News and notes

Some quick Friday afternoon news:

1. Judge Marcia Cooke ordered that Jose Padilla not be shackled in Court.

2. Judge William Zloch sentenced attorney Sam Burstyn to 42 months (18 months less than the 60 month statutory cap the government was asking for and 35 months more than the credit time served sentence the defense was asking for). Burstyn scored out much higher than the 60 month cap (for a 371 conspiracy) under the guidelines.

New FBI Chief in Miami

The FBI has announced that Jonathan I. Solomon is the new special agent in charge of the FBI's Miami division. Mr. Solomon has been with the FBI for more than twenty years and had a brief stint here in South Florida in 2004. It will interesting to see how this will affect the number and types of cases prosecuted in the Southern District of Florida.

Score!

Judge Alan Gold preliminarily approved a $1.075 billion settlement between Exxon Mobil Corp. and thousands of service station dealers who were found by a jury to have been overcharged by the company, settling a 14-year fight that went to the Supreme Court. The dealers are represented by Eugene Stearns, Mark Dikeman, and Mona Markus at Stearns Weaver. Exxon has been represented by lots of lawyers. At trial it was Larry Stewart. At the 11th Circuit, it was Howrey & Simon. At the Supremes it was Carter Phillips. And during the claims administration process it was Hunton & Williams and Burlington Weil. Fourteen years after the case was filed and after losing at every level of federal court, Exxon finally relented.

Disclosure -- Mona is my lovely wife.

Puppies...

... being used to smuggle drugs. Yikes. Here's a pic of the pups and the liquid heroin.

Our new Circuit Justice is...

... Clarence Thomas. The 11th Circuit Justice was, for a long time, Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy has been reassigned to the 9th Circuit (O'Connor's old assignment), and Thomas -- who is from Georgia -- is now assigned to us. Thomas will now be responsible for emergency motions (including death penalty emergencies) and filing date extensions.