Strange Statutory Interpretation Bedfellows

By John R. Byrne

Often times, when groups of appellate judges disagree on matters of statutory interpretation,  the disputing parties fall into predicable camps (Republican nominees on one side, Democrat nominees on the other). But they can still surprise us! 

Check out the Eleventh Circuit's recent opinion in US v. Pate. The en banc Court examined a federal statute that criminalizes the filing of retaliatory liens against "any officer or employee of the United States." The question was whether the statute covers former civil servants.  A majority of the Court said "no." But the breakdown was interesting. In the majority were Judges Newsom, Brasher, Luck, William Pryor (all nominated by Republicans) and Judges Wilson, Jordan, Rosenbaum, Jill Pryor, and Abudu (all nominated by Democrats). Both Judge Lagoa and Judge Grant, both appointed by Trump, filed dissenting opinions.

Pretty wild fact pattern involving a criminal defendant who had described himself as "heir to the kingdom of Morocco" and filed liens against property owned by the former Commissioner of the IRS and a former Secretary of the Treasury (he went right to the top). But his conviction (at least as to certain counts) was vacated and he'll now get a resentencing. Opinion below.

Pate Opinion.enb by John Byrne on Scribd

Drama

 The Sam Bankman-Fried trial is on!  Defense lawyers read this NY Times piece about the judge shutting down and abusing the defense, and simple sighed.  We’ve all been there before, watching the prosecutor putting in whatever they want, no matter how tangential and then the defense getting yelled at for having the audacity to challenge that evidence.

Meantime, there was drama in the courtroom yesterday, as SBF’s girlfriend took a full 30 seconds to identify him.  Maybe that new haircut paid off:

When asked by Sassoon to identify the defendant, Ellison stood up and, for almost 30 seconds, looked around the room. She turned her head all the way to the left to the jury box and back to the right again multiple times before finally identifying Bankman-Fried as sitting "over there and wearing a suit." The two hadn't made eye contact when Ellison walked by earlier. Bankman-Fried, who was known for his floppy hair and beach shorts, got a fresh haircut prior to the trial, reportedly from a fellow inmate at the jail in Brooklyn where he has been held since August.

I’ve seen witnesses ID jurors, prosecutors, and even folks in the audience.  Those are always fun.  

Bloggers unite!

 Howard Bashman of the legendary How Appealing blog will get his first SCOTUS argument. Reuters describes it this way:

 Bashman, who writes the popular legal industry website How Appealing, will represent Raiders Retreat Realty in its insurance claim for a yacht that ran aground. Bashman argued the case in the 3rd Circuit and worked with a team at the high court that included Jenner’s Adam Unikowsky. Bashman will face Jeffrey Wallof Sullivan & Cromwell, a former Trump-era acting U.S. solicitor general at the DOJ who has argued 30 cases at the high court. Wall represents Great Lakes Insurance, which has denied coverage.

Speaking of the OG blogs and bloggers, I was sad to see Tom Goldstein’s post about scaling back SCOTUSblog. Tom already retired from Supreme Court practice in his early 50s, so I guess this isn’t a surprise. But still sad. 

Chief Justice Names Conference Committee Chairs

And one of them is our very own Judge Darrin Gayles, who was named chair of the Committee on Federal-State Jurisdiction.  

Represent!

Breaking — Randy Katz is our new Magistrate Judge

 Congratulations to Judge Katz. More to follow. 

South Florida Faces in Trump Fraud Trial

By John R. Byrne

If you haven't been living under a rock, you've probably seen the news about the Trump civil fraud trial in New York. The former president didn't need to personally appear but chose to do so, leading to frenetic press coverage. And, even in New York, South Florida is making its presence known. Trump's got quite a few South Florida lawyers representing him, including Chris Kise, Jesus M. Suarez, and Lazaro Fields (a former Judge Moreno law clerk) of Continental PLLC. I think I also saw Ben Kuehne (I'm going solely off the bow tie here)!

The trial is actually a bench trial and things have been tense at times between the Court and Trump/Trump's legal team. This could be a dry run of sorts for the trials to come. 

***Updated with Better Photograph***

Federal Bar Association celebrates Judge Cecilia Altonaga, our first female Cuban American judge

Check out this cool article here.  

“I was born into a family with two parents who had to leave everything behind and had nothing here, who had to remake their professional and personal lives,” Altonaga said. “My father was a lawyer in Cuba, and for about the first 10 years of my life in the United States, he did not practice law because he couldn’t.” 

I really enjoyed the video, which was very well done:

1-1-1 Opinion on Fourth Amendment Issue

By John R. Byrne 

Pretty rare 1-1-1 opinion yesterday out of the 11th Circuit dealing with an interesting Fourth Amendment legal issue: during a traffic stop, if an officer suspects only the driver of committing a traffic-related offense, can the officer nevertheless ask a passenger to identify himself? In the case before the court, an officer had pulled over a car for having an obscured license plate. When the officer asked the passenger to identify himself--and the passenger refused--the officer arrested the passenger for resisting arrest without violence.

The trial court held that the officer violated the passenger's Fourth Amendment rights AND denied the officer's motion to dismiss on qualified immunity grounds (holding that the passenger's right to not identify himself under such circumstances was clearly established). The Eleventh Circuit reversed. 

The opinion breakdown was interesting. Judge Tjoflat and Judge Branch agreed that the officer was entitled to qualified immunity, with Judge Tjoflat going further and saying that no Fourth Amendment violation had even occurred (Branch not joining that aspect of the opinion). Judge Wilson dissented, arguing that the officer had violated the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights AND that the defendant's right to not identify himself was clearly established at the time of the stop.

Johnson Opinion by John Byrne on Scribd