BREAKING—RUDY RUIZ TO BE NOMINATED FOR DISTRICT JUDGESHIP — UPDATED

BREAKING — RUDY RUIZ TO BE NOMINATED FOR DISTRICT JUDGESHIP; UPDATED: RODNEY SMITH AND ROY ALTMAN ALSO TO BE NOMINATED

Multiple sources have confirmed that Rudy Ruiz has been informed that he will be nominated by President Trump for one of the 5 open district court seats for the Southern District of Florida. Congrats to Judge Ruiz, who currently sits as a state trial judge in Miami-Dade County. Ruiz went to Georgetown Law and then clerked for Judge Moreno. Like Moreno, Ruiz started as a County Court judge, then became a Circuit Court Judge and now moves over to the federal bench.

UPDATE — I have heard that Trump has also informed two others that they will be nominated and that he will “hold over” the last two spots. I do not know whether that means that 2 people from the current list will get those slots or whether they will be opened back up.

SECOND UPDATE — I have heard that the other two names are Roy Altman and Rodney Smith. This is not confirmed yet. If you have any information on this, please email me. dmarkus at markuslaw dot coM

THIRD UPDATE — Two sources have confirmed these other two names. I feel pretty good that these are the three names.

Tick Tock...

President Trump unveiled another wave of judicial selections today, but still nothing for the 5 open slots here in the Southern District of Florida.

Who was Justice Ginsburg talking about here?

Who was Justice Ginsburg talking about here?

"I respect all my colleagues and genuinely like most of them."

Hahaha. That was her speaking at Columbia this weekend.

In a very different Colombia, the Miami Herald had this news about the prison barring American lawyers from entering:

In effect, all foreign lawyers, including U.S. attorneys, cannot enter La Picota anymore as lawyers — only as social visitors. After the [Joaquin] Perez scandal, it’s probably going to get worse. Colombia’s prison spokesman insisted no foreign lawyers were being barred from La Picota.

What prompted the change in La Picota’s policy? About a year ago, a scandal erupted when an American attorney entered the prison, bribed guards and negotiated a huge payment to have a client put on a list that gives amnesty to members of a left-wing guerrilla group, the FARC, as part of its peace accord with the government.

Other Miami lawyers who compete with Perez for high-profile drug trafficking clients said Colombian prison officials have made visiting their clients intolerable.

Great American William Turnoff to be honored

The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida is hosting a reception honoring Magistrate Judge William C. Turnoff for his 32 years of distinguished judicial service. The reception will be held at the Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. United States Courthouse, Miami, on Thursday, February 8, 2018, from 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.

Judge Turnoff is a great American.

Judicial candidates being interviewed this week in DC

A number of sources have told me that all 10 judicial candidates for the 5 slots will be interviewed by the White House this week.  Hopefully we will have an answer shortly on who will be selected.  As a reminder, the 10 candidates are:

Miami-Dade Circuit Judges Antonio Arzola, Peter Lopez, Rodolfo ‘Rudy’ Ruiz, Rodney Smith and John Thornton;
Acting U.S. Attorney Benjamin Greenberg;
Broward Circuit Judges David Haimes and Raag Singhal; and
private attorneys Roy Altman and Melissa Visconti.

Author of Nunes memo has ties to SDFLA

The author of the Nunes memo, Kash Patel, has ties to SDFLA.  He was an assistant state public defender in Miami.  Then, an assistant federal defender.  Then he moved to Washington, DC to become a DOJ terrorism prosecutor. 

The attacks on the FBI, though, don't seem to be getting a lot of traction from the memo.  This seems like a much stronger issue for those who would attack the FBI.  From the NY Times:

For more than a year, an F.B.I. inquiry into allegations that Lawrence G. Nassar, a respected sports doctor, had molested three elite teenage gymnasts followed a plodding pace as it moved back and forth among agents in three cities. The accumulating information included instructional videos of the doctor’s unusual treatment methods, showing his ungloved hands working about the private areas of girls lying facedown on tables.

But as the inquiry moved with little evident urgency, a cost was being paid. The New York Times has identified at least 40 girls and women who say that Dr. Nassar molested them between July 2015, when he first fell under F.B.I. scrutiny, and September 2016, when he was exposed by an Indianapolis Star investigation. Some are among the youngest of the now-convicted predator’s many accusers — 265, and counting.

The three alleged victims then at the center of the F.B.I.’s inquiry were world-class athletes; two were Olympic gold medalists. Nearly a year passed before agents interviewed two of the young women.

Reality Winner's detention upheld

Reality Winner's detention upheld by the 11th Circuit.  From the Washington Times:

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Wednesday a district court’s order keeping accused National Security Agency leaker Reality Winner behind bars pending trial.
A federal appellate panel ruled 3-0 to uphold a lower court’s ruling detaining Ms. Winner, 26, effectively seeing she remains jailed until her leak case is heard likely later this year.
Ms. Winner was arrested in June 2017 in Augusta, Georgia, and subsequently charged in connection with sharing classified material obtained while employed at Pluribus, an Atlanta-based contracting firm, and ordered held until trial.
Defense attorneys had sought to secure Ms. Winner’s release from jail prior to court proceedings starting, but the 11th Circuit quashed that bid by upholding a lower court’s pretrial detention order, citing the likelihood of the accused fleeing the country.
“[T]he district court did not err in finding by a preponderance that Ms. Winner is a flight risk and that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure her appearance,” the appellate panel wrote in the 5-page ruling affirming the detention order.

Here's the opinion.

Falcon pleads

Gustavo Falcon, on the run for 26 years, pleaded guilty today before Judge Moreno.  He's looking at 11-13 years under his plea agreement and prosecutors won’t charge him (for being a fugitive) or his wife and their two grown children (for hiding him).

Meantime, a naked bank robber was found not guilty yesterday in a bench trial before Chief Judge Michael Moore.  You are probably reading that last sentence a few times... okay, okay -- it wasn't a straight not guilty.  It was a not guilty by reason of insanity.  And the parties agreed.  Here's the Sun-Sentinel coverage by Paula McMahon. I've never seen that before in this District.  Anyone else?

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article197809819.html#storylink=cpy

Yikes

From the yikes department, here's the introductory paragraph from Chief Judge Carnes in Winn-Dixie v. Dolgencorp:

After we have remanded a case with specific instructions, attorneys rarely attempt to have the district court defy our mandate. And even if they try it, a district court is seldom misled into that kind of error by them. This is one of those rare cases where the attorneys representing one side successfully urged the district court to act contrary to our mandate. Of course, we reverse that part of its judgment.

More:

Needless to say (or maybe not), a district court cannot amend, alter, or refuse to apply an appellate court’s mandate simply because an attorney persuades the court that the decision giving rise to the mandate is wrong, misguided, or unjust. A district court can, of course, wax eloquent about how wrong the appellate court is, but after the waxing wanes the mandate must be followed.

***

There is no imprecision in those instructions, no room for evasive interpretation, in short, there is no legitimate basis for applying what we said only to a subset of the 41 Florida stores. We don’t know what else we could have said other than, perhaps, “and we really mean it.” Well, we really did mean it. And we still do.

The district court did not do what we instructed it to do because it was led astray by the defendants’ attorneys.

Rant: Bond pending appeal

Rant: Bond pending appeal

Everyone knows the dirty little secret in federal criminal cases -- everything is stacked against the criminal defendant.  That's why so many defendants plead.  Even innocent defendants.  It takes a ton of courage to fight the government because the stakes are impossibly high.

One tactic the government uses against criminal defendants is opposing reasonable bail.  In many cases, the government tries to keep defendants behind bars during pretrial litigation.  But lately, judges have been much better about releasing white collar defendants on bond during pretrial litigation.  This trend has not reached appellate bonds though.

If a defendant is convicted at trial, it is nearly impossible to get an appellate bond -- even for white collar defendants who are not a risk of flight or danger to the community.  This is maddening because defendants who end up prevailing in the court of appeals end up serving time unnecessarily.  And it's not because the law is bad... it's just because there is a culture of denying such motions. 

Yesterday, our firm had a sweet appellate win in the 5th Circuit (we were not the trial lawyers) for a 68-year old doctor who was improperly and unjustly convicted of medicare fraud (here's the opinion).  The conservative court of appeals found that the evidence against her was insufficient.  But her motion for bond pending appeal was denied, so the doctor sat in prison for almost 10 months waiting for the appeal to be decided.  Even though that is relatively quick, she will never get those 10 months back.  In a recent 11th Circuit case, the poor client had to spend 3 years in prison before being vindicated in a published order saying that she was actually innocent. Now, that woman is seeking to be compensated for her time in prison.

There is nothing more sacred than our liberty.  If a person has the courage to stand up to the government and fight the charges, and if they are not a danger to the community or a risk of flight, then courts should be willing to say that they have "close" issues on appeal (which is a pretty low standard) and grant them bond pending appeal.  I'm sure that there are a handful of cases over time where someone has fled on an appellate bond, but I have never seen such a case. The harm in denying such a bond is irreversible if the defendant wins on appeal.  If she loses, then the government has lost nothing.

I'm happy to debate any prosecutor or judge on this issue.  Let me know and we will set up a back and forth on the blog.

Thank you Florida Supreme Court!

Thank you Florida Supreme Court!

That's what two different 11th Circuit panels said last week. Pruco Life Ins. Co v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. and Altman Contractors, Inc. v. Crum & Forster Specialty Ins. Co. are per curiam decisions returning to the Eleventh Circuit after the Florida Supreme Court answered the certified questions in each case. In both per curiam decisions, the panel explicitly thanked the Florida Supreme Court.

From Pruco: We thank the Florida Supreme Court for its guidance. In light of its response, we AFFIRM the entry of judgment for U.S. Bank as to the Guild policy, Appeal No. 13-15859, District Court No. 1:12-cv-24441-FAM.

From Altman: Given the benefit of this answer to our certified question, we reverse the grant of summary judgment in favor of C&F, vacate the final judgment, and remand this case to the district court for further proceedings. We thank the Florida Supreme Court for accepting, and answering, the certified question.

Thanks to the tipster for this interesting find.  According to him, this is a pretty rare occurrence, but it happened twice in one week before in our appellate court.

CNN covers Key West sting

UPDATE--And in other news, here's some shameless promotion for my daughter who is performing in a professional show, Ride, tonight (Thursday) at 7:30 (and Saturday at 7:30) at Area Stage on US1 in South Miami (the old Riviera movie theatre). Come check it out!



***

CNN covers the Key West sting to "bring down an ISIS-supporting weightlifter" here. The pepper eating seems weird:

Harlem Suarez grabbed a jalapeno pepper from his plate and took a big bite. The heavily tattooed Cuban-American crepe-maker was eating dinner with two new friends, Shariff and Mohammed, at a Denny's in Key West on a warm June night. Suarez wanted to impress them but they laughed instead, joking in Arabic that he seemed suicidal.
"You've got nothing to prove, man," said Mohammed, as Suarez's eyes welled up with tears from the heat of the pepper.
Suarez did have something to prove. He wanted to convince Mohammed and Shariff that he was a devout jihadist with a grand plan to rain hell on Key West.
Never mind that Suarez had tried and failed repeatedly to make contact with ISIS recruiters abroad, according to court documents. He spent most of his downtime lifting weights at the gym and partying at kitschy bars on Duval Street.

Before long he'd be one of only two Americans sentenced to life in prison by the US government for plotting terror attacks on behalf of ISIS.
***
One Facebook user accepted Suarez's friend request because he saw they had a mutual friend. He was alarmed by the images and rhetoric on Suarez's page, so he notified the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and gave screen grabs to the FBI. Within weeks of the initial tip from the Facebook friend, the FBI had a surveillance team following Suarez around the clock. At least 20 agents surveilled Suarez each day and sometimes 10 to 20 extra FBI employees were brought in to help keep tabs on him, according to court testimony. Mohammed, one of Suarez's dining companions at Denny's, was a paid FBI informant who specialized in terror cases. Shariff was an undercover agent posing as an ISIS supporter who knew a bomb-maker. They were both wired for sound and video as they joked about spicy peppers at the chain restaurant that calls itself "America's diner," famed for its big breakfasts and epic menu.
Mohammed said, "Eating those jalapenos is a struggle, it's a jihad."
As the three laughed, Shariff praised Suarez, "He said he didn't know any Arabic (but) he knows 'jihad.' "
Suarez didn't know Arabic. Nor did he recognize the name of ISIS' leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Mohammed taught him about al-Baghdadi and introduced him to the terror group's handbook, "How to Survive in the West." Mohammed told Suarez he had camera gear and said they should make a recruiting video. The two wrote the script at Burger King and filmed it in a roach-laden room at a Knights Inn in Florida City.