"It just works."

Apple announced its upcoming iCloud service yesterday. This is great news for those of you who live on or frequent Miami Beach. Soon, when the police smash your phone to avoid public scrutiny and accountability, you won't have to preserve the evidence by sticking the SIM card in your mouth. Your iPhone will automatically upload the gunplay and mayhem and send it to your iPad and MacBook. We live in wondrous times.

Cert denied for Wesley Snipes

Via AP:

The high court refused Monday to hear an appeal from Snipes, convicted in 2008 on three misdemeanor counts of willful failure to file income tax returns.

Snipes started a three-year term in a federal minimum security prison in December. He has appeared in dozens of films, from "White Men Can't Jump" and "Demolition Man" in the early 1990s to the blockbuster Blade trilogy.

Snipes wanted his trial held in New York City, where he says he lived, but the government brought charges against him in Florida, where Snipes held a driver's license. The lower courts refused to let him have an evidentiary hearing on this issue.

Your Monday Morning moment of Zen

John Edwards indicted by former AUSA in Miami

Jeff Tsai was one of the five lawyers who signed the 19-page indictment against Edwards. Tsai is now at the public integrity section at DOJ in DC.

I like Jeff, and he was one of best dressed lawyers in the USAO, but I think the indictment is one of the weakest I have ever read. It will be interesting to see how it develops. I'm happy that Edwards is fighting it and that he didn't plead.

Barzee, Pettus still waiting for verdict

The jury in the SDNY insider trading case is apparently sending all kinds of notes, asking for definitions of terms and other itmes. Bill Barzee and "Country Dave" Pettus have to just sit and wait and it's not easy. Fridays are always the toughest day waiting for a verdict. You don't want the jury to feel rushed, but the weekends are always difficult for not guilty verdicts. Here's the latest article, which basically says the jury is deliberating.

You wanna be a federal judge? Read this. "The Path to the Federal Bench" sets out the basic process. Here's my favorite part:

Finally, a word to the wise: Before you are nominated to the federal
bench, you will be subjected to an FBI background check. Have you
ever committed a crime? Failed to pay your taxes? Been embroiled in a
scandal? Staffers from the Department of Justice will likely read
everything you have ever written and will interview members of your
community to determine if you are an appropriate candidate for the
bench. In evaluating your qualifications, subject yourself to The “New
York Times test,” i.e., if anything in your past would embarrass you or—
perhaps more importantly—the president or your home state senators
if it showed up on the front page of The New York Times, then perhaps
pursuing a federal judgeship is not for you.