High profile Broward defendants lose in 11th Circuit...

...in unpublished decisions.

The first is USA v. Fitzroy Salesman:

Defendant Fitzroy Salesman, a former city commissioner in Florida, appeals his convictions and 51-month total sentence for two counts of accepting bribes in programs receiving federal funds, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(B), and two counts of attempted extortion under color of official right, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951. After review and oral argument, we affirm.

The second is USA v. Alan Mendelsohn:

Alan D. Mendelsohn appeals his forty-eight-month sentence imposed after he pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, file false tax returns, and make false statements, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. On appeal, Mendelsohn argues that the district court erroneously applied two separate sentence enhancements and that his sentence is substantively unreasonable.

***

We find no merit in this contention because the charges in the information, the pre-sentence investigation report, and the factual basis for Mendelsohn’s plea all provided Mendelsohn with notice by referring to the harm caused to Florida’s political institutions by his misuse of political action committees and his payments to the Florida legislator.

Monday morning...

I wish I had something exciting to post this morning, but it's pretty quiet.

The Justice Building Blog has been doing an excellent job covering all of the election action, including Rod Vereen's decision to run against Kathy Fernandez-Rundle.  Thank goodness that the public defender, Carlos Martinez, is unopposed.  Carlos deserves it, and he is a good guy.  It's incredible to me that we elect the public defender -- can you imagine a contested election.  What would you run on?  That you fight for indigent defendants more than the other guy.  Not sure that would help...

The John Edwards trial is starting today, and opening statements are due in Clemens this morning. Two pretty wasteful prosecutions if you ask me.

George Will has a good op-ed about why juveniles should never be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole here:

In 1958, the court said: “The [Eighth] Amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” Justice Antonin Scalia has warned: “A society that adopts a bill of rights is skeptical that ‘evolving standards of decency’ always ‘mark progress,’ and that societies always ‘mature,’ as opposed to rot.” But even the “originalist” Scalia, although disposed to construe the Constitution’s terms as they were understood when ratified, would today proscribe some late-18th-century punishments, such as public lashing and branding.
Denying juveniles even a chance for parole defeats the penal objective of rehabilitation. It deprives prisoners of the incentive to reform themselves. Some prisons withhold education, counseling and other rehabilitation programs from prisoners ineligible for parole. Denying these to adolescents in a period of life crucial to social and psychological growth stunts what the court in 2005 called the prisoner’s “potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity.” Which seems, in a word — actually, three words — “cruel and unusual.”

 
ATL covers the most influential lawyers (according to Time) here, and the Washington Post explains that lawyers are pretty careful in the Supreme Court when arguing legislative intent.  That's all I have for now.  Email me some tips!

Jury nullification case dismissed

I just love that this guy -- fighting for his right to tell potential jurors to say not guilty -- was pro-se and won.  It really bothered me that the government charged him with a federal crime for protected speech.  From the Times:

The next time the 80-year-old retired chemistry professor takes his protest to the plaza outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan, he may make it home without being locked up.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the dismissal of an indictment against the professor, Julian P. Heicklen, who had been charged with jury tampering for advocating the controversial position known as jury nullification while outside the courthouse.

Mr. Heicklen had repeatedly stood with a “Jury Info” sign and handed out brochures supporting nullification, the view that jurors who disagree with a law may ignore their oaths and vote to acquit a defendant accused of violating it.

Prosecutors said such advocacy, “directed as it is to jurors, would be both criminal and without constitutional protections no matter where it occurred.”

But the judge, Kimba M. Wood of Federal District Court, wrote that a person violated the jury tampering statute only when he or she knowingly tried to influence a juror’s decision through a written communication “made in relation to a specific case pending before that juror.”

Judge Wood added that she would not “stretch the interpretation” of the statute to cover speech that was “not meant to influence” a juror’s actions in a specific case.

Mr. Heicklen expressed pleasure at the ruling. “Not just for me,” he said. “I think it’s a major decision for the country.”

He added: “This is better than having them throw me in jail.”

 Well said.  Well done Judge Wood.  The only thing better would have been a jury finding him not guilty....

Wednesday news and notes

1.  Congrats to Todd Scher who obtained a new trial for his death-row client before Judge Seitz.  From the NY Times:

These days, Mr. Holland is represented by Todd G. Scher, a Miami Beach lawyer who won in the Supreme Court and persuaded Judge Seitz to order a new trial. A spokesman for the Florida attorney general’s office said prosecutors would ask Judge Seitz to reconsider her ruling.

Mr. Scher said he did not know who would represent Mr. Holland at a retrial. For now, he said, what was clear was that a federal judge had found “a blatant Sixth Amendment violation.”

“It shows that he was right,” Mr. Scher said of his client. “He had concerns about his prior series of lawyer, and his concerns turned out to be valid.” 

2.  Fitzroy Salesman was in the 11th Circuit yesterday, and represented by all-around good person Ashley Litwin.  From the Sun-Sentinel:

Ashley Litwin, Salesman's appeals lawyer, told the judges on Tuesday that Salesman had acted like an NBA star on suspension from his team contract who worked on a beer commercial but wasn't paid for it until after he returned to the team.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Carol Herman said the analogy wasn't a good one "because elected officials are held to a higher standard than sports figures."

 Really? In Miami, I think sports figures are held to a higher standard...

Oh man, this is really bad

Check out this report by the Washington Post:

Justice Department officials have known for years that flawed forensic work might have led to the convictions of potentially innocent people nationwide, but prosecutors failed to notify defendants or their attorneys even in many cases they knew were troubled.


Officials started reviewing the cases in the 1990s after reports that sloppy work by examiners at the FBI lab was producing unreliable forensic evidence in court trials. Instead of releasing those findings, they made them available only to the prosecutors in the affected cases, according to documents and interviews with dozens of officials.

In addition, the Justice Department reviewed only a limited number of cases and focused on the work of one scientist at the FBI lab, despite warnings that problems were far more widespread and could affect potentially thousands of cases in federal, state and local courts.


As a result, hundreds of defendants remain in prison or on parole for crimes that might merit exoneration, a retrial or a retesting of evidence using DNA because FBI hair and fiber experts may have misidentified them as suspects.

Now what?  Read the whole piece; it's long but worth your time.