"How about the rest of us? Right-wingin', bitter-clingin', proud clingers of our guns, our God, and our religions and our Constitution. Tell us that we're not red enough? Yeah, coming from the establishment."

That was Sarah Palin yesterday endorsing The Donald.  There are so many good quotes.  More here.

Meantime, the Republicans are duking it out over sentencing reform.  Politico covers the story:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell faces snowballing pressure to tackle an overhaul of the criminal justice system. But deep dissension within his own party — between pro-reform Republicans and law-and-order types — is threatening one of the few items on the congressional agenda with a real chance of becoming law this year.
Criminal justice legislation is backed by the two top vote-counters of each party in the Senate and a powerful right-left coalition. It was bolstered by a presidential shout-out in the State of the Union last week. Passing a bill would advance McConnell’s favorite narrative — that the Senate is working again.

But loosening some mandatory minimum sentences is still a toxic suggestion among a vocal segment of the GOP, criticism that the presidential primary could amplify. Some backers of the bill fret that Sen. Ted Cruz, who’s vaulted into the top tier in the GOP presidential primary, might seize on the issue ahead of the Iowa caucuses. The Texas Republican has warned that a bill pending in the Senate could release violent criminals into the streets.
Still, backers are pressing ahead. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), McConnell’s top deputy, has lobbied the majority leader to take up the proposal early this year. Backers say the Senate has to move on criminal justice reform quickly, perhaps as soon as next month, for the measure to have any hope of reaching President Barack Obama’s desk.

3-0

That's the defense record in Chinese importation trials. The latest was by AFPDs Sowmya Bharathi and Bunmi Lomax before Judge Seitz. There was also another January not guilty casting shade on Rumpole's "no-trials-in-January" mandate. Bottom line -- we need more trials! 

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article54763750.html?ppRandom=0.12800472962753218&pp_u=EpszNZmQZ2sGUh1MEMIQCA#storylink=cpy

Anthony Bosch's sentenced reduced

From the Herald:

Anthony Bosch, the fake doctor who sold illegal muscle-building steroids to Major League Baseball stars including Alex Rodriguez, had the goods on his partners in crime.
Once Bosch’s Coral Gables anti-aging clinic shut down and baseball’s biggest doping scandal erupted in early 2013, it wasn’t long before Bosch began assisting baseball and U.S. authorities to save his neck.
On Thursday, the 52-year-old Bosch received his benefit for snitching when a Miami federal judge reduced his four-year prison sentence by one-third for helping federal prosecutors convict other defendants who participated in his steroid-distribution racket. His sentence was lowered to two years and eight months.
Prosecutors recommended that Bosch, 52, former owner of the anti-aging clinic Biogenesis of America, be given lesser punishment because of his “substantial assistance” in the investigation. His parallel cooperation with baseball authorities resulted in lengthy suspensions of Rodriguez, the New York Yankees star, and 13 other professional ballplayers who purchased banned performance-enhancing drugs from Bosch.
“He provided us with viable information that led to the prosecution of various defendants,” said prosecutor Sharad Motiani, noting that Bosch met with criminal investigators more than a dozen times for lengthy interviews and reviewed hundreds of medical, phone and text records that contributed to the successful prosecutions of at least four other defendants.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article54650210.html#storylink=cpy

CJA hearings in Miami conclude

Celia Ampel for the DBR covers it here:

Lawyers appointed to represent federal defendants who can't afford an attorney sometimes have trouble securing expert witnesses, wading through voluminous e-discovery and persuading judges to approve their expenses, according to testimony at a public hearing Monday and Tuesday in Miami.
The Criminal Justice Act, which provides a system for compensating those attorneys, is under a two-year review by a committee appointed by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. The committee's stop at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Courthouse was the second of seven hearings in cities from Portland, Oregon, to Philadelphia.
Attorneys and judges from across the Southeastern U.S. testified at the hearing, including the Southern District of Florida's Federal Public Defender Michael Caruso, U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer and U.S. District Judges Robert Scola Jr., Donald Graham and Kathleen Williams.
The committee questioned the witnesses on whether the authority to approve CJA panel attorney compensation should rest with the judiciary, the public defender's office or an independent body. The group also discussed the challenges of e-discovery.

***

But regardless of their independence, CJA panel attorneys have far fewer resources than federal defenders and the U.S. attorney's office, lawyers testified.
That inequality extends to discovery, which in a multidefendant case can amount to three terabytes of data — or 6,000 filing cabinets of documents, Caruso said.
"You can imagine the CJA lawyer who's a solo practitioner trying to make sense of 6,000 filing cabinets," particularly in a trial-heavy and fast-paced district like the Southern District of Florida, he said.

Judge Graham was really strong on this point saying that prosecutors should be required to hand over hot documents to defense lawyers as a matter of proportionality and basic fairness.  Seems like a no-brainer.

Florida Death Penalty found unconstitutional

The case, 8-1 per Justice Sotomayor, is Hurst v. Florida:

A Florida jury convicted Timothy Lee Hurst of murdering his co-worker, Cynthia Harrison. A penalty-phase jury recommended that Hurst’s judge impose a death sentence. Notwithstanding this recommendation, Florida law required the judge to hold a separate hearing and determine whether sufficient aggravating circumstances existed to justify imposing the death penalty. The judge so found and sentenced Hurst to death.

We hold this sentencing scheme unconstitutional. The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death. A jury’s mere recommendation is not enough.

Kudos to Judge Jose Martinez who was way ahead of this issue and found Florida's scheme unconstitutional many years ago.