Huge win for Diddy

 Now the judge has the tough part on sentencing.  What do you get if the jury acquits you of all the major counts and convicts on the one minor count.  It should be credit time served... we shall see.  In the meantime, who is buying this shirt?

 

What should happen with Diddy juror?

After the jury started deliberating yesterday, the foreperson quickly sent a note that one of the jurors wasn't following the judge's instructions.  As the lawyers sparred over how the judge should handle the note, Diddy was seen reading "The Power of Positive Thinking."  Maybe it worked!   Later he was seen with "The Happiness Advantage."  

Judges are always too quick to dismiss "problem" jurors.  

What would you do if you were the judge in this situation?

Tone it down

That was Chief Justice Roberts' message at a 4th Circuit Conference this week.  From the NY Times:

On the day after the Supreme Court issued a decision that sharply curtailed the power of federal judges to block Trump administration policies, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. spoke before a hotel ballroom filled with them.

He didn’t say a word about it.

The chief justice on Saturday gave a public interview with Judge Albert Diaz, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, at a judicial conference in Charlotte attended by lower court judges who will be expected to parse and follow the Supreme Court’s directive limiting their ability to block executive branch policies nationwide.

During the discussion, the chief justice hinted at the stress of the end of the court’s term, which concluded on Friday, a time that he described as “a lot of sharp division and some sharp adjectives.”

***

The chief justice called threats against judges “totally unacceptable.” He said he viewed it as dangerous when “it becomes wrapped up in the political dispute that a judge who’s doing his or her job is part of the problem.”

“The danger, of course, is somebody might pick up on that, and we have had, of course, serious threats of violence and murder of judges just simply for doing their work,” Chief Justice Roberts said. “The political people on both sides of the aisle need to keep that in mind.”

Meantime, The Hill is covering F bombs from politicians. 

What's going on at FDC?

 From the NYT:

The authorities are investigating the death of a Canadian citizen who died Monday in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency said in a statement.

The man, Johnny Noviello, 49, was found unresponsive on Monday at around 1 p.m. at the Bureau of Prisons Federal Detention Center in Miami, according to the statement, which was released on Wednesday. Medical staff administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation, automated external defibrillator shock and called 911, ICE said. Mr. Noviello was pronounced dead by the Miami Fire Rescue Department at 1:36 p.m., the agency said.

ICE said that it had notified the Canadian consulate of Mr. Noviello’s death. The Canadian consulate did not immediately return phone and email requests for comment on Thursday.

Ed Artau's first Senate hearing

 He was sitting next to Emil Bove, who drew most of the Senate's fire.

But Senator Blumenthal had some questions for Judge Artau.  From Law360:

One was Florida state appellate Judge Edward L. Artau for the Southern District of Florida. The others were for the Middle District of Florida, U.S. Magistrate Judge Kyle Dudek, Florida state appellate Judge Jordan Pratt and Florida state appellate Judge Anne-Leigh Gaylord Moe.

During Trump's first term, Pratt was counsel and then senior counsel at DOJ's Office of Legal Policy and deputy general counsel at the U.S. Small Business Administration, according to his LinkedIn profile.

In his prehearing questionnaire, he said while at DOJ, "I worked on various policy issues and worked to secure the confirmation of federal judges."

In February, Judge Artau was on the three-judge panel that ruled Trump could sue the Pulitzer Prize Board members in a defamation lawsuit following reporting that Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., brought up this ruling during the hearing and argued that in the judge's concurrence, he "essentially parroted" Trump's talking points by "incorrectly calling the Russia story a 'now-debunked allegations'" and questioning the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in New York Times v. Sullivan , a landmark case protecting press coverage of public figures. Having said that, Blumenthal asked Judge Artau if litigants can expect him to be unbiased, especially when the federal government is a party.

"I've been a judge for 11 years. Nobody's ever questioned my integrity," he replied. "I know what you're getting at in terms of the issue, but I had no communications or expectations that I was even under consideration by the White House when I issued that opinion." He added he follows the Florida judicial canons very carefully.

Blumenthal then asked if had had spoken with the Florida senators about a federal judgeship prior to that ruling. Judge Artau said he spoke with Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., a few years ago about that, noting he is friends with Scott's general counsel.

This past November, when in Washington, D.C., the judge said he "paid him a courtesy visit like I do every year." In more of a back-and-forth, Blumenthal got him to say that he had been in talks with Scott's office for several years about a possible judicial nomination, and Blumenthal asked why he didn't recuse himself from the Pulitzer case.

Judge Artau pointed to the Florida judicial canons and said he didn't meet the requirements to recuse himself.

Alligator Alcatraz

Desantis is talking about building a detention center in the middle of the Everglades.  Oh boy...

Can you imagine having to visit a client out there.  

From the Herald:

The latest plan by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to crack down on undocumented immigrants would involve emergency construction of a 1,000-bed detention center deep in the Everglades on swampy land owned by Miami-Dade County. On Monday, the county’s Democratic mayor attempted to slow the state’s efforts on the controversial idea. Without explicitly opposing the overall concept, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava ticked off a string of barriers to the idea being pushed by both DeSantis and his former top aide, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who has branded the proposed facility as “Alligator Alcatraz” for its remote location. “Due to the location of this parcel in a critical area, the conveyance of this parcel requires considerable review and due diligence,” Levine Cava wrote in a Monday letter to Kevin Guthrie, the state’s emergency management director under DeSantis. It “is also imperative that we fully understand the scope and scale of the proposed use of the site and what will be developed, as the impacts to the Everglades ecosystem could be devastating.”