Sarah Bujold selected for the UM School of Law Stuart A. Markus award

Friends and readers of the blog know that my family set up an award in my Dad's name at the University of Miami School of Law three years ago.  The Stuart A. Markus Award recognizes an individual student each year for outstanding work in one of the School of Law’s in-house clinics. The winner is selected by vote of the in-house, live-client clinic directors.  The first award went to Bethany Bandstra.  And last year went to Lindsay MacDonald.

This year the Markus Award went to Sarah Bujold. Sarah’s work and professionalism in the Health Rights Clinic were truly outstanding and distinguished her even among the other nominees for the award. Over the course of the academic year, she successfully argued two hearings before Social Security judges, securing past-benefit awards for two clients—totaling more than $50,000—in addition to their ongoing entitlements. She also filed and argued two administrative appeals before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, drafted a petition for a writ of mandamus to the Florida Supreme Court, and sued USCIS, prompting the agency to grant her client naturalization. All of this was in addition to Sarah’s maintaining a regular caseload, securing healthcare entitlements and immigration relief for her clients and serving as a guardian ad litem for children in dependency proceedings in Monroe County. Sarah has made real contributions to class discussions, especially on issues of ethics and ethical judgment. She drafted a presentation about her experiences that was accepted by the International Journal of Clinical Legal Education and the Association for Canadian Clinical Legal Education, and she will be presenting this summer in Toronto at the International Clinical Legal Education Conference.

Super Impressive.

My dad practiced law in Miami for over 50 years.  Throughout his career, he fought hard for his clients in every area of the law.  He never turned away a person in need, and helped countless people with practical, hands-on advice and representation that went far above and beyond the norm.  The Markus Award is given annually to a student who shares that caring spirit, and who has made a meaningful difference in someone’s life – which is something my dad did every day.

Congratulations to Sarah!

"That hasn’t happened in quite some time.”

That was Justice Ginsburg after she was referred to as Justice O'Connor during an oral argument today in United States v. McDonnell. (via The Washington Post).

OOF!

Well, that's better than being called a "serial child molestor" when your previous title was Speaker of the House:

An Illinois federal judge on Wednesday sentenced former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, once second in line to the President of the United States, to 15 months in prison and two years of supervised release after Hastert admitted hiding hush money he paid to cover up his sexual abuse of teenage boys on the Yorkville high school wrestling team.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin called Hastert a "serial child molester" as he imposed the sentence for dodging federal banking laws following a wrenching hearing in Illinois federal court. Hastert also must undergo treatment as a sex offender and pay a $250,000 fine to go toward a criminal victims' fund.

"Some actions can obliterate a lifetime of good works," Durkin said.

Hastert. the former high school teacher and wrestling coach who was elected to Congress in 1986, said Wednesday he was "deeply ashamed" for having "mistreated" some athletes he coached. "For 11 months, I have been struggling to come to terms with events that occurred almost 40 years ago," Hastert said.

Mistreated?  Mistreated?!  That doesn't sound like acceptance of responsibility...

Two defense opinions in the 11th Circuit written by...

... William Pryor.

1) United States v. Jimenez-Antunez:

This appeal presents a question of first impression in this Circuit: whether a criminal defendant must show good cause to dismiss retained counsel if the defendant intends to seek appointed counsel. Gabriel Jimenez-Antunez pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Weeks before his sentencing hearing, Jimenez-Antunez sent a letter to his retained counsel expressing an intent to dismiss him. His retained counsel then moved to withdraw and stated that his client would request appointed counsel. The district court denied the motion on the ground that Jimenez-Antunez had been afforded effective assistance of counsel by his retained counsel. Because a criminal defendant need not show good cause to dismiss retained counsel, we vacate and remand for further proceedings.

2) Norris v. United States:

This appeal requires us to decide whether the district court erred by denying an evidentiary hearing for Harrison Norris’s motion to vacate, 28 U.S.C. § 2255, which alleged that his conviction violated the Due Process Clause because his trial judge was biased against him and mentally incompetent. Norris, a black man, was convicted of forcing women, many of whom were white, into prostitution. Judge Jack Camp presided over Norris’s trial and sentenced him to life in prison. We vacated that sentence as an impermissible general sentence. On remand, a different judge sentenced Norris to 35 years of imprisonment. Three years after Norris’s trial, Judge Camp was arrested for illegal possession of drugs and a firearm. The United States disclosed that Camp had bipolar disorder and had suffered a brain injury from a bicycling accident. The investigation also disclosed allegations of racial bias. One witness alleged that Camp wanted to give all black men who pimped white women the maximum penalty and that Camp specifically disliked Norris. Because Norris sufficiently alleged that Judge Camp was actually biased against him, we reverse and remand for an evidentiary hearing.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (UPDATED -- WAKE UP!)

For the zzzzzzzzz posters out there, check out Justice Thomas during oral argument last week:

look at this drawing from SCOTUS oral arguments yesterday pic.twitter.com/eSTR9IiEfN

— sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) April 22, 2016

UPDATE -- WAKE UP!! -- Paul Rashkind, appellate guru from the FPD's office, is headed back to the Supreme Court. Cert granted this morning in Manrique v.United States. Here's the 11th Circuit opinion.

The QP is: Should the Court grant certiorari to resolve the significant division among the circuits concerning the jurisdictional prerequisites for appealing a deferred restitution award made during the pendency of a timely appeal of a criminal judgment imposing sentence, a question left open by the Court’s decision in Dolan v. United States, 560 U.S. 605, 618 (2010).

FBI does not trust prosecutors

For real.  Check out this USA Today article by Brad Heath, which says that the FBI did not want to share its tech secrets with prosecutors because they might become defense lawyers one day:

The FBI guards its high-tech secrets so carefully that officials once warned agents not to share details even with federal prosecutors for fear they might eventually go on to work as defense attorneys, newly disclosed records show.
A supervisor also cautioned the bureau’s “technically trained agents” in a 2003 memo not to reveal techniques for secretly entering and bugging a suspect’s home to other agents who might be forced to reveal them in court. “We need to protect how our equipment is concealed,” the unnamed supervisor wrote.
The records, released this year as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, offer a rare view of the extent to which the FBI has sought to keep its most sensitive surveillance capabilities secret, even from others within federal law enforcement. That secrecy remains a common feature of the FBI’s most sophisticated investigations, including recent cases in which it cracked the encrypted iPhone of one of the gunmen in last year’s San Bernardino terror attacks and breached the anonymous Tor computer network.

Meantime, John Pacenti and the PBP have continued to cover the zoo story.  The zoo has taken some very strange positions about what information it will release about the tiger and the zookeeper:

Zoo spokeswoman Naki Carter declined to answer questions about Konwiser’s death during a news conference Wednesday at which she announced the creation of a fund in her memory and the renaming of the zoo’s annual Save the Tigers 5K race in her honor.
The Palm Beach Post reported Tuesday that the tiger that killed Konwiser is a 13-year-old stud breeder named Hati, one of four at the zoo and one of 250 Malayans in existence. The zoo has declined to identify the tiger, saying that it could place the animal in danger.
Moments after The Post published an online story Tuesday naming Hati as the tiger that killed Konwiser, the zoo released a statement asking that media outlets refrain from identifying the animal.

Finally, Slate crushes the lawyering in the Supreme Court yesterday concerning DUI testing:

 The justices of the United States Supreme Court are at their best when united against a common foe. It’s much easier to put aside doctrinal differences and work together when an attorney at the lectern sounds like a clodhopping amateur trying out for the moot court team. On Wednesday, in a critically important Fourth Amendment case, not one but two advocates performed so terribly that the justices effectively gave up and had a conversation among themselves. The result was a deeply uncomfortable 70 minutes during which the clash between state power and individual autonomy took a back seat to jokes about night court and hillbilly judges.

Judge Martin rocks

She is so great.  Check out her concurrence today in U.S. v. Robinson:

I agree that Troy Robinson cannot benefit from Johnson v. United States, 576
U.S. ___, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), because his sentence is valid even without the
residual clause. I write separately to note that Mr. Robinson is one of dozens of
prisoners who has tried to file similar applications based on Johnson. Prior to
yesterday’s decision in Welch v. United States, No. 15-6418, 2016 WL 1551144
(Apr. 18, 2016), all these applicants were turned away from our Court not because
Johnson wouldn’t benefit them but because our Court held that Johnson could not
apply in these cases. Some of those who filed applications in other courts have
already been freed because they were serving an unconstitutional prison sentence.
As best I can tell, all the prisoners we turned away may only have until June 26,
2016, to refile applications based on Johnson. See Dodd v. United States, 545 U.S.
353, 359, 125 S. Ct. 2478, 2482–83 (2005).
Although I have not taken the time to investigate the merits of these cases,
below is a list of every case I know of in which this court denied an application from
a prisoner seeking to file a second or successive 28 U.S.C. § 2255 petition based on
Johnson. I share this list in the hope that these prisoners, who filed their applications without a lawyer’s help, may now know to refile their applications. I
have separated out the cases that arise under the residual clause in the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) and the cases that arise under the identical language in United States Sentencing Guidelines § 4B1.2 (which includes cases for which the
guidelines were mandatory together with those for which the guidelines were
advisory). I have also listed the district court in which each sentence was imposed,
to the extent Federal Public Defender and U.S. Attorney offices are monitoring these cases.

She then goes on to list 110 cases.  

State shenanigans

Rumpole and Ovalle cover Jackie Schwartz's bar issues.  Here's Ovalle:

“You are a f---ing idiot, you don’t know who I am,” County Judge Jacqueline Schwartz yelled at a waiter at a Miami Greek restaurant after she was refused more alcohol, according to a state investigative report released on Monday. It also quotes the judge calling police officers “pigs” when they were were summoned to the restaurant on March 18.
 The investigation for the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission on Monday recommended that Schwartz be suspended. Ultimately, the Florida Supreme Court will decide what, if any, punishment she deserves.
 Her lawyer, Jeffrey Feiler, told the commission this month that she was not drunk but under the influence of a new prescription medication.
Schwartz has been on “paid medical leave” since she was sent home from the bench on March 28.

It’s the second time that a state judicial oversight board has questioned Schwartz’s behavior and salty language.
In December, the Florida Supreme Court scolded Schwartz after she told a store owner to “go f--- yourself” during a heated re-election campaign in June 2014. She was angry over an oversized campaign sign posted at the story for her opponent. She was suspended for 30 days and had to pay a $10,000 fine.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article72521987.html#storylink=cpy

Sad story.  Here are the formal charges.

Meantime, I miss John Pacenti on our beat.  He's now with the PBP and does a great job covering the awful zoo story:

The timeline of when and how the tiger encountered Konwiser remained hazy on Monday as a spokeswoman for the zoo did not return a phone call to answer questions after chastising the media on Sunday for speculation that the tiger in question would be euthanized. It remains at the zoo and has not been identified other than its sex.
What is known is Konwiser was mauled while performing routine tasks in the “night house,” which is not viewed by the public but is adjacent to the new tiger exhibit.
The area was monitored by video cameras and the zoo has not said how Konwiser died, whether she was in the enclosure with the big cat or if a latch malfunctioned on the door.
The energetic lead keeper was minutes away from giving a “tiger talk” to the patrons in what would have been one of her last official acts for the zoo. A spokesperson for the U.S. Food & Drug Administration told the Palm Beach Post’s news partner, WPTV News Channel 5, that she was to begin as consumer safety officer with the FDA in Maitland on May 1.

SCOTUS happenings (UPDATED)

Everyone is wondering why SCOTUS decided to announce an opinion this morning when it wasn't previously scheduled.  Whisper is that it might be Welch, the retroactivity case on the ACCA.  Check in with SCOTUSblog for more.

Update 10:14am -- Yup, it was Welch.  7-1 decision per Kennedy saying Johnson is retroactive, reversing the 11th Circuit (which had denied the certificate of appealability).

Clarence Thomas is coming to HBO.  Apparently it isn't going to be flattering.

Former Broward Teacher's Union president Pat Santeramo was sentenced Friday to five years by former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Levenson. From the Sun-Sentinel:

Santeramo, who had asked Broward Circuit Judge Jeffrey R. Levenson for leniency, faced a maximum penalty of 55 years after he was convicted in January of money laundering, organized scheme to defraud and violating campaign contribution laws.

"I ask you when making your final decision to consider the good that I have done throughout my life and not just this snapshot in time," Santeramo said.
But prosecutor David Schulson said while Santeramo doesn't deserve the maximum sentence, his actions weren't a momentary lapse of reason.
"Santeramo made the choice to steal from BTU funds," Schulson said, citing trial evidence that the union head received 30 payments from 2006 until 2011 from general contractor David Esposito, who testified against Santeramo in exchange for immunity. "It is crystal clear based on the evidence that not a single dollar of BTU funds would have been stolen without the knowledge and participation of Pat Santeramo."
Santeramo was a music teacher from 1978 until 1995, when he began working for the union full time. He became president of the union in 2001 after the previous president, Tony Gentile, was arrested on child pornography charges. Santeramo served as president for 11 years.

Jurors took eight hours over two days to find Santeramo guilty of all charges against him except for one – an allegation that he misused his union-issued gasoline card for personal business.

"It confounds the court and I must ask why," Levenson said. "Why over these years did you abuse the trust of the union that you were so devoted to and that you so loved?"
Former Broward Teachers Union president Pat Santeramo found guilty of corruption
Former Broward Teachers Union president Pat Santeramo found guilty of corruption

Schulson asked Levenson to sentence Santeramo to a 10-year term; Levenson decided on half that. "Hopefully this will be a note for those who are in those positions of trust to take those positions of trust seriously" Levenson said.