"He's smart, witty, compassionate, good-looking, nice."

That's Chief Judge Federico Moreno about his former law clerk and current Bachelorette contestant Mike Garofola.

 Rafael Olmeda from The Sun-Sentinel has more in this article:

A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Fordham Law School, Garofola worked at the firm of Davis Polk and Wardwell for two years before becoming a clerk with U.S. Chief District Court Judge Federico Moreno in Miami.
"He's smart, witty, compassionate, good-looking, nice," Moreno said Friday. "He's a great lawyer. He was a great clerk. And he's a great prosecutor."
Would Moreno let his daughter date Garofola? "I can't answer that!" the judge said. "My daughter knows him. And she's a federal prosecutor."
Moreno declined to say what he thought of Garofola's venture into reality television, reflecting that at age 60, the judge is not part of the show's target audience.

You gotta love Judge Moreno for being a good sport here. 

Friday wrap-up

Well, the blog was dominated this week with The Bachelorette post (which was updated with additional pictures), drawing links from Reality Steve, Above the Law and others.  Interestingly, a number of people emailed me criticizing me for posting it.  The guy is going on national television in prime time, so I'm not sure how posting about it on this blog is harmful to him or anyone else.

Speaking of dating, did you know that Justice O'Connor dated Justice Rehnquist in law school:

She also discussed dating William Rehnquist while at Stanford Law School. "He was fun. We had good times." As for Byron White, O'Connor said, "I thought I was going to die" the first time she experienced his iron-grip handshake.
Then it was time to sign books, which O'Connor said she would do "provided you bring me a glass of wine." Wine was brought and dozens of lawyers queued up with books in hand, good reviews or bad.

SCOTUSBlog has an interesting post on cert-stage amicus briefs and which ones are successful.  NACDL does an excellent job, but the Chamber of Commerce is the best:




Finally, it's furlough Friday, and the Federal Public Defender's office is closed.  But big ups to the Federal Defender himself, Michael Caruso, who is manning the fort in Magistrate Court today (and every Friday) making sure that newly arrested indigent defendants have counsel. 

Local AUSA Mike Garofola to be on The Bachelorette

Thanks to numerous tipsters, the buzz around the courthouse is now confirmed -- Assistant United States Attorney Mike Garofola will be a contestant on the new season of The Bachelorette.  He will be competing with two dozen other men for the love and affection of Desiree Hartsock.

He's used to competing, beating out hundreds of applicants for a federal clerkship and then a job at the United States Attorney's Office.  And as a trial lawyer, he's used to performing for an audience.  So he stands a good chance.

Here's a picture of AUSA Garofola from one of the upcoming episodes in which the contestants play dodgeball:

        

And here's Desiree:






























I asked the U.S. Attorney's office for comment, and Alicia Valle on the office's behalf said: "We wish him luck."  I like that they were good sports about it.

UPDATE -- the initial post had his name misspelled.  It has been corrected, I hope.

UPDATE #2 -- some additional pictures of Mike:

Justice Scalia on childhood in NY

New York Magazine has an interesting series with people describing their childhood in New York.  Justice Scalia is one of them:

It is amazing how many of the names of the kids in this class I remember. The teacher standing in the back—that was a lady named Consuela Goins, and she was a wonderful teacher. Every cloud has a silver lining, and one of the benefits of the exclusion of women from most professions was that we had wonderful teachers, especially the women who today would probably be CEOs. My first crush was a girl in this class whose name was Theresa. She’s the one standing to the right of Mrs. Goins. She’s good-looking; I always had good taste. Hugh McGee was generally the class troublemaker—in the middle seat on the right, two girls behind him and two boys in front of him. He was a really smart student, but he was always getting into trouble.

April Fools

Hope everyone had a nice spring break.  Now back to business.

1.  Adam Liptak doesn't care for Justice O'Connor's book "Out of Order."  From Sunday's review:

The book is short and padded. The main part, only 165 pages long, is interrupted by stock photographs and curious, unexplained editorial cartoons. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are included in an appendix. They are surely worth rereading from time to time, but their main purpose here seems to be to add some bulk to a very skimpy effort.

The illustrations are particularly infuriating markers of missed opportunities. In one cartoon from 1981, the year O’Connor joined the court, the Rev. Jerry Falwell is seen on his knees, praying and crying, as she swings in what looks like one of the scales of justice. He is not mentioned in the text, and the reader is left to guess at what he is so worked up about. That he wants O’Connor to vote to strike down Roe v. Wade? (She was, as it turned out, an author of a 1992 joint opinion reaffirming its core, also not discussed in the book.) 

...

The larger problem is not that Justice O’Connor’s little sketches and lessons are wrong. Quite the contrary. The problem is that they are empty. She writes, correctly, that “the court’s only weapon is its moral authority.” But she refuses to give this and similar sentiments substance.

In retirement, she writes, she has “taken up the cause of promoting civics education in our nation’s schools.” But civics are just a skeleton. They need the flesh of argument to come to life, to have bite, to matter.

 2.  Tony Mauro says enough is enough and wants cameras in the High Court.  He is absolutely correct:

Inside the U.S. Supreme Court last week, the justices were doing what they do best: dissecting a difficult legal issue — this time same-sex marriage — in the intense back-and-forth of oral argument.

Over two illuminating mornings, the justices and top-notch advocates worked through most of the pros and cons of giving same-sex marriage constitutional protection — or instead letting the political process continue the debate.
Outside the court, however, the scene was less noble. People seeking seats for the oral arguments were forced to wait in line, with some arriving five days earlier. Tents were pitched, and money changed hands, with some paying as much as $6,000 to a line-waiting service for the chance of securing a seat inside. Inevitably things got messy, and the line seemed more befitting of a music hall or an Apple store on the eve of the release of a new iPhone.
In one sense, the avid interest of those in line was a healthy sign that people really care about the issue and about how the Supreme Court — their Supreme Court — would handle it.
In another sense, it was a disgrace. The notion that spectators have to camp out or spend money to see a public institution do public business is offensive. It is the direct result of the court's arrogant and stubborn refusal to allow cameras to record and broadcast its proceedings. Some of those waiting for days for seats might still do so if cameras were allowed, but it is a safe bet that most would have preferred to watch the oral arguments in the comfort of home on C-SPAN rather than wait in line over several cold and snowy days in March.
While the public shivers, the justices — newcomers and veterans alike — refuse to give in to the reasonable demands of the information age. They are fearful of the changes that cameras might trigger in the dynamics between justices and advocates and with each other — as if the court were a fragile flower, instead of the sturdy institution it is, an institution that usually holds up well under public scrutiny.

3.  Rumpole, posting to this NY Times article on Project Mercy, asks if we have any Judge Gleesons in the Southern District of Florida.  Do we?

5.  Justice Scalia says he should be the "pinup of the criminal defense bar."  Via the Washington Post.

6.  Your Jeffrey Toobin moment of zen: