Judge William Pryor on Justice Thomas

Judge William Pryor, a Supreme Court shortlister, recently wrote an essay In the Yale Law Journal on Justice Clarence Thomas and originalism. Here's the conclusion paragraph:

By leading, joining, and occasionally challenging Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, over the last quarter of a century, has accomplished what no original- ist by himself could: through principled adjudication, proving that the legiti- macy of originalism can be an objective methodology for adjudication. His con- tributions have increased respect for originalism exponentially and made its vocabulary a staple of constitutional adjudication. And for those contributions, all originalists owe him a debt of gratitude.

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Also, a reminder for those who knew Richard Strafer, his service will be this Sunday, August 6, 10am at Mt. Nebo Kendall, 5900 SW 77th Avenue, Miami, FL 33143

Kevin Newsom confirmed to 11th Circuit

Congrats to my law school classmate Kevin Newsom on being confirmed to the 11th Circuit. The vote was 66-31, which is pretty incredible in this environment. He's very smart and well-qualified.

19 Justices?

19 Justices?  That's what Judge Posner is calling for:

"Mediocre and highly politicized," was the opinion the 78-year-old jurist gave of the justices who sit in D.C. during a recent talk at the University of Chicago.

"We have a very crappy judicial system."

Posner — the most highly cited legal scholar of the 20th century, according to the Journal of Legal Studies — repeated his complaint that politicians are more concerned with appointing "tokens" such as women or Hispanic justices, and with would-be justices' politics than they are with merit.

"If you had 19 members you would inevitably have more diversity," he told Prof. Luigi Zingales during the talk. Posner, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, said no president since Herbert Hoover has appointed a Supreme Court justice who "was not in either his personal or his political interest."

"The modern presidents don't think that way, but if the Supreme Court was much larger, they might say, 'Well, OK ... we have 19 justices, 12 of them are highly politicized, but we have these extra 7 seats, so we'll appoint them on the basis of quality,' and that would make a big difference."

Meantime, President Trump may be losing at a bunch of things, but he is winning on judges:

The White House has announced more than two dozen lower court nominees to date, and the Senate Judiciary Committee has been holding hearings and sending nominees to the full Senate for a vote at a regular clip.

Just Monday, after the news broke that White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci was ousted on the 11th day of his tenure, the Senate took a key procedural vote on a federal appeals court nominee out of Alabama, Kevin Newsom. On July 20 — as the White House dealt with fallout from an interview published the night before in which President Trump criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions — the Senate confirmed Kentucky lawyer John Bush to the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, notwithstanding a coordinated, well-funded opposition campaign by groups on the left.

“It’s just been a win on all fronts,” said Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network, which supports conservative court nominees.

The administration’s success with judges is about more than the fact that Republicans control the Senate. Lower courts remain mostly of regional interest, despite the fact that federal judges have lifetime tenure and issue rulings that can affect the entire country. Senators defer to their colleagues’ preferred local picks. There is little incentive to interfere, even if, as was true with John Bush, Republicans have concerns about a nominee’s record.

There’s also the fact that Republicans historically have been more organized on judges than Democrats, said David Fontana, a professor at George Washington University Law School who follows judicial nominations. There are numerous interest groups and political factions around issues like health care, he said, but there is a tight-knit community of conservative lawyers who foster and promote court nominees during Republican administrations.

Criminal Complaint against Imran Awan

Read the criminal complaint against Imran Awan here.  This is Debbie Wasserman Schultz's former aide, who  is charged with bank fraud.  The complaint is pretty vanilla -- he is accused of saying a rental property as a primary residence to get a loan.  Many are speculating that this case is just a place-holder for a bigger (and more sexy) case to follow. 

"Little’s logic lacks luster."

"Little’s logic lacks luster."  We see you, Chief Judge Carnes.  We see you.

Magistrate Judge Selection Panel

There is a new Magistrate Judge Selection Panel, to make a recommendation as to reappointment of Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman and the upcoming vacancy due to the retirement of Magistrate Judge William Turnoff.  Here is the committee:

Chair: Thomas E. Scott, Jr., Esq.
Members: Jerry Blair (non-attorney)
Raoul Cantero, III, Esq.
Laura Maria González-Marqués, Esq.
Markenzy Lapointe, Esq.
Tiffani Lee, Esq.
Abigail Price-Williams, Esq.
Nikki Lewis Simon, Esq.
H. T. Smith, Esq.
Rodolfo Sorondo, Esq.
Ryan Stumphauzer, Esq.
Dr. Jose Szapocznik (non-attorney)

Two wonderful magistrates.  Judge Turnoff will be missed... more on that to follow.

Mary Barzee Flores is running for Congress

Mary Barzee Flores is running for Congress. Ileana's seat. Mary is a former federal defender and was nominated by Obama to be a federal district judge. But Marco Rubio blocked her by not signing the blue slip. So she is fighting back. From her email this morning:

After a few years serving clients in private practice, I again answered the call to public service when President Obama nominated me to serve as a Federal District Court Judge for the Southern District of Florida. Although I enjoyed strong support from Democrats and Republicans, Senator Marco Rubio blocked my nomination. He complained about my support of progressive organizations like the ACLU and EMILY’s List.
Marco Rubio disagrees with my political views. I disagree with his.
So I can understand why Marco Rubio would not want me on the federal bench. He won’t want me in Congress either.
Petty partisan politics prevented me -- like Judge Merrick Garland and so many other Obama federal court nominees -- from fulfilling President Obama's call to public service. But I’m persistent and I don’t give up easily. I remain committed to serving this community and this country.

News & Notes

1. Richard Strafer's memorial service will be held on August 6 at 10am at Kendall Mt. Nebo, 5900 SW 77th Avenue. Miami, FL 33143.

2. We filed an emergency petition in the Supreme Court for former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli. Jay Weaver covers it here:

Attorneys for former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, who is being detained in Miami on an extradition request to his homeland, filed an emergency petition with the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday that asserts his constitutional rights have been violated because his bid for bond was denied.

Martinelli’s legal team argued that federal courts nationwide have “misconstrued” a 114-year-old Supreme Court decision “as having erected a heavy presumption against bail in such [extradition] cases.”

“The belief that [this decision] imposed an unlawful presumption has prevailed [in extradition cases] for so long that it is now binding across the country,” Miami attorneys David O. Markus and Ricardo Bascuas wrote in Martinelli’s emergency petition for a writ of habeas corpus. “Only this court can resolve the confusion at this point.”

Markus and Bascuas, who were added to Martinelli’s legal team led by attorney Marcos Jimenez, said the U.S. Supreme Court was the former president’s only recourse because bond denials cannot be appealed in extradition cases in the federal district or appeals courts.

3. David Lat is blogging about Katherine Magbanua's case. Magbanua is represented by Chris DeCoste and Tara Kawass. Full disclosure, we represent Charlie Adelson.

4.  SCOTUS protestors get a taste of jail.  Via WP:

Five protesters who disrupted a session of the U.S. Supreme Court by shouting disapproval of its rulings on campaign finance law were sentenced to one or two weekends in prison Monday after losing a bid to overturn a 1949 law restricting public protest at the court.

U.S. prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Christopher R. “Casey” Cooper in Washington to order 10-day jail sentences for the defendants, members of an organization called 99Rise. They had stood and spoken one-by-one just after the court was gaveled into session April 1, 2015, about a year after the justices had struck down overall limits on campaign contributions.