Justice Sotomayor slaps 11th Circuit

Thanks to helpful readers in the comments yesterday and through email, I saw Justice Sotomayor issued this statement yesterday just crushing the 11th Circuit on its unique (and awful) practice of how it handles successive habeas petitions.  Although cert wasn't granted, congrats to Brenda Bryn and FPD's office for getting the Court's attention.

Part of the intro:

Unlike its sister circuits, the Eleventh Circuit has interpreted the relevant statutes to mandate an authorization decision within 30 days, leaving the court little time to consider a complex inmate application. In re Williams, 898 F. 3d 1098, 1102 (2018) (Wilson, J., concurring). Under Eleventh Circuit rules, the applicant must confine his or her entire legal argument to a form on which “[f]ew prisoners manage to squeeze more than 100 words.” 918 F. 3d 1174, 1198 (2019) (Wilson, J., dissenting from denial of reh’g en banc). That limited form is the only submission that the court typically accepts: The Government seemingly “never files a responsive pleading,” and the court never grants oral argument. Ibid. Surprisingly still, this perfunctory process affects future claimants too, and not only those who find themselves in the second or successive petition posture. The Eleventh Circuit has published several of its orders denying permission to file a second or successive petition, and determined that all future litigants (including those on direct appeal) are bound to the holdings of these orders unless and until an en banc Eleventh Circuit or this Court says otherwise. See 909 F. 3d 335, 346 (2018). These factors make out a troubling tableau indeed. Most importantly, they raise a question whether the Eleventh Circuit’s process is consistent with due process. The Eleventh Circuit has not yet appeared to address a procedural due process claim head on, so I will leave it to that court to consider the issue in the first instance in an appropriate case. In the meantime, nothing prevents the Eleventh Circuit from reconsidering its practices to make them fairer, more transparent, and more deliberative.

Here's some coverage by NLJ:

In the Supreme Court petition denied Monday, Michael St. Hubert had sought authorization from the circuit court, as required by federal law, to file a second or successive habeas petition. To be successful, the prisoner must show that the habeas petition will be based either on new evidence sufficient to establish that no reasonable fact-finder would have found the defendant guilty or on a new constitutional rule made retroactive on collateral review.

Sotomayor, contrasting the Eleventh to other circuits, said the Eleventh publishes "far more" denials of authorization (45 from 2013-2018 compared to 80 from all circuits combined); mandates a decision within 30 days; requires prisoners to state their legal argument on a form with space for fewer than 100 words; does not grant oral argument in noncapital cases; generally does not require briefs from the prisoner or government, and often decides the merits of the habeas claims when the circuit court is only to decide whether the prisoner's application meets the authorization requirements.

"Surprisingly still," Sotomayor wrote, the circuit court has published a number of authorization denials stating that all future litigants, even those on direct appeal, are bound by the orders until overruled by the en banc court or the Supreme Court.

In opposing review, U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco said some members of the circuit court "expressed concerns" about publishing and giving precedential weight to certain denials of authorization.

"Yet, in the course of those opinions, no member of the court addressed the possible application of the Due Process Clause," Francisco told the justices. "Given the court of appeals’ active internal deliberation about the proper treatment of published orders on applications for leave to file second or successive Section 2255 motions, that court should decide in the first instance whether or to what extent due process principles should affect the court’s approach."

Sotomayor ultimately agreed with the government's recommendation. "The Eleventh Circuit has not yet appeared to address a procedural due process claim head on, so I will leave it to that court to consider the issue in the first instance in an appropriate case," Sotomayor wrote. "In the meantime, nothing prevents the Eleventh Circuit from reconsidering its practices to make them fairer, more transparent, and more deliberative."

What upppppp?

The federal courts are extremely slow.
No jury trials.
No grand juries.
Prosecutors have been told to work at home whenever possible.
It's slow.

In the meantime, here is some reading material.

• Professor Ricardo Bascuas and I, along with Jeffrey Green from Sidley, filed this NACDL amicus brief in support of the Rule 48 motion to dismiss the Flynn case.

• The DBR covers John Couriel's appointment to the Florida Supreme Court:

Born in 1978, Couriel grew up in West Miami. In his application to the Florida Supreme Court, Couriel said he was the son of hardworking Cuban immigrants that sacrificed their income to support their son’s educational endeavors. Couriel was always interested in the law and excelled academically.
In high school, Couriel’s interest in law led him to participate on the debate team. Debate was more than just a means to sharpen his speaking skills — in the final round of one particularly competitive showdown, Couriel was pitched against his future wife, Rebecca L. Toonkel. Ultimately, he triumphed in the debate, and they would later connect during their undergraduate years at Harvard College.

• Trump is tweeting crazy theories about the 75-year old Buffalo man who was shoved and injured by police officers:

President Donald Trump put forth an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory Tuesday about the 75-year-old protester in Buffalo who suffered head injuries after he was pushed to the ground by police and hit his head on the sidewalk.

"75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment," Trump said in a morning tweet. Citing a report on conservative news network OANN, Trump said, "I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?" He said Gugino "could be" an anarchist "provocateur" but provided no evidence for that assertion. Two suspended Buffalo police officers were charged with assault and accused of intentionally pushing Gugino, who bled from the back of the head after he hit the sidewalk.

News & Notes

1.  NACDL says that it isn't safe to have jury trials right now and issues a number of guidelines for courts on how and when to reopen:

Compromising accused persons’ constitutional and fundamental rights -- like the right to counsel, the right to confront witnesses, the right to due process, and the right to a speedy and public trial by a jury culled from a fair cross section of the community -- for the sake of public safety results in grave injustice. NACDL recognizes that there is no way to fully reconcile these core constitutional rights with the public safety considerations arising from this pandemic. There are, however, fundamental principles that can minimize the constitutional burden while protecting the public and all the stakeholders who must come together for our courts to function.

2. An Ohio federal judge had ordered the release or transfer of over 800 inmates from a high risk prison. Justice Sotomayor issued a stay. SCOTUSblog covers it:

Last week the Supreme Court rejected a request by the federal government to temporarily block an order that could have required the release or transfer of over 800 inmates from a federal prison in Ohio where nine inmates have died from COVID-19. But the court’s ruling suggested that it was largely based on procedural grounds, because the government had not appealed the lower court’s most recent order. On Monday the government returned to the Supreme Court. This time the government asked the justices to put both the original April 22 order by the district court requiring the inmates’ transfer and the May 19 order enforcing the April 22 order on hold while it appeals those orders. In a brief order tonight, Justice Sonia Sotomayor – who handles emergency appeals from the area that includes Ohio – put both orders on hold.

3. How broken is our criminal justice system? Clark Neily from Cato says it's rotten to the core:

Before you can fairly assess the legitimacy of the ongoing protests or the quality of the government’s response, you must understand the relevant facts. And the most relevant fact is that America’s criminal justice system is rotten to its core. Though that certainly does not justify the violence and wanton destruction of property perpetrated by far too many protesters, it does provide useful context for comprehending the intensity of their anger and the fecklessness of the government’s response. If America is burning, it is fair to say that America’s criminal justice system—which is itself a raging dumpster fire of injustice—lit the fuse.
***
As I will explain below, I see three fundamental pathologies in America’s criminal justice system that completely undermine its moral and political legitimacy and render it a menace to the very concept of constitutionally limited government. Those three pathologies are: (1) unconstitutional overcriminalization; (2) point‐​and‐​convict adjudication; and (3) near‐​zero accountability for police and prosecutors.

4. The Sentencing Commission just released some data, which shows how this broken system is disproportionately affecting minorities: Of those in federal prison, 34.3% are Black, 33.7% are Hispanic, 28.2% are White, and 3.8% are other races.

Chief Judge Bill Pryor

Today was Judge Ed Carnes’ last day as chief. Judge Bill Pryor takes over. The 11th Circuit website already has been updated.

This anonymous account is a great follow on Twitter for judicial updates. Here’s his thread today:

Bruce Bagley pleads guilty

The Miami Herald has the story of the UM professor and money laundering expert pleading guilty to money laundering in the SDNY:

University of Miami professor Bruce Bagley pleaded guilty on Monday to two counts of money laundering after being charged with using bank accounts in his name and in the name of a company he created in Florida to launder over $2 million in proceeds from a Venezuelan bribery and corruption scheme.

Bagley, recognized as an international scholar on drug cartels and money laundering, pleaded not guilty soon after his arrest in November 2019 in the New York case linked to South Florida, but filed a notice in March indicating that he planned to change his plea.

“Bruce Bagley (…) went from writing the book on crime — literally writing a book on drug trafficking and organized crime — to committing crimes,” said Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in a press release. “Professor Bagley admitted today to laundering money for corrupt foreign nationals — the proceeds of bribery and corruption, stolen from the citizens of Venezuela. Bagley now faces the possibility of a long tenure in prison.”

“There is no such thing as rock bottom. So, assume that the worst is yet to come.”

I try to keep this blog apolitical, but wow, what a piece by George Will in the Washington Post.  Here's how it ends:

In life’s unforgiving arithmetic, we are the sum of our choices. Congressional Republicans have made theirs for more than 1,200 days. We cannot know all the measures necessary to restore the nation’s domestic health and international standing, but we know the first step: Senate Republicans must be routed, as condign punishment for their Vichyite collaboration, leaving the Republican remnant to wonder: Was it sensible to sacrifice dignity, such as it ever was, and to shed principles, if convictions so easily jettisoned could be dignified as principles, for . . . what? Praying people should pray, and all others should hope: May I never crave anything as much as these people crave membership in the world’s most risible deliberative body.

A political party’s primary function is to bestow its imprimatur on candidates, thereby proclaiming: This is who we are. In 2016, the Republican Party gave its principal nomination to a vulgarian and then toiled to elect him. And to stock Congress with invertebrates whose unswerving abjectness has enabled his institutional vandalism, who have voiced no serious objections to his Niagara of lies, and whom T.S. Eliot anticipated:

We are the hollow men . . .

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

or rats’ feet over broken glass . . .

Those who think our unhinged president’s recent mania about a murder two decades ago that never happened represents his moral nadir have missed the lesson of his life: There is no such thing as rock bottom. So, assume that the worst is yet to come. Which implicates national security: Abroad, anti-Americanism sleeps lightly when it sleeps at all, and it is wide-awake as decent people judge our nation’s health by the character of those to whom power is entrusted. Watching, too, are indecent people in Beijing and Moscow.

Jury trials and grand juries continued till August 31

Not too long ago, all of the Miami courthouses informally closed for the summer.

Now it’s official. Because of corona, there will be no juries or grand juries this summer. We will regroup in September. Chief Judge Moore’s order was issued last night. I will post it shortly.

In the meantime, go read Rumpole's blog who is doing a lot of good coverage of what's going on in the community with the protests. 

And Udonis Haslem is trying to bring people together. 

An open letter to former prosecutors outraged about the Flynn dismissal

I wrote a letter in the Hill to my friends who are former prosecutors who are upset about the Flynn dismissal.  It starts this way:

There are fair-minded people who are concerned about the Department of Justice’s decision to dismiss the Michael Flynn case. And for many, it’s more than concern. For example, a group of former prosecutors were so outraged by the decision, that they wrote a letter asking for the Attorney General’s resignation because the motion to dismiss, they believed, “undermined [DOJ’s] mission to ensure equal justice under the law.”
For prosecutors legitimately concerned about equality under the law — to be sure, a hallmark of any legitimate justice system — there are bigger issues to be angry about than the dismissal of one case charging a relatively minor crime.

Let me know your thoughts.