Brain drain at the SDFLA U.S. Attorney's Office?

 Jay Weaver covers the recent firings (Michael Thakur, Brooke Watson, and Anne McNamara) and departures from the U.S. Attorney's office here:

In 2023, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland honored Miami federal prosecutor Brooke C. Watson with a prestigious award recognizing her “exceptional dedication” to prosecuting a ring that used fake identities to commit about $50 million in COVID-19 loan fraud. Last year, Watson received another Justice Department award for “exceptional service” disrupting a ransomware group that threatened to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from computer networks worldwide. But on Friday, Garland’s successor, Pam Bondi, fired Watson in a terse email to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami — providing no reason, according to multiple sources familiar with her termination.

***

Since Trump started his second term, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has undergone a “brain drain,” losing not only Thakur and Watson to firings but also many other veteran prosecutors to retirement or career opportunities. Among them: Joan Silverstein, Bob Senior, Dan Bernstein, Kiran Bhat, Tom Watts-Fitzgerald, Jonathan Stratton, Tony Gonzalez, Ignacio Vazquez, Lisa Rubio, Dexter Lee, Jeff Kaplan and Paul Schwartz.

RIP Bob Josefsberg

Very sad news report today -- Miami legal legend Robert Josefsberg has passed away at 86.

 

Bob was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and received his B.A. degree from Dartmouth College in 1959. He graduated from the Yale Law School in 1962, and was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1962.

Here's some more of his bio, which does not do justice to the impact he had on this community: 

Bob is one of Dade County′s premiere trial lawyers. He has been listed annually since 1987 in the Best Lawyers in America in two categories–Business Litigation and Criminal Law since 2003 and from 2003 he has been listed in Chambers and Partners as one of the top four commercial litigators in Florida. In 2006 he was listed #1 trial lawyer in Florida by Super Lawyers. He has received the Dade County Bar David Dyer Professionalism Award, the Bnai Brith Professionalism Award, the Florida Defense Lawyers Rodney Thaxton “Against All Odds”award, the American Bar Association Senior Section Pro Bono Award , the Florida Bar Tobias Simon Pro Bono Service Award in (2009-2010) and the Florida Bar Foundation’s Medal of Honor Award in 2013.

In 2012, he was awarded the Florida Bar Criminal Law Section’s Selig I. Goldin Memorial Award, the Greater Miami Jewish Federation Theodore “Ted” Klein Special Recognition Award, named as one of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers by the National Trial Lawyers organization, inducted to the Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame and named a Public Justice Trial Lawyer of the Year finalist for outstanding contributions to the public interest through his work in the Checking Account Overdraft Class Action litigation.

Bob was a gentle giant.  He will be missed. 

News & Notes

 1.  The SDFLA will be hosting the following program with Chief Judge Altonaga, Judge Seitz, and Joel Motley:

A Conversation with Legal Pioneers

Jul 23, 2025, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM

Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. U.S. Courthouse, 400 N Miami Ave, Miami, FL 33128, USA

A short film on the life of Judge Constance Baker Motley will be shown, followed by a panel discussion. RSVP: FLSD_PROGRAM@FLSD.USCOURTS.GOV by JULY 18, 2025

  

2.  A group of retired federal judges, including our own Ursula Ungaro, have banded together to fight for, among other things, judicial independence and judicial security.  From Barrons:

 Five years ago this month, an assailant posing as a deliveryman came to the New Jersey home of Federal Judge Esther Salas and shot and killed her son, Daniel Anderl (it happened to be his 20th birthday) and wounded her husband. The primary suspect was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound a day later. A self-described anti-feminist, he had appeared before Salas and written disparagingly about her.
As if that wasn’t horrific enough, the murderous attack has become something of a touchstone to those apparently opposed to judicial authority. Since then, including this year, dozens of judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries,some with the recipient named “Daniel Anderl” as a signal that these judges are being scrutinized and their whereabouts known.
Now a bipartisan group of 40-plus retired federal judges has formed an organization aimed at addressing what they see as an increasingly fraught legal environment. Called the Article III Coalition, the group is named after the section of the U.S. Constitution which establishes the judicial branch of the federal government—including the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals, and U.S. district courts.
The coalition has judges appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W.Bush, and George W. Bush, as well as Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, and is looking to fortify the federal court system by emphasizing the importance of the Constitution, the rule of law, the role of the judiciary and its independence, and the separation of powers.

 3.    Rumpole is asking for our help regarding a colleague, Greg Gonzalez:

Many of you know that Greg Gonzalez has battled a deadly brain tumor for the past several years. We have now sadly learned that he has entered hospice care and a go fund me account has been set up for him to receive palliative care at home.  We urge you to donate. 

 https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-gregs-palliative-care-journey?modal=share&source=fundraiser+sticky+footer

Greg was a fixture at the REGJB for decades. He truly was a person who always had a smile on his face. He was the first person to volunteer to help someone - a lawyer or a client.  He was instrumental in supporting the creation of the Veterans Court because Greg served our country as Airborne.  Like his military service, he was often first in on a difficult case or when a lawyer asked for help. 

We cannot think of a better person who deserves an outpouring of love and respect for the life he has lived. If you can, please send something. Let him know that we all support him, as he has supported us with his military service and friendship.  

 

 

New podcast episode dropped -- Arthur Aidala for Harvey Weinstein

 

FOR THE DEFENSE, BONUS EPISODE:
Arthur Aidala for Harvey Weinstein

For the Defense is back with a bonus episode, and I think you're going to really like this one.  I sit down with Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, for a fascinating look at how the defense strategy evolved from Weinstein’s first trial to his retrial. Arthur is one of the most charismatic and colorful defense lawyers in the country. From cross-examining a complaining witness about faking an orgasm to weaving a story about glass in his mother’s pasta sauce, Arthur brings his signature flair to the courtroom—and to this conversation.

As always, you can catch this and other episodes on the web or on every podcast platform, including Apple and Spotify. I've also put the raw video on YouTube so you can watch if that's what you prefer.  Please subscribe to the YouTube channel here. (At the bottom of this post is a short clip of Arthur recounting a portion of his closing).

I'll have some other episodes coming soon.  In the meantime, I would really appreciate it if you could take a second and leave a review and spread the word about the podcast.

Finally, If you have a friend that would like to receive these updates, please have them sign up here.

Thank you! --David

Hosted by David Oscar Markus and produced by rakontur

Judge Williams backed again...

 ... this time by SCOTUS.  The blog has been covering the State AG case before Judge Williams where she has blocked enforcement of a state immigration law and also held the State AG in contempt.  The 11th Circuit refused to dissolve the injunction, and today the Supreme Court did the same thing.  From the NY Times:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to revive an aggressive Florida immigration law that had been blocked by lower courts. The law would let state officials prosecute unauthorized migrants who enter the state.

The court’s one-sentence order gave no reasons, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications. There were no noted dissents.

The court’s ruling is not the last word in the case, which is pending in an appeals court and may return to the justices. The litigation to date has been contentious, with a trial judge holding the state’s attorney general in contempt for what she said was defiance of her ruling.

The Supreme Court has given the Trump administration great leeway in pursuing its immigration agenda.

In a series of orders ruling on emergency application from the administration, the justices have allowed it to lift protections for hundreds of thousands of people who had been granted temporary protected status or humanitarian parole, allowing them to be deported.

The court also allowed the administration to pursue so-called third-country deportations, sending migrants to places other than their home nations without an opportunity to argue that they would face the risk of torture.

Wednesday’s order suggested that the court may take a different view of states’ power over immigration.

 

AI is also coming for oral argument

 You gotta read this post by Adam Unikowsky, a top Supreme Court advocate, who discusses whether AI can perform well at a Supreme Court oral argument.  His conclusions:

• Yes, a robot lawyer would be an above-average Supreme Court advocate.
• The DoNotPay people weren’t ambitious enough. You don’t need to have a human read back what the robot lawyer says. You can have an actual robot lawyer.
• Courts should permit robot lawyers at oral arguments and shouldn’t discourage this practice.
• If there’s any aspect of a lawyer’s job where AI is likely to shine relative to humans, it’s oral argument. Oral argument should be the first, not the last, frontier of AI-assisted legal practice.

You can also listen to Adam's oral argument versus Claude's argument in the post itself.  Incredible.

DOJ is coming after naturalized U.S. citizens

 That's the reporting from Jay Weaver in this Herald article:

In his all-out war on illegal immigration, President Donald Trump has branded immigrants as “criminals,” “invaders” and “predators,” as his administration targets millions of Haitians, Latin Americans, gang members and foreign college students for deportation. Now, the president has directed the Justice Department to bolster its resources in a major crackdown on naturalized citizens suspected of unlawfully obtaining their U.S. citizenship. According to a recent memo, the department plans to focus not only on individuals who may have lied about a crime or having done something illegal during the naturalization process. But authorities also plan to focus on others who may have committed a crime after becoming citizens — a generally untested legal frontier.

I wonder how Miamians feel about this new frontier.

HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY TO THE BLOG

Thank you all for supporting the Southern District of Florida Blog for the past 20 years.  I started this thing on July 4, 2005.  Crazy to think we are still going.  

There have been 4818 posts (or about 240 a year).

You have commented on these posts over 19,000 times.

Some of the most read posts have sadly been about our colleagues passing away -- Steve Chaykin, Chris Morvillo, and Ervin Gonzalez. 

Other really popular posts have been fun -- like an AUSA appearing on the Bachelorette or Judge Rosenbaum presiding over a trial in which a defense lawyer put on a dress during cross or a WPB jury asking for a bottle of wine:

 

We all feel like that during trial!

I want to thank you to John Byrne for his contributions to the blog as well as all of the judges who send me important decisions and updates from their courtrooms.  Most importantly, thank you for reading and commenting and sending me tips.  I appreciate all of you.

I'm not sure how much longer I am going to do this, but it's been an amazing 20 year run. 

Thank you,

 David 

Eleventh Circuit Rules for Florida on Personal Pronoun Statute

By John R. Byrne

Big ruling yesterday from the Eleventh Circuit in another case dealing with transgender rights. A Florida statute forbids public school teachers from asking their students to call them by a name/title that doesn’t correspond to his or her sex (so, if the teacher is a man, the teacher can’t ask students to use “Ms.,” “Mrs.,” “she,” “her,” etc. when addressing him). 

A teacher, Katie Wood, challenged the statute, arguing it violated her First Amendment rights. The trial court issued a preliminary injunction in her favor.

The Eleventh Circuit saw things differently and reversed. The court’s ruling hinged on a threshold question courts ask when a government employee’s freedom of speech is at issue: is the employee speaking as a “citizen" or as a "government employee"? If the answer is government employee, the First Amendment claim is dead. If the answer is citizen, more analysis is necessary. In the specific case of Wood, the court ruled that she had spoken as an employee. Critical to the court’s ruling was the location and timing of the speech at issue—Wood wanted students to use her preferred pronouns in the classroom during instruction hours. That, according to the court, meant she was speaking as a government employee, not a citizen. 

Judge Newsom wrote the opinion and was joined by Judge Brasher. Judge Jordan dissented. He first said that the majority applied the wrong standard of review (he thinks it should have been abuse of discretion, not de novo). But he also wrote that the majority got the citizen/government employee ruling wrong, noting that “not every word uttered by a teacher in the classroom is the speech of the government.” 

That’s a high-level overview, but there’s much more here than just that. If you want to have a read, the opinion is below.

Wood Case by John Byrne on Scribd

Huge win for Diddy

 Now the judge has the tough part on sentencing.  What do you get if the jury acquits you of all the major counts and convicts on the one minor count.  It should be credit time served... we shall see.  In the meantime, who is buying this shirt?