise. It’s whether the Attorney General, the chief law enforcement officer in the United States, is committed to following the law as it exists, or, instead, as he wants and speculates it might become,” William G. Otis a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said in a statement. “One way to consider this question is to ask whether, if the Attorney General ordered prosecutors to seek increased sentences that were, at the time, only preliminary, those applauding Mr. Holder’s actions would be as enthusiastic as they are today.”

I'm not sure I see the disrespect or the separation of powers issues. The Attorney General can tell his prosecutors what sentences to seek; in fact, he can even go so far as to pick and choose what cases to prosecute. I see the judges' role as a check on the prosecution power in seeking sentences that are too high, not too low. This is an adversary system, so if the executive branch says that a particular sentence is too high, I'm not sure how that is disrespecting the judicial branch. As an aside, the guidelines aren't even based on any empirical data; they are simply made up numbers -- and the Commission voted unanimously to reduce those made up numbers. Had Holder not told his prosecutors to stop seeking the higher sentences, we'd see a flood of 2255s, along with appeals, and I'm sure the judicial branch wouldn't be happy about that.

Judge Marra's sentencing of Christopher George last week demonstrated how the judiciary rightly checks the government. The prosecution asked for a third off of George's sentence for cooperation and the defense asked for way more. Judge Marra correctly said no and gave much less -- about 20%. From Paula McMahon the Sun-Sentinel:

Christopher George, whose highly successful pill mills in Broward and Palm Beach counties made about $40 million, was hoping Friday that his cooperation with prosecutors would earn him a big break on the prison term he is serving.

Though the inmate wasn't in court to witness it, prosecutors formally recommended that he should get close to six years shaved off his 17 1/2 year federal prison sentence and told the judge that they wouldn't object to him getting as much as a 50 percent sentence reduction.

But U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra was not going for anything even close to that.

"I'm not sure that I want him back out on the streets as quickly as everyone here seems to want — he's a dangerous person," Marra said.

Recalling George's boastful testimony last summer in the trial of two doctors he hired to prescribe massive amounts of painkillers to addicts and other drug, the judge said the former Wellington twin was "proud of being a criminal."

"He was proud of what he did. He was just upset that he got caught," Marra said.

The judge, who has granted sentence reductions for several other co-defendants who helped the prosecution, reminded prosecutors and defense attorney Fred Haddad that he could refuse to reduce George's sentence by even one day.

But mindful that prosecutors investigating tough cases often need the help of cooperating criminals — who will only do the right thing if they know they will receive some kind of reward — Marra said it would be "unwise and damaging to the criminal justice system" to give George no credit at all.

After a long silence, Marra ruled that it was appropriate to take 3 1/2 years off George's prison term – which cuts his punishment to 14 years. Federal inmates usually serve about 85 percent of their sentences, with time off for good behavior.

Tax fraud trial starts for former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina

The case is before Judge Ungaro.  The Herald has these details from the start of the trial:

The tax-evasion trial of former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina and his wife got underway Friday with opening statements.
A 12-person Miami federal jury, which was picked Thursday, will hear allegations that Robaina and his wife, Raiza, conspired to defraud the federal government by failing to report more than $1 million in income — including $300,000 in cash payments allegedly collected from now-imprisoned investment scammer Luis Felipe Perez. The trial, presided over by U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro, could last three weeks.
Before trial, prosecutors Richard Gregorie and Michael Davis argued that the couple had a conflict of interest with being represented by one defense attorney. They claimed that Robaina arranged to be paid in cash by Perez so he could use the money for his alleged mistress and keep it a secret from his wife.
But the Robainas stood united, insisting that the issue would not pose a conflict at trial because Perez and another witness who made the allegation were “liars.”

"I am handcuffed! I am not allowed to do the nasty conservative things I want to do to the country."

That was Justice Scalia during this recent talk at Brooklyn Law School.  More from the WSJ:

If the framers didn't think flogging was cruel or unusual, he continued, then it couldn't, therefore, violate the constitution they wrote.

Before an audience, the sharp bite of Mr. Scalia's imposing demeanor was leavened with a self-deprecating wit. Because of the inviolability of the Constitution's original meaning, he joked, "I am handcuffed! I am not allowed to do the nasty conservative things I want to do to the country."

This answer, like many others, elicited a round of delighted laughter and applause from the law students, who seemed to be cheering Mr. Scalia's clever and occasionally confrontational replies more than they were applauding the substance of his positions. When Mr. Napolitano asked him a question about privacy from government intrusion into the bedroom, he began, "Bedroom is polite language for intercourse—is that right?"

After an hour of interrogation from Mr. Napolitano, Mr. Scalia fielded questions from the audience. The questions didn't seem prescreened, but a few were notably pointed.

"There have been many calls for Justice Ginsburg to retire," one student asked. "Would you take some of the pressure off her and retire instead?"

Amid a roar of laughter, Mr. Scalia gave a teasing response. "I said I would take questions—I didn't say I would answer them."

When another student asked, referring to Mr. Scalia's originalism, "Why should society be bound by laws that were passed only by white male property owners," he hesitated for a few seconds, longer than he had all evening. "That's a reasonable position," he smiled. "You people wanna make a revolt? Do it!"

Should Supreme Court Justices be more tech savvy?

After reading Michelle Olsen's post on the Facebook case coming up, where the briefs have to describe what FB is, query whether these Justices know enough to be ruling on such questions:

The petition includes a rudimentary description of Facebook, a subtle recognition of the justices’ admitted lack of online savvy: Users have “a home page on which the user can post comments, photos, and links to other websites.” They “may become ‘friends’ with other users.”

Justice Elena Kagan has said that the justices do not even use email.

Here's the question involved in this specific case:

A man convicted of making threats using Facebook has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve a circuit split over what constitutes a “true threat.”

Under the pseudonym “Tone Dougie,” Anthony Douglas Elonis posted violent content on Facebook about his wife and others, often in the form of rap lyrics.

Elonis was convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), which makes it a federal crime to transmit “any threat to injure the person of another” in interstate commerce. There are comparable state laws.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected Elonis’ appeal.

In February, the University of Virginia School of Law’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic filed a petition for certiorari on behalf of Elonis. John Elwood, a Vinson & Elkins partner and clinic instructor, is the counsel of record. Elwood is also a former assistant to the solicitor general and clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy.

The brief in opposition is due April 21, so the justices could act soon on the petition.

Virginia v. Black, a 2003 Supreme Court opinion about cross burning, held that when a “speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals,” that is a true threat (emphasis added). Such threats are not protected speech under the First Amendment.

The petition outlines a split among federal courts of appeals and state high courts over Black’s true threat definition. One interpretation focuses on the speaker, while the other focuses on the speaker and the listener.

Does the phrase “means to communicate” require that the speaker subjectively intend a threat, or is it enough that the message sent comes across objectively as a threat?

Drs. Joseph Castronuovo and Cynthia Cadet sentenced

You remember them -- they were acquitted of all the drug charges in front of Judge Marra a few weeks back.  But they were convicted of money laundering.  Many thought they would get very low sentences because of the acquittals. Not so much.  From the Sun-Sentinel:

It seemed like a victory for two doctors last summer when a jury cleared them of federal charges they had caused the overdose deaths of eight patients they treated at some of South Florida's most notorious pill mills.
But both doctors were found guilty of money laundering and a federal judge meted out stiff punishments for those convictions on Friday, saying there was no way the highly educated professionals did not know they were supplying oxycodone to drug dealers and addicts.
Dr. Joseph Castronuovo, who turns 75 in a few days, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison. Soon after, Dr. Cynthia Cadet, 43, of Parkland, was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in federal prison.
Both are scheduled to surrender to prison authorities in June. Their lawyers said they intend to appeal and hope to be allowed to remain free on bond while the case is going through the appellate courts.
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U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra said he carefully followed the jury's verdict that acquitted Cadet of charges that she contributed to the deaths of six of her patients and Castronuovo of causing the deaths of two of his patients.
But he said it was inconceivable that the two doctors, who had stellar reputations, did not know what was going on at the pain clinics, or pill mills.
Former staff and patients testified there were garbage cans filled with cash in the clinics and "patients" who traveled by car from Appalachia to South Florida to get massive prescriptions of pills were clearly addicts. Practically every patient received almost identical doses of the drugs, prosecutors said, and many of them sold those prescriptions to drug dealers, who traded them in rural communities far from South Florida.
Marra referred to security video footage that showed the waiting room at the clinic where Cadet had worked.
"The chaos, the madness that was going on in that facility," made it obvious to all what was going on there, Marra said. He gave the doctors the benefit of the doubt for the first few months they worked at the clinics but said they definitely knew they were working for a criminal operation but continued to take their salaries, which came from tainted funds, he said.
"It's just impossible not to have known that the people were drug addicts," the judge said.

 In other District news from last week, Scott Rothstein's former partner Russell Adler pleaded guilty last week to a count with a 5-year cap.  He avoids the risk of decades in prison.  I don't know any of the facts of Adler's case, but in general I wonder how many innocent people take deals like this to avoid the huge trial penalties that we see in the criminal system.  Tell me in the comments what you think: What percentage of our inmates are innocent people who took a deal to avoid the risks of trial?

“I hate my job, I hate my job”

That was a court reporter in New York, who has put in jeopardy a number of cases, because instead of transcribing cases, he was writing that over and over again.  From the NY Post:

The bizarre antics by Daniel Kochanski, who has since been fired, wreaked havoc on some 30 Manhattan court cases, sources said, and now officials are scrambling to repair the damage.
One high-level source said his “gibberish” typing may have jeopardized hard-won convictions by giving criminals the chance to claim crucial evidence is missing.
Kochanski’s botched transcripts include the 2010 mortgage-fraud trial of Aaron Hand, who was also convicted of trying to hire a hit man to take out a witness against him.
A source familiar with the case said Kochanski’s transcripts of that trial were a total mess.
“It should have been questions and answers — instead it was gibberish,” the source said.
And in a scene right out of 1980’s “The Shining,” where Jack Nicholson’s off-the-rails writer repeatedly types “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” a source said of Kochanski: “He hit random keys or wrote, ‘I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job,’ over and over.”
Claudia Trupp, of the Center for Appellate Litigation, said her office was handling the appeals in Hand’s and nine other cases.
“I never had a situation where a single court reporter was responsible for so much damage,” she said.
Kochanski, 43, was fired in March 2012 for misconduct, said Office of Court Administration spokesman David Bookstaver.
Sources said the Manhattan DA’s Office arrested Kochanski and forced him to try to make sense of his shorthand typing.
ut that effort apparently failed. Judges have been holding “reconstruction hearings” at which everyone involved in a case has to testify about what they remember.
“This situation is terrible for everybody,” Trupp said. “It’s very difficult to come up with a sufficient record based on everybody’s recollection years after the event.”
The troubled stenographer’s dad, Ed Kochanski, said his son “became an alcoholic” about five years ago, costing him his marriage and job.
He said his son was in rehab when they last spoke about three years ago.
Ex-wife Heather Kochanski said, “The pressure of that job pushed him over the edge, leading him to lose everything.”
By phone Wednesday, Kochanski denied screwing up his transcripts.
“I never typed gibberish. I always did my job 100 percent. I was let go because of substance abuse,” he said.