Dread Pirate Roberts arrested...

...Inconceivable!  Here's the very interesting "Silk Road" complaint.

The question is whether anyone will be around to prosecute him or hear the case if this shutdown continues.  For now, the courts are humming along, but in about 7 days, there is a question as to what will happen.  For example, at least one of our judges is in a lengthy trial.  What happens when the funding for the jurors, defenders, etc runs out in a week and a half?  Mistrial?

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is back in business, and the Court granted cert in a bunch of cases, including one on anonymous tips:

The U.S. Supreme Court granted review of a Northern California drug-transportation case Tuesday to decide whether police can stop a car based solely on an anonymous tip of reckless driving.
Under constitutional standards for searches and seizures, officers can detain a driver if they have reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, and can rely on an identified witness' description of illegal activity that endangers the public. But courts around the nation have disagreed on whether police can pull someone over because an anonymous source reported that the motorist was driving dangerously.
The high court agreed to hold a hearing and decide the issue in the term that ends in June.
The case dates from August 2008, when a Highway Patrol dispatcher got a call from someone who had been run off the road by a pickup truck on Highway 1 north of Fort Bragg. The caller provided the license number, and shortly afterward two CHP officers spotted and stopped the pickup.
The officers smelled marijuana when they approached, and found four bags of the drug in the truck bed, according to a state appeals court. After unsuccessfully challenging the search, the driver and passenger, brothers Lorenzo and Jose Navarette, pleaded guilty to transporting marijuana and were sentenced to 90 days in jail.
The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco upheld their convictions in October 2012, citing a 2006 California Supreme Court ruling that allowed police to rely on an anonymous tip without actually seeing the motorist driving recklessly.
"The report that the (Navarettes') vehicle had run someone off the road sufficiently demonstrated an ongoing danger to other motorists to justify the stop without direct corroboration of the vehicle's illegal activity," the appellate panel said in a 3-0 ruling.

 You won't get to see any of these arguments on TV, which is just ridiculous.  Here's Justice Alito's recent argument as to why oral argument should not be televised:

In the course of his wide-ranging conversation with Levi, Alito explained his opposition — one shared by his Supreme Court colleagues — to having oral arguments televised. He recalled the arguments made by U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. in support of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act during the last term of the Court.
Calling Verrilli a very good and skillful advocate, Alito noted that the solicitor general frequently argues before the Court and made three arguments on “Obamacare” in a week.
“To prepare for one argument is exhausting. To do three is Herculean,” said Alito. “So the solicitor general got up to argue during one of these arguments — it was not the first — and he had a bad 30 seconds. He was having trouble swallowing — he sipped [water] the wrong way. The argument was not televised, however contrary to our normal practice, we released the audio of this that afternoon. So that afternoon, C-SPAN broadcast the audio, along with still photos of the participants.
“Well, he recovered, he got his voice back, and he made a very good argument. It was one that I happened not to agree with, but he did a very good job of arguing the position the government had taken, as you would expect. Within hours of that, a television ad had been produced saying that ‘There’s no good argument that can be made in support of the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act and here’s the illustration — we have the solicitor general of the United States, and he’s at a loss for words in trying to support this position.’
“This is an illustration of the way oral arguments can be used if they are televised,” said Alito.

Or if they aren't.

Judge Cooke dismisses federal case against Lewis & Tein

 

Guy Lewis and Mike Tein got a complete victory yesterday before Judge Cooke in the federal case filed by the Miccosukee Tribe against them and others.  Judge Cooke dismissed the case with prejudice -- a complete victory for them and their lawyer Paul Calli. 

Here's the order, which starts like this:

“No one fights dirtier or more brutally than blood; only family knows its own weaknesses, the exact placement of the heart.” Whitney Otto, How to Make an American Quilt (1991). Whitney Otto’s quote seems a particularly apt description of the emotionally and politically charged litigation, occurring in multiple judicial venues, between the named parties, whom include the following.

There's even a Gandhi quote in the conclusion:

I am quite certain that this Omnibus Order will affect minimally the incessant litigation and sour relations between the parties. I simply implore the parties to heed that “an eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.” - Mahatma Gandhi

The meat of the order is good reading as well:

Despite every effort of the Miccosukee Tribe to bring this battle to the doorstep of the federal courthouse, the door cannot open to allow an intra-tribal dispute of this nature. Even if it could, the Miccosukee Tribe's claims would nevertheless be denied entry because in short the Miccosukee Tribe simply does not state a federal cause of action.

BREAKING -- Robin Rosenbaum being vetted for 11th Circuit

Congratulations to Judge Rosenbaum, who is being vetted for Judge Barkett's seat on the 11th Circuit. Judge Barkett was honored Friday night at a huge (and lovely) event, and the buzz at the party was about Judge Rosenbaum moving up to the appellate bench.

She's smart and has a good temperament, so she has moved up very fast.   A former Judge Marcus clerk (that's him swearing her in below) and former federal prosecutor, she became a magistrate in 2007, and then a district judge in June 2012. 

Dramatic guilty verdict in psychic trial

Paula McMahon has covered this trial wall to wall.  It's never easy after a guilty verdict:

Though Marks' relatives were initially calm and cried softly as the verdict was read, several of them became very upset after jurors left the courtroom and the family realized their matriarch was not going to be allowed to remain free on bond.
"Please let me hug my mom," Marks' eldest son, Ricky Marks, asked U.S. Marshals and courthouse security officers.
Other family members begged to be allowed to give their phone numbers to "Pinky" — Marks' family nickname — so she could call them from jail.
One grandson jeered at the lead investigator on the case, retired Fort Lauderdale Detective Charlie Stack, asking him, "How are you feeling now, Charlie? You did a good job?"
But Marks' two sons Ricky and Michael Marks tried to calm their family and apologized to Stack.
Daughter Rosie Marks began hyperventilating and collapsed to the floor in the hallway outside the courtroom. She and her two brothers, their spouses, one of Marks' granddaughters and Marks' sister have all pleaded guilty to related charges and are free while awaiting sentencing later this year.
Other members of the extended family shouted and one threw a Bible in the courtroom, yelling "I hate this Bible … I don't want this Bible anymore."
There was more security than usual in the courtroom but the agents and officers handled the disruption diplomatically, urging everyone to remain calm and trying to alleviate the family's concerns.

Psychic's trial now in jury's hands

Paula McMahon has been covering this fun (it's all relative) trial.  Here's the latest article with excerpts from the closing arguments:

Jurors heard from both the prosecution and defense that, in the Romani or Gypsy culture, mothers have a long tradition of teaching their daughters to develop psychic and other skills to help them become fortune tellers.
And while the prosecution said the mixing of family money in Marks' bank account and checks from one family member's client being sent to Marks were evidence of money-laundering to conceal the source of "dirty" money, the defense quoted an expert who said Gypsy families share money among the extended family more commonly than other cultures in the U.S.

More from the prosecution:

Prosecutors urged jurors on Wednesday to find "psychic" Rose Marks guilty of orchestrating a massive con — regardless of how outlandish the allegations sound and whether jurors think the victims were gullible.
"Don't blame the victims, and don't let them blame the victims," Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Bardfeld said of Marks' defense in closing arguments in the month-long trial.
The victims were "not stupid," but were preyed upon by uncaring scammers who exploited vulnerable people in times of crisis — when they were bereaved and grieving, ill or looking for true love, he said.

And more from the defense:

While prosecutors cast everything in a negative light, Schwartz suggested they could not prove that Marks took money from clients under false pretenses, never intending to return it. He pointed out that she paid back large sums of money to several clients, but said she was unable to make payments after she was arrested and barred from working as a psychic at least until the criminal case is over.
"She doesn't have to prove she intended to pay it back, they [prosecutors] have to prove she didn't intend to pay it back," Schwartz said.

I thought this jury instruction looked interesting:

Jurors were also told that courts have ruled that fortune telling is free speech that is constitutionally protected by the First Amendment.