Thursday, April 03, 2008

New courthouse is opening

Sort of.

Read Julie Kay's article here:
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1207133079914

Other than the flooding, air conditioning, and electrical failures, it should be great.


--David Oscar Markus
www.markuslaw.com
305-379-6667

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now David...that is a beautiful building, who cares about the rest of that "stuff."

Start a new poll on the following:

First Judge to try a case in new courthouse

First Defense attorney to get an acquittal (PDs count as one office)

Anonymous said...

You posted your phone# at the end of post, business a little slow these days David? Shameless self-promotion. What's going on around here, I miss the bitter bantering back and forth.

Anonymous said...

I vote for private bathrooms in the new courthouse for the lawyers with a jacuzzi!


1:16pm: If you miss the bantering join the discussion over at South Florida Lawyers- 03/27/08-Not Enough Sex? Blame Your Blackberry. The topic of the always beautiful Cocaine Princess is the focus. We legal eagles have been posting comments about her. Hopefully she isn't reading any of them.

Anonymous said...

South Florida Lawyers give the rest of us a bad name.

Anonymous said...

When did lawyers have a good name?

The discussion began when someone mentioned one of her earlier entries about a powerful man who had a mistress. It was as if she somehow knew ahead of time about Spitzer and his affair. Her writing is intelligent and I admit addicting.
Although we joke back and forth, I feel bad for her because of the comments the other lawyers have made including myself.

David Oscar Markus said...

1:16, don't get your panties in a bunch. When I post from my blackberry, it adds that signature block to the bottom. If you don't like it that much, I'll take it off.

Anonymous said...

Hey David,
'don't get your panties in a bunch' I'd give anything to hear you say that in court to the judge.

5:12PM: I too feel sorry for her. First she was dealing with some anonymous individual who wouldn't stop sending her harassing emails and then began urging others not to read her blog because of her association with 'certain' people. Now she has a group of lawyers from miami with perverse thoughts.

Anonymous said...

......'emails and then began urging others not to read her blog because of her association with 'certain' people.........'

-what does that have to do with anything? we've all at one time or another have represented CERTAIN people in court.

Anonymous said...

6:49pm, The princess was being harassed with criticism in regards to her upbringing and the life she lives. She hit the anonymous individual back hard in a posting. She's tough!

Rumpole said...

If my blog was running - I would be writing about this. This is from the Herald. What's a little exculpatory evidence when the death penalty is involved? I especially like the part where those classy Fed Agents are pressuing FHP to CHANGE THE TIME OF THE CALL.

WEST PALM BEACH -- Federal prosecutors are withholding a crucial 911 call that may establish that two men facing possible execution for the murders of the Escobedo family along Florida's Turnpike were 50 miles away at the time of the shooting, a defense lawyer contends.

Attorney Donnie Murrell, who represents Ricardo Sanchez Jr., outlined the call in a motion filed Thursday that asks U.S. District Court Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley to order prosecutors to turn over the recording.

''It is hard to imagine a more clear example of exculpatory evidence,'' Murrell wrote. ``According to four government fingerprint examiners, Ricardo Sanchez handed in a toll ticket at 3:02 a.m. According to the FHP [Florida Highway Patrol] 911 tape, the murder happened nine minutes later, 50 miles north.''

Another man facing the death penalty, Daniel Troya, exited the turnpike along with Sanchez, prosecutors have said. The purported 911 call also could sow doubt about the location of Troya at the time of the shooting.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Carlton, a lead prosecutor in the case, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Troya and Sanchez have been cast by prosecutors as the gunmen in the October 2006 slayings of Jose Luis Escobedo, 28; his wife, Yessica; and their 3- and 4-year-old sons, Luis Julian and Luis Damian.

INVESTIGATION

The family was found sprayed with more than 20 close-range bullets off the shoulder of the turnpike in Port St. Lucie, igniting a sweeping investigation that tracked back to one of the largest cocaine rings along the East Coast, investigators have said. Enter private investigator Pat McKenna of West Palm Beach, veteran of the successful defense teams for both O.J. Simpson and William Kennedy Smith.

McKenna discovered the 911 call and listened to it. He wrote in a court affidavit that the call recorded the actual shooting -- the voices and the shots. He has been appointed by the court to assist in Sanchez's defense.

911 RECORDING

McKenna wrote in the affidavit that a captain with the FHP, Ibrahim Egeli, played the 911 recording for him and told him that Drug Enforcement Administration agents and St. Lucie County sheriff's investigators were aware of it.

''Egeli also expressed concern at the pressure being placed by outside investigators on FHP regarding the time of the call,'' McKenna wrote. The captain, though, did not provide a copy, according to the affidavit. Neither will federal prosecutors, according to Murrell.

Murrell wrote that the 911 tape has never been mentioned despite repeated requests to prosecutors for evidence. He assumes it was never considered by the U.S. attorney general who authorized seeking the death penalty against the men.

Anonymous said...

AUSA response:

How could it be Brady? It establishes they were murdered. You don't understand Rule 16 or Brady.

Rumpole said...

The tape MAY esteablish their innocence. Well now I understand why the Feds wouldn't turn this over. Of course if the tapes conclusively established their innocence then there would be no controversy- the Feds ABSOLUTELY would not turn it over, and they would arrest and prosecute the FHP tech who produced the tape for obstruction and contributing to the innocence of a person the feds think is guilty, which as I understand it is a crime punishable by constant hounding by a prosecutor for the rest of your life.

Anonymous said...

U.S. opens inquiry into Miami-Dade jails

The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a civil rights investigation into Miami-Dade County's beleaguered jail system, eyeing allegedly excessive force against inmates and a pattern of suicides at the county's six main facilities over the past few years.

Read Here:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/483016.html

Rumpole said...

Oh that is rich. The US Government, owner/operator of the Guantanamo Concentration Camp, and proud supervisor of prison camps aroud the world that put people in naked human pyramids is now going to investigate the Dade County Jail? Perhaps it should be the other way around.

Anonymous said...

"Perhaps it should be the other way around"

-You said it Rumpy!!

Anonymous said...

The comments on this blog--not limited to the above--are so pro-defense so as to lose any semblance of credibility.

Anonymous said...

Yes, we need more kool aid drinking prosecutors to post!!

Anonymous said...

1:39,

I know it is troubling. I feel the same way on the opposite side of the coin when I read 11th Circuit Criminal Opinions.