It's the first day of summer

Woohooo!

In the old days of Miami, many law offices would close and there would be no trials.  Many Miami courtrooms would close the entire month of August.  

This year on the first day of summer, we have Prime Day.  Any good deals you're looking at?

We also have the Supreme Court finishing the Term.  The WaPo says there is some tentative good news regarding Amy Coney Barrett... that she may be in the Roberts' wing of the conservative court and not the Alito/Thomas wing.  We shall see.

Michael Avenatti's sentencing is coming up next week in SDNY.  Scott Srebnick is representing Avenatti.  Professor Berman over at the Sentencing Law and Policy blog has an interesting post about the guidelines in the case and how the parties seem to agree that they really don't apply.  

Speaking of the Guidelines, Judge Jed Rakoff continues his fantastic real-world critique of how they work.  In his latest sentencing decision, he states: "It appears to me that there has never been a case where the guidelines have been more irrational, silly and ridiculous than in their application to this case."  Reuters covers it here, where he sentences two defendants to 30 and 15 months in a $100 million fraud case. If you want to hear him discuss the Guidelines at length, check out our podcast discussion here.

David Lat is back to full time writing, this time on Substack.  He does a great job, as usual.

A&E's new show Under Oath covers the decision to call Katie Magbanua to testify.  She is represented by the great trial team of Chris DeCoste and Tara Kawass.  

Finally, it was a good weekend for the cruise industry.  Middle District of Florida Judge Steven Merryday in a 124-page ruling held that the CDC could not enforce its coronavirus restrictions and rules for cruise ships in the state. 

How will SDFLA's Rocket Docket proceed when jury trials restart

SDFLA practitioners know that most of our judges push cases to trial.  

The median time in our district from the beginning to the end of a criminal case is 5.2 months. (!!)  By way of comparison, in SDNY, it's 14.1 months.  In EDNY, it's higher: 20.5 months. Also, our median number from indictment to plea is 5 months and 9.7 months for a trial. Now that the district seems to be opening up again, will judges relax these numbers (pretty please!) to be more in line with other districts? 

In other news, the Supreme Court is finishing its Term.  A big one came out this morning -- No standing for the Republicans to overturn Obamacare... You can follow all of the big cases at SCOTUSblog. 

SCOTUS affirms two 11th Circuit cases

 The most conservative Supreme Court in decades (ever?) affirmed the most conservative appellate court (the 11th) in two criminal cases yesterday.  SCOTUSblog covers them:

Justices reject sentencing reductions for some crack-cocaine offenders ("The court in Terry v. United States ruled 9-0 that, based on the text, a Trump-era law making retroactive Obama-era sentencing reductions does not apply to low-level offenders.")

 

Court limits new trials for people with felon-in-possession convictions ("In Greer v. United States, the court unanimously curtailed the retroactive application of its 2019 ruling in Rehaif v. United States regarding felons in possession of a firearm.") 

Justices file financial reports

 If you're interested in the Justices' side gigs -- like adjunct teaching and book writing -- this report is for you.  SCOTUSblog summarizes it all here:

Sotomayor and Gorsuch reported healthy outside income from book advances and royalties. Sotomayor has several books under her belt, including her 2013 memoir My Beloved World and books for middle schoolers and younger children, that last year yielded her $212,181 in advances and royalties – just short of her salary of $265,600. Gorsuch reported $623.92 in royalties from Princeton University Press, presumably from his 2009 book on assisted suicide and euthanasia, as well as $100,000 in royalties from Penguin Random House for his recent book, A Republic, If You Can Keep It.

Luck (and Carnes) v. Marcus

 Woah, this opinion a doozy.  Thanks to my commenters for pointing it out to me.  Apparently it's been the talk of the (appellate) town and I initially missed it.

I don't even know how to describe it... you must read this opinion -- about a mansion in Palm Beach -- for yourself.  It's 136 pages of back and forth between two of the most conservative judges in the country (Luck in the majority, joined by Carnes, against Marcus in dissent).  And it gets really personal.  Here's the first salvo to give you a flavor:

The “irony today” is not, as the dissenting opinion says, that we have done as the Supreme Court has instructed and conducted an independent examination of the whole record relating to Burns’s constitutional claims. Dissenting Op. at 73. The “irony today” is that it is the dissenting opinion that goes beyond the “whole record” in this case, the record developed by the parties and put before the district court. The dissenting opinion consults extra-record sources and draws from them the “facts” that it determines support its conclusion. Throughout the dissenting opinion, it laments the “incomplete record” and the “limited record” that’s before us. Id. at 74, 123 n.5. So, the dissenting opinion escapes the confines of the record to look for evidence that the parties never put forward and the district court never considered.  

I'm no civil lawyer, so I can't tell you who is right.  And I'm no architect or student of these types of homes, so I don't know who has the better of the argument here (maybe renaissance man Rumpole can help) even though both opinions have pictures and tons of historical references.

I'm just here for the food fight! Just to give you a sense, the majority opinion references the dissent 98 times.*  I wonder how Judge Marcus felt when he read Judge Luck's opinion saying that he (Marcus) didn't understand "the way appellate review works."  

The opinion is also noteworthy because just a few months ago, Judge Luck joined an opinion by Judge Newsom criticizing Judge Rosenbaum for being too personal.  As I explained here, I thought that criticism was way off and that Judge Rosenbaum was anything but personal in her dissent.  

So something must be going on to get Judge Luck so upset in this pretty mundane civil dispute.  Anyone know the backstory?

*I simply did a find "dissent" and got 98 hits, so that number may be slightly off.  But you get the idea.

Trials are coming back!

 Judge Ruiz is ready to go.  He's picking a pilot jury this week... 

“Federal prisoners hold $100 million in government-run accounts, shielded from some criminal scrutiny and debt collection“

 That’s the title of this WaPo article. From the intro:

Federal prison inmates are keeping large sums of money — in some cases more than $100,000 each — in government-run deposit accounts effectively shielded from court orders for things like child support, alimony or other debts, and not subject to the same scrutiny as accounts owned by non-incarcerated citizens, according to court documents and interviews.
Within the Federal Bureau of Prisons system, which houses roughly 129,000 inmates in facilities throughout the United States, there are more than 20 inmate accounts holding more than $100,000 each for a total exceeding $3 million, a person familiar with the program told The Washington Post. In all, the combined value of such inmate accounts recently topped $100 million, this person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the program that have remained out of public view.
The program run by the Bureau of Prisons has long frustrated and angered law enforcement officials from other agencies, who say it poses significant risks for abuse, money laundering and corruption, yet the agency, already plagued with staffing and management problems, has for years resisted efforts to change it because its leaders maintain they are already diligent about making inmates pay what they owe.

What the article fails to mention is that many inmates have no choice but to use the prison bank account because the government has forced banks to close all private accounts. This is one of the many awful consequences of merely being charged with a crime. Even without a conviction, banks will refuse you as a customer if you’ve been convicted or after you’ve served your time. 

UM Law School

 There's been a lot of drama over at the University of Miami School of Law and the firing of the Dean.  I haven't covered the story, but it's making national press.  Here's the latest from the Miami Herald:

Meeting with tenured law school faculty after abruptly firing the law school dean last week, University of Miami President Julio Frenk doubled down on his decision to dismiss Anthony Varona after less than two years on the job, much of that time during the pandemic when schools have been struggling.

Frenk, who met with the professors Wednesday night, did not provide a detailed explanation for removing Varona, saying he didn’t find that appropriate, according to sources who attended the meeting over Zoom.

Rather, he told the group that the dean reports to him and he has the power to remove him, the sources said. Frenk reports to the university’s Board of Trustees, who named Laurie Silvers, the vice chair and a 15-year member of the Board, as the new chair last Thursday.

Silvers, a graduate of Miami Beach High, the University of Miami (Class of ‘74) and UM School of Law (Class of ‘77), replaced Hilarie Bass, a prominent Miami attorney whose two-year term expired in May.

Frenk, who was named UM president in 2015, didn’t apologize for not consulting faculty regarding Varona’s termination, a procedure stipulated in the university’s faculty manual. He did say, however, he would stay in touch with the professors as he makes future decisions.

“As he shared with tenured faculty at the law school last night, President Frenk is committed to consultation as we proceed with next steps,” UM spokeswoman Megan Ondrizek said in an email Thursday.

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article251873708.html#storylink=cpy

 

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article251873708.html#storylink=cpy

 

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article251873708.html#storylink=cpy

 

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article251873708.html#storylink=cpy