The talk of the town

 Everyone has been talking about the grand jury investigating Trump's "grand conspiracy" theory here in the Southern District of Florida.  Bloomberg covered it last week (including two AUSAs being fired or having to resign --depending on who you ask -- for not participating) and the New York Times has the story this morning. From the Times:

Far-right influencers have been hinting in recent weeks that they have finally found a venue — Miami — and a federal prosecutor — Jason A. Reding Quiñones — to pursue long-promised charges of a “grand conspiracy” against President Trump’s adversaries.

Their theory of the case, still unsupported by the evidence: A cabal of Democrats and “deep-state” operatives, possibly led by former President Barack Obama, has worked to destroy Mr. Trump in a years long plot spanning the inquiry into his 2016 campaign to the charges he faced after leaving office.

But that narrative, which has been promoted in general terms by Mr. Trump and taken root online, has emerged in a nascent but widening federal investigation.

Last week, Mr. Reding Quiñones, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, issued more than two dozen subpoenas, including to officials who took part in the inquiry into ties between Russia and Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Among them, they said, were James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence; Peter Strzok, a former F.B.I. counterintelligence agent who helped run the Russia investigation; and Lisa Page, a former lawyer at the bureau.

 Bloomberg has more details about the politics inside the office:

The national security unit has long been organized as a section within the office’s criminal division, but Reding Quiñones this week informed staff that he stripped the criminal chief’s authority by ordering the national security group to start reporting directly to the US attorney’s executive office, according to a Nov. 3 email obtained by Bloomberg Law.
That announcement came 14 hours after prominent MAGA influencer Jack Posobiec denounced the criminal chief, Peter Forand, on X for donating $2,300 to the 2024 Kamala Harris presidential campaign and other Democratic causes.

Forand will “be in charge of” of the newly empaneled grand juries “to investigate Crossfire Hurricane and the Mar-a-Lago raid conspiracy,” Posobiec posted. “Can Forand be trusted to fairly investigate the Biden regime and Jack Smith if he’s friends with them and donates thousands of dollars to them?”
About two hours after Reding Quiñones emailed out the new leadership structure, Posobiec referenced his earlier Forand criticism in a new post to his 3.2 million followers: “UPDATE: Hearing good things on this.”
Forand, who former colleagues say has operated as a nonpartisan prosecutor willing to implement any administration’s objectives, had previously been removed from an office directly outside of Reding Quiñones’ executive suite to a different part of the building, three people said.
That office space is now occupied by a newly hired chief of staff to the US attorney—an unusual position under any top prosecutor. That chief of staff, Jim Poland, is an FBI agent on detail, who’s overseeing the office’s “non-litigation and administrative functions,” Reding Quiñones wrote to staff Nov. 3.

 

2026 Red Mass

By Jordi C. Martínez-Cid

Yesterday was the Red Mass of the Holy Spirit at Gesù Catholic Church. The Miami Catholic Lawyers Guild organizes the event every year. The Lex Christi, Lex Amoris Award was presented to Chief Judge Altonaga by Judge Ruiz. For those of you whose Latin is rusty, the award translates to Law of Christ, Law of Love. The mass was presided over by Archbishop Wenski, pictured below with the aforementioned judges.

Judge Emett Clay Choate

By John R. Byrne

We're moving into the '50s now with our SDFLA judges, featuring Judge Emett Clay Choate today. Judge Choate presided over some interesting cases in our district, including the case of a man (Richard Paul Pavlick) who tried to assassinate then President-elect John F. Kennedy. FBA write up below. Served in World War I and practiced in Oklahoma and New York before moving to Miami. 

Judge Choate was nominated by President Eisenhower and served on the district court from 1954-1974. In Moorhead v. City of Fort Lauderdale, 152 F. Supp. 131 (S.D. Fla. 1957), aff’d, 248 F.2d 544 (5th Cir. 1957), Judge Choate ordered the Miami City Commission to end segregation on the municipal golf course.

Howe on the Court

By John R. Byrne

One of the best events our local chapter of the FBA puts on every year is the Supreme Court roundup with Amy Howe. The co-founder of SCOTUS blog, Amy's been covering the Supreme Court beat for years and has also argued before the Court. Always a great turnout from our bench at this lunch. 

This year's event will be at Coral Reef Yacht Club in Coconut Grove on Tuesday, November 18. You can buy your tickets here. 

Should CJA lawyers (and PDs) start refusing appointments?

 There's whispers going around that this might happen because they haven't been paid in many months because of the shutdown.  And could you blame them?  

From Reuters:

As the U.S. government shutdown disrupts paychecks for federal workers across the country, it is exacerbating the financial woes of lawyers who defend the poorest members of society when they are accused of federal crimes.
Some of the private attorneys who work as court-appointed lawyers for indigent federal criminal defendants have stopped taking new cases and have argued that their clients are being denied their right to effective counsel, according to court records and defense lawyers.
About 12,000 private lawyers across the U.S. serve on court-managed panels that provide counsel to defendants who cannot afford to hire an attorney. The program that compensates these lawyers under the Criminal Justice Act ran out of money in early July, and the shutdown - now in its 34th day - has resulted in Congress not authorizing any new funding.
Lawyers who serve on these panels represent about 40% of criminal cases against people who cannot afford attorneys, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The remaining 60% of indigent cases are handled by full-time federal public defenders who work for the court system. Since mid-October, they have been working without pay as well. 

Judge Altman to Moderate Panel on Israeli-Hamas Conflict

By John R. Byrne

Federal judges generally fall into two camps. Ones who do most (if not all) public speaking from the bench and on case-related issues. And others who are more out there in the community and weigh in on issues beyond the cases and controversies before them. Judge Altman is, unabashedly so, in the latter camp. And for the past two years, his focus has been on the Israeli-Hamas conflict, where he has staunchly defended Israel’s actions in the region. 

Yesterday, Fox News wrote a story about an upcoming panel at the Federalist Society convention in D.C. that he’s moderating. When asked about why he should be speaking on these issues, he said:

"Those claims, is Israel violating the laws of war? Is it an apartheid state? Does it occupy land that doesn't belong to it?" Altman said. "Those are just legal questions with legal answers, and I thought, who better than federal judges to understand what the applicable legal rule is, to adduce and find out what the relevant facts are, and then to apply the facts to the law and issue a judgment, than a federal judge."

You can read the full story here.

Who the heck is that?!

By John R. Byrne

If you've spent any time in the Wilkie D. Ferguson building, you likely have had occasion to stare up at the various portraits of judges that hang on the walls of the lobby area outside the courtrooms. And maybe, like me, you've thought: "Who the heck is that?"

With permission from the Court, the South Florida Chapter of the Federal Bar Association took high resolution photographs of the portraits and are featuring the portraits and short bios of the judges in weekly posts on social media. I'm planning to share that same content here. I hope you enjoy learning a bit about our district's rich history.

Hon. John W. Holland. Judge Holland was nominated by President Roosevelt and served on the district court from 1936-1969. He served as a “one-man court” in our district from 1936 to 1950 and, in 1949, was solely responsible for the 1,711 cases pending in the district. Despite the backbreaking case load that often led to him working seven-day weeks, Judge Holland was said to have had a “disposition as bright as the Florida sunshine on a cloudless day.”

Federal Grand Jury to Possibly Investigate Claims of “Lawfare” Against President Trump

By Jordi C. Martínez-Cid

Our district was in the news again. Various media outlets have reported that Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article III Project and former Chief Counsel for Nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, has claimed that a grand jury will be empaneled in Fort Pierce early next year to investigate a supposed decade-long conspiracy by Democratic Party officials and federal law enforcement agents aimed at undermining President Trump. There has been no official confirmation of the scope or purpose of the grand jury. Articles on the topic can be found here, here, and here.