Peter Fay Inn of Court discussion

For those of you who are interested, I will be presenting at the Peter Fay Inn of Court tomorrow evening (Wednesday) on "Privacy, the Fourth Amendment, and the Supreme Court in the Cell Phone Era."  It's a fascinating area of the law and the Supreme Court is going to hear the cell-site data case this Term, one of the biggest 4th Amendment cases in quite some time.  The talk is at 6pm at La Loggia. 

Please RSVP via email to chayes@stu.edu or phone (305) 623-2324.

"Control the clock and control the game. Winning coaches in many sports have employed this strategy."

Judge Rosenbaum, a Chapel Hill native, wrote an opinion today with the lede as an ode to Dean Smith:  "Control the clock and control the game. Winning coaches in many sports have employed this strategy."  Here's the footnote associated with that sentence:

The legendary basketball coach Dean Smith was famous for, among other things, his Four Corners offense, a strategy all about controlling the clock. Dean Smith Dies at Age of 83, ESPN.com (Feb. 12, 2015), http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/12296176 /dean-smith-former-north-carolina-tar-heels-coach-dies-age-83 (“Smith’s Four Corners time-melting offense led to the creation of the shot clock to counter it.”). During his 36 seasons coaching basketball at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, Coach Smith amassed a .776 winning percentage that included eleven Final Four appearances, two national championships, seventeen ACC regular-season titles, and thirteen ACC tournament titles. Id. When Coach Smith passed away, the Tar Heels paid tribute to him by running his Four Corners offense in their first offensive possession in the game following his death. UNC Honors Dean Smith by Running Four Corners Offense, SportsIllustrated.com (Feb. 21, 2015), https://www.si.com/college-basketball/2015/02/21/dean-smith-unc-four-corners-tar-heels.

The rest of the intro, in case you are interested in what the case was about:

And Plaintiff-Appellee Jim Barrett asserts that the lesson wasn’t lost on Defendant-Appellant Walker County School District, either. To speak at a Walker County Board of Education meeting, the District requires a member of the public to first go through a process that can consist of several steps. If the entire process is not completed at least one week before the Board meeting, the citizen may not speak at the meeting. Yet critically, the Board completely controls the timing of a step at the beginning of the process. If the Board drags its feet in completing this step, a member of the public cannot finish the rest of the steps in time to be permitted to speak.
Barrett is a public-school teacher who believes that the District has wielded this policy to unconstitutionally censor speech critical of the Board and its employees at school-board meetings. He filed suit in federal court, asserting a variety of First Amendment facial and as-applied claims in his quest for, among other things, an injunction against various aspects of the Board’s policy governing public comment at its meetings.
The district court ultimately granted Barrett a permanent injunction based on some of his facial claims and enjoined the Board’s public-comment policy. It also allowed a number of Barrett’s other claims to proceed to discovery.
Defendants now appeal the injunction. We have appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1), which allows us to review “[i]nterlocutory orders . . . granting . . . injunctions.” After careful review, and with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand for further proceedings.

Judge Julie Carnes concurred in a written opinion.

Save the Whales!

Judge Cooke issued this interesting order involving Lolita the orca, hosued at the Miami Seaquarium: "Lolita’s lack of protection from the elements is particularly troubling given reports that Seaquarium left her in her tank as Hurricane Irma battered South Florida."

Here's what is on Judge Cooke's mind:

1. Does Seaquarium’s orca tank currently meet AWA space and shade/shelter requirements?
2. What impact, if any, would the tank’s current failure to meet AWA space and shade/shelter requirements have on the pending Motions to Dismiss?
3. If Seaquairum’s orca tank does not currently meet AWA space and shade/shelter requirements, what, if any, remedy can this Court order to correct those deficiencies?

Here's a picture of her shortly before the storm.

Save the Whales! by David Oscar Markus on Scribd

Shocker -- feds now say Scott Rothstein was lying

Shocker -- Feds now say Scott Rothstein was lying! You don't say!

From the Herald:

Convicted South Florida Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein, a disbarred attorney who ran a $1.2 billion investment scheme out of his Fort Lauderdale law firm, will not be receiving a reduction in his 50-year prison sentence because he lied to federal prosecutors, authorities said Tuesday.

Prosecutors withdrew their pending motion to reduce Rothstein's sentence based on his cooperation in the sprawling racketeering investigation because he was “untruthful in an affidavit” filed with the federal court. Rothstein, who helped the U.S. attorney's office gain convictions of almost 30 defendants, was hoping to see many years cut from his sentence for his assistance.

That reward won't happen.

“In the judgment of the United States, the defendant provided false material information to the government and violated the terms of his plea agreement,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence LaVecchio wrote in a motion to withdraw an earlier request for a sentence reduction with U.S. District Judge James Cohn. “Therefore, in the exercise of its sole discretion, the government moves to withdraw the previously filed motion.”

U.S. Attorney's office moves to dismiss Emoluments lawsuit against President Trump

The local U.S. Attorney's office (by AUSA Carlos Raurell) has moved to dismiss the Emoluments lawsuit against President Trump.  Here is the motion to dismiss:

Goggins Motion to Dismiss Trump emoluments clause case by David Oscar Markus on Scribd