Dave Barry to speak at the District's Bench & Bar conference

It looks like a good conference, with lots of our judges speaking and participating. It's Friday May 12 and there are interesting panels. It should be revealing to hear what the judges have to say about topics like criminal sentencing and legal writing. And Dave Barry is always great.

Melgen trial winding down

Dr. Salomon Melgen's trial is winding down... It's in week 7 and closing arguments are expected next week. From the AP:

The Medicare fraud trial of a prominent Florida eye doctor tied to corruption charges against New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez wound toward its conclusion Tuesday with his lawyers portraying him as an innovative physician who didn't give up on his hard-to-treat patients.

Dr. Salomon Melgen is charged with 76 counts for allegedly stealing up to $105 million from Medicare between 2008 and 2013 by performing useless tests and procedures on elderly and disabled patients.

But Dr. Dana Deupree, testifying Tuesday for the defense, disagreed with the prosecution's contention. Going through numerous patient records, he testified that Melgen's treatments may have been the only hope many patients had for saving their sight. The Clearwater, Florida, ophthalmologist said that although some of the tests performed by Melgen and his staff could have been done better and that he might have performed different procedures, Melgen's work was medically sound.

Deupree, who is expected to be the final defense witness, testified that Melgen's attorneys have paid him $135,000 over several years to consult on this case and prior civil lawsuits.

What's next for Trump and the Judiciary?

Justice Gorsuch takes his seat today on the Supreme Court.  But there are still a ton of vacancies around the country at the District and Circuit levels (as well as U.S. Attorney positions).  David Lat at Above the Law takes a look at what's going to be happening:

The main potential stumbling block to progress on lower-court nominees: “blue slips.” As explained by prominent conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt in the Washington Post:

The blue slip is simply the piece of paper that is sent to the senators from the home state of every judicial nominee. If a senator has no objection to the nominee, the blue slip (so named for the color of the paper) is sent back to the Judiciary Committee chairman with an indication of approval. If the senator objects, the paper is either sent back indicating disapproval or not returned at all.

Under current Senate practice, if the blue slip isn’t returned, the nominee doesn’t move forward. Hugh Hewitt isn’t a fan of this de facto veto power enjoyed by home-state senators; he condemns it as “simply and obviously deeply anti-democratic,” and wants Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to, well, give blue slips the nuclear treatment.

Senator Grassley recently told Roll Call that his Committee remains “committed to” current blue-slip practice, but noted that blue slips aren’t sacrosanct. This strikes me as totally reasonable: blue slips can be honored for now, and used by senators to stop truly unqualified nominees. But if the Democrats abuse blue slips by using them to stop qualified nominees whose ideology they just don’t like — basically what Republicans did to the eminently qualified Merrick Garland, and what Democrats tried to do to the eminently qualified Neil Gorsuch — then it might be time to shred the blue slip.

So who is going to be the next U.S. Attorney

This Politico article by Marc Caputo says the favorites are John Couriel and Jose Felix "Pepi" Diaz, with Jon Sale very much still in the mix.  The article does not mention that Sale has Rudy Guliani's support as well as strong national political support:

Two young Cuban-American Republicans from Miami are leading contenders to be South Florida’s top federal prosecutor in what, sources tell POLITICO, is one of the most important federal jurisdictions to Donald Trump because it covers his home away from the White House, Mar-a-Lago.
Both state Rep. Jose Felix "Pepi" Diaz, 37, and John Couriel, 39, have interviewed with the Justice Department and were recommended, along with longtime attorney Jon Sale, for the Southern District of Florida U.S. Attorney post by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, said sources familiar with the process. They say Trump, who has allowed too many federal vacancies to remain open, wants to make a choice soon.
Diaz is seen by some as a slight favorite because he has had a personal relationship with the president since 2006 when he was a contestant on Trump’s TV show, “The Apprentice.”
But others point out that Couriel has a strong backer in Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, Couriel’s longtime friend and old Harvard classmate who was an ally of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions when he served as Alabama senator. He has Federalist Society and top administration lawyers advocating for him.

Roy Altman also emerged as a leading candidate -- he was interviewed today in DC.

This is a pretty important post for Trump considering how much time he and his colleagues spend down here.  Many have said that he has taken a personal interest in who is going to get the gig. Good luck to all.

Willy Falcon's brother arrested in Orlando after 26 years

Jim Defede broke the story yesterday about one of the original Cocaine Cowboys being caught after 26 years on the lam.  The Willy and Sal saga is one of the best Miami stories around. Defede covered it 26 years ago and has some great pictures and memories in his story.

The story is so good that filmmakers Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman are currently making the next installment of Cocaine Cowboys to tell the Willy Falcon and Sal Magluta story called Los Muchachos.

The Herald has more about the arrest:

“He is the last of the Cocaine Cowboys,” Barry Golden, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service in Miami, said late Wednesday.
Deputy marshals nabbed Gustavo Falcon and his wife, Amelia, at an intersection in Kissimmee after they had taken a 40-mile bike ride.
Gustavo Falcon had obtained fake driver’s licenses for himself, his wife and their two grown children, using Miami addresses, Golden said. The parents went by the name of Luis Reiss and Maria Reiss, he added.
The marshals caught a break in 2013 when Gustavo Falcon got into a car accident in the Orlando area and used his fake ID with the Miami address. That led the marshals to trace him to his South Florida history.
Gustavo Falcon and his family had been renting a Kissimmee home, which the marshals had under surveillance. They had been living in the Orlando area since 1999, which Golden said surprised the marshals because they had believed Gustavo Falcon was hiding in Mexico or Colombia all these years.

I wonder if some of the younger lawyers in the District know about the case and all of the craziness fro the 90s.  Some background from the Herald:

“Willie” Falcon and his partner, Salvador “Sal” Magluta, were recognized as kingpins among the legendary Cocaine Cowboys who turned South Florida into a violent hub of drug trafficking in the 1980s. The pair used their speedboats not only for ocean racing, but also to haul loads of cocaine smuggled from Colombian through the Caribbean to the shores of Miami.

In 1991, a federal indictment charged the two Falcon brothers and Magluta, a Miami High classmate of Willie Falcon, and several others with smuggling 75 tons of cocaine into the United States between 1978 and 1991. The partners, known as “The Boys,” grew up in Miami as part of the Cuban American community.

In 1996, Willie Falcon and Magluta were acquitted of the charges, thought it was later discovered they bought off witnesses and at least one jury member.

Magluta was retried and convicted of drug-related money laundering charges in 2002. He was sentenced to 205 years in prison, which was reduced to 195 years in 2006.

After his partner’s retrial, Willie Falcon struck a plea deal in 2003 with Miami federal prosecutors Pat Sullivan and Michael Davis on similar money laundering charges. Falcon, sentenced to 20 years in prison, is scheduled to be released in June.