"Jose Padilla was an al-Qaida terrorist trainee providing the ultimate form of material support - himself,"

That was Brian Frazier in opening statement. Frazier continued: "Padilla was serious, he was focused, he was secretive. Padilla had cut himself off from most things in his life that did not concern his radical view of the Islamic religion."

Curt Anderson, for the AP, has the first report from today's proceedings...

Padilla's lawyers haven't countered yet. More to follow.

Congrats to our new Magistrate

A (reliable) little birdie told me that Robin Rosenbaum is our new Ft. Lauderdale Magistrate Judge. Congratulations!

Computer issues

My computer at the office is down as is my server.

This will teach me to go away for the weekend (even if it was for a conference!).

I did manage to get up two posts this morning before everything crashed. Now I'm on the computer of someone down the hall who hasn't made it in to work yet. You know who you are...

In any event, there is a bunch of weekend stuff to catch up on, but it will have to wait until the afternoon. Plus, I'm going to try and make it over to see some openings in Padilla. Will check in later.

Jose Padilla opening statements

Jose Padilla opening statements are today. There is a buzz in the legal community over the case, but I wonder if the general public has the same interest. You would think everyone would be following this trial, but I get the sense that it's a case of a lot of interest to us, but only of moderate interest to everyone else...

In any event, there are a zillion articles about the start of the case. Here's one by Vanessa Blum about Judge Marcia Cooke. (And here's a brief bio) Here's our initial coverage of Judge Cooke.

Good luck to the lawyers today. I'm sure everyone has those trial jitters, especially in this case.

My new favorite reporter...

... is Tonya Alanez from the Sun-Sentinel (whom I've never met or spoken to) because she had this to say about our blog in this article about the Broward Blog controversy:

South Florida has two other court-oriented blogs.On the Southern District of Florida Blog, Miami-based attorney David Oscar Markus strikes an even-handed, statesman-like tone and tends toward observation rather than critique. The Justice Building Blog, authored by another Miami-based attorney who posts anonymously, cloaks its jabs with humor.

COOL!

UPDATE -- The Miami Herald also did a report on the Broward Blog (by Jennifer Lebovich) and mentioned us.