RIP Barbara Medina

Very very sad -- Barbara Medina (Judge Altonaga's court reporter) passed away today after being diagnosed with cancer two weeks ago. Services are tomorrow at Riverside Gordon Memorial Chapels, 20955 Biscayne Blvd, Aventura, FL 33180

I am going to miss her.  She was always very understanding and listened to the lawyers before and after court.  She also told it like it was and didn't hold back how she felt about a particular case, witness or argument.  There was no better jury consultant during trial...  She was the court reporter in my very first trial, back when she was with Judge Graham.  She knew a hell of a lot more about trying cases than I did.   

Damn, very sad. 

Applicants for SDFLA judgeship

These are the applicants for Judge Jordan's seat:

 Cynthia G. Angelos
 Alice L. Blackwell
Beatrice A. Butchko
Jeffrey J. Colbath
Theodore M. Cooperstein
Maria Espinosa Dennis
Candace R. Duff
Kevin Hendrickson
Peter R. Lopez
Robin L. Rosenberg
Jeremy E. Slusher
William L. Thomas
John W. Thornton, Jr.
Daryl E. Trawick
Garth T. Yearick

Thanks very much to my tipster for the names.

In other news, Magistrate Judge Barry Seltzer is taking over as Chief Magistrate Judge for the District, and Alicia Otazo-Reyes is starting next week as Judge Brown is retiring.

Spring time

Well, what's up peeps? My favorite video of the weekend: Big sports week -- tonight is the NCAA basketball national championship. And the Marlins open up their new park this Wednesday. No block! The NY Times covered cell phone tracking this weekend. This seems much worse to me than the GPS tracking that the Supremes just found unconstitutional.

The presentation said that since the Supreme Court first ruled on wiretapping law in 1928 in a Prohibition-era case involving a bootlegger, “subtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy have become available to the government.” Technological breakthroughs, it continued, have made it possible for the government “to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the closet.” In interviews, lawyers and law enforcement officials agreed that there was uncertainty over what information the police are entitled to get legally from cell companies, what standards of evidence they must meet and when courts must get involved. A number of judges have come to conflicting decisions in balancing cellphone users’ constitutional privacy rights with law enforcement’s need for information. In a 2010 ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, said a judge could require the authorities to obtain a warrant based on probable cause before demanding cellphone records or location information from a provider. (A similar case from Texas is pending in the Fifth Circuit.) “It’s terribly confusing, and it’s understandable, when even the federal courts can’t agree,” said Michael Sussman, a Washington lawyer who represents cell carriers. The carriers “push back a lot” when the police urgently seek out cell locations or other information in what are purported to be life-or-death situations, he said. “Not every emergency is really an emergency.”

How bad was SG Verrilli's argument? Here's Law.com with some analysis:

CNN commentator Jeffrey Toobin, author of a best-selling book on the Court, went outside on March 27 to pronounce on the air that the argument was a "train wreck" for the government. Toobin asserted that Verrilli had done a "simply awful" job and was not "ready with good answers." Carrie Severino, a former Clarence Thomas clerk, chief counsel to the Judicial Crisis Network and an ardent opponent of the Affordable Care Act, also spoke of Verrilli's "rough start" and "stumbling" presentation. Other critics took Verrilli to task for failing to give a crisp answer to the request by conservative justices for a "limiting principle" that would reassure them that Verrilli was not asking for unlimited federal power to cure all ills. In addition, some said Verrilli should have repeatedly focused attention on Court precedents like Gonzales v. Raich in which the Court gave an expansive reading to the commerce power of Congress. But supporters of the law quickly came to Verrilli's defense, asserting that the contrasting styles of the lawyers who argued should not obscure the fact that the SG had made all the points he had intended to make. Mayer Brown's Andrew Pincus, another veteran advocate who was in the audience for most of the three days, said the government had "the harder side of the stick," adding that "the justices asked probing questions, which is what you would expect of an argument of this moment and magnitude.…I think Don did a good job of explaining why this market is unique." Thomas Goldstein of Goldstein & Russell, who also watched the arguments, said the "optics" of an argument can be affected by factors entirely outside the control of the lawyers. The Court's conservative justices are sharper questioners, for example, making their target — in this case Verrilli — seem like he is always on the defensive. "It's easy for Paul to look brilliant when he has them on his side," said Goldstein, referring to Bancroft partner Paul Clement, the lead lawyer arguing against the statute.

Romney was fooled yesterday:

Campaign workers took Romney to a room he thought was packed with supporters gathered for a pancake brunch. It was supposed to be his first campaign stop Sunday as he courted Wisconsin voters ahead of Tuesday's primary. Romney said Rep. Paul Ryan walked out into the ballroom first and introduced Romney as he waited backstage with his newest supporter, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis. There were the standard backstage cues for where to stand, along with Secret Service protection. As Romney stood behind a black curtain, Ryan offered his usual enthusiastic endorsement, singing Romney's praises as applause filtered backstage. His staff warned him not to expect a big crowd. That was an understatement. Finally, it was time for Romney and Johnson to step into the room. "The two of us go out there, and it's completely empty. There's nobody there," a smiling Romney said when his staff later brought him to the right room, where supporters had gathered, upstairs. "Not only do they do that, but they caught it on camera," Romney said. "This is known as forgive, but remember." Staffers plan to post a video of the prank on their blog.

Robin Rosenbaum makes it out of Committee

Next step is the Floor vote. Glenn Sugameli tells me that this will likely happen after May 7, but at least we are moving in the right direction... Congrats to Judge Rosenbaum on today's vote.

Who wants some Nutriloaf?

Apparently, this is the junk they are giving to inmates that aren't behaving. It tastes really gross. From Judge Posner's opinion:

On the second and third stays, which lasted a week and 10 days respectively, the jail fed him only “nutriloaf,” pursuant to a new policy the jail had adopted of making nutriloaf the exclusive diet of prisoners who had been in segregation in prison at the time of their transfer to the jail, even if their behavior in the jail was exemplary. Nutriloaf (also spelled “nutraloaf”) is a badtasting food given to prisoners as a form of punishment (it is colloquially known as “prison loaf” or “disciplinary loaf”). On his third stay, after two days on the nutriloaf diet, the plaintiff began vomiting his meals and experiencing stomach pains and constipation. (He had vomited during the second stay as well.) He stopped eating nutriloaf and subsisted for the eight remaining days of his stay on bread and water (it’s unclear how he obtained the bread). He had weighed 168 pounds before his second and third stays at the jail, had lost either 5 or 6 pounds during the second stay, had not regained them, and by the end of the third stay was down to 154 pounds: he had lost 8.3 percent of his weight as a result of the two stays (and he had not been overweight at 168).

The prisoner sued and the district court granted summary judgment. Judge Posner wasn't happy:

The defendants’ response to his suit has been contumacious, and we are surprised that the district judge did not impose sanctions. The defendants ignored the plaintiff’s discovery demands, ignored the judge’s order that they comply with those demands, and continued their defiance even after the judge threatened to impose sanctions. But the judge failed to carry through on his threat, so the threat proved empty. The only evidence the defendants submitted in support of their motion for summary judgment was a preposterous affidavit from a sheriff’s officer who is also an assistant chief of a suburban Wisconsin fire department. The affidavit states only, so far as bears on the appeal, that “Nutraloaf has been determined to be a nutritious substance for regular meals.” The defendants made no effort to qualify him as an expert witness. As a lay witness, he was not authorized to offer hearsay evidence (“has been determined to be . . . nutritious”). No evidence was presented concerning the recipe for or ingredients of the nutriloaf that was served at the county jail during the plaintiff’s sojourns there. “Nutriloaf” isn’t a proprietary food like Hostess Twinkies but, like “meatloaf” or “beef stew,” a term for a composite food the recipe of which can vary from institution to institution, or even from day to day within an institution; nutriloaf could meet requirements for calories and protein one day yet be poisonous the next if, for example, made from leftovers that had spoiled. The recipe was among the items of information that the plaintiff sought in discovery and that the defendants refused to produce. Even an affidavit from an expert stating after a detailed chemical analysis that “nutriloaf meets all dietary requirements” would be worthless unless the expert knew and stated that nutriloaf invariably was made the same way in the institution. The assistant fire chief’s affidavit says no such thing—and he was not an expert. In addition to stonewalling the plaintiff and the district judge, the defendants failed to file a brief in this court and failed to respond to our order to show cause why they hadn’t filed a brief. They seem to think that the federal courts have no jurisdiction over a county jail.

You can tell by now where this is going. Order of summary judgment reversed... One last note from Judge Posner:

We order the defendants to show cause within 14 days of the date of this order why they should not be sanctioned for contumacious conduct in this court. If they ignore this order to show cause like the last one, they will find themselves in deep trouble.

I think the sanctions should be that they eat Nutriloaf for a week.

What should happen to prosecutors who violate Brady? (UPDATED)

That's the question discussed in this WSJ article, which explains that prosecutors are rarely punished:

Federal prosecutors are rarely punished for failing to meet their constitutional obligations to provide defendants with evidence that points toward their innocence, according to available data. A report published early last year by the Federal Judicial Center, an arm of the federal court system, surveyed more than 600 federal judges and found that 30% reported having one or more such disclosure violations by prosecutors in the past five years. Those judges said, according to the study, that they found the prosecutors in contempt less than 1% of the time and only recommended possible discipline by the Justice Department or state bar in a few of the cases. *** The Stevens case report pointed to the 2011 Federal Judicial Center study that found 38 of the nation's 94 federal court districts had issued specific disclosure requirements regarding Brady and other evidence. The report said that if such a specific order had been issued in the Stevens case, some of the prosecutors might have been open to charges of criminal contempt.

UPDATE -- This blog covered the need for Brady reform before and the recent bill introduced by Republican Sen. Murkowski.... I guess I shouldn't be surprised that DOJ is opposing the bill. BLT covers that opposition here. And here is the entire DOJ statement on the matter.

Magistrate Judge Brown's retirement luncheon...

...was today. We wish him the very best. Meantime, Magistrate Judge Rosenbaum's nomination is on the Judiciary Committee's calendar tomorrow..

“NO electronics devices. Note taking only material is allowed in the Courtroom (i.e., pen & pad).”

That was the sign on the door to the Supreme Court his morning, meaning no iPhones, no Blackberrys, no iPads, no Twitter or anything else.  But here's the oral argument and transcripts which were posted after the argument.  Today was the very dry argument about jurisdiction and SCOTUSBlog has all of the analysis, including Lyle Denniston's take here.  From what everyone is saying, the Court will reach the merits of the healthcare debate...

While we are on the Supreme Court, it granted cert in Florida v. Harris today, the dog sniff case. The issue is: Whether an alert by a well-trained narcotics detection dog certified to detect illegal contraband is insufficient to establish probable cause for the search of a vehicle.
In other news, here's Herman Cain's most recent video:


Closer to blog's jurisdiction, below is a 60 Minutes piece from last night showing how prosecutors kept a man in jail for 25 years. It's amazing to me that DOJ is still arguing against Brady reform.