Judge Kathy Williams was rightfully beside herself that the Florida AG instructed the police to defy her order. From the Miami Herald:
A Miami federal judge said Tuesday she was “surprised and shocked” when state Attorney General James Uthmeier first told police officers to obey her order not to arrest undocumented immigrants entering Florida but later said he “cannot prevent” them from making arrests under a new state law. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams is considering whether to find Uthmeier in contempt of court. Williams said she would issue a preliminary injunction late Tuesday prohibiting all state law enforcement officials and police agencies from arresting undocumented immigrants who come into Florida. She also scheduled a critical hearing for late May that could lead to Uthmeier being held in contempt of court for flouting her prior restraining order in the immigration case.
Williams said the state attorney general’s directive telling police officers that they could make arrests “threw everything out of whack,” leaving her with no choice but to hold a show-cause hearing to allow Uthmeier to explain why she should not hold him in contempt of her order. The judge gave lawyers for the attorney general a brief break during Tuesday’s hearing to consult with him about withdrawing his advice to police officers to ignore her order, but they said Uthmeier was not retreating from his position. “What I am offended by is someone suggesting you don’t have to follow my order, that it’s not legitimate,” Williams said.
In other news, we need a better logo for the blog... check out this law firm's logo, which apparently a federal judge didn't like (from the NY Times):
A purple dragon dressed in a business suit seemed like a natural choice for a logo when Jacob A. Perrone, a lawyer in East Lansing, Mich., recently opened a new firm and named it Dragon Lawyers.
He noted that some lawyers liked to call themselves “bulldogs” and said the dragon symbolized “aggressive representation.”
But a federal magistrate judge, Ray Kent, was not impressed. He was so disgusted by the dragon that he struck a lawsuit filed by Mr. Perrone on behalf of an inmate who had accused jail officials in Clinton County, Mich., of being “deliberately indifferent” to her when she started vomiting last year.
In a brief order issued on Monday, Judge Kent noted that “each page of plaintiff’s complaint appears on an e-filing which is dominated by a large multicolored cartoon dragon dressed in a suit, presumably because she is represented by the law firm of ‘Dragon Lawyers PC © Award Winning Lawyers.’”
7 comments:
This blog has a logo?
The AG doesn't order around sheriffs and municipal police departments and has no authority to dictate who they should and should not arrest, no matter how angry that makes a federal judge.
@10:10 - Maybe. And judges are wrong all the time. And there is a process for dealing with that - appeal. If the state's chief legal officer doesn't understand that, or simply chooses to ignore legal process, that's a tremendous problem for rule of law.
@10:36. Mic drop.
Even if the AG cannot order cops who to arrest or not, the AG is the chief law enforcment officer of the state. His first letter telling law enforcement to comply with the Judge's order belies his defense based on his later claim that he has no control over law enforcment. The AG's ultimate control over who Cops arrest is not required. He works closely with them, routinely directs them, and every day counsels them on the what the law requires. What assuredly pissed off the Judge is the AG's claim that there was no "ligitimate order.........." No Judge takes well to that. The AG would be well served to pubicly announce, that not withstanding his appeal and disagreement with the Judge's order enjoing enforcment of the statute, police officers should comply with the injunction and that they fail to do so at their peril.
That's a good point. I read the order and Judge Williams makes the same point, although the AG does not have the constitutional authority to order around sheriffs and police, in practice the AG issues directives all the time and threatens funding routinely to induce them to act in accordance with his directives.
What ELSE can she complain about??
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