In addition to the appointment of Tony Gonzalez (see post below), a few other items have come in today:
1. Congrats to Katie Phang, a wonderful lawyer in Miami, who now has her own show on MSNBC.
2. Jurors say that the push notifications they saw on their phones during deliberations about Judge Rakoff dismissing the Sarah Palin case did not affect their deliberations. This is where I would put the wide eye emoji if blogger let me do so.
3. The 11th Circuit en banc acted as a backup for prosecutors again in this 7-5 decision, saying that even if the government made a decision not to raise the good faith exception on appeal in a 4th amendment case, the court could still affirm on those grounds. Judges Newsom and Jordan pen a terrific dissent explaining that we have an adversarial system and that the court is supposed to adjudicate actual disputes. That's, of course, the normal rule... except when it involves the government as a litigant. Then the 11th Circuit must revert back to its two most important rules: Rule #1 -- never rule against the government. Rule #2 -- when in doubt, see Rule #1.
