News and Notes

1. There's a bunch of reaction in the comments and in articles this morning to the life sentence recommended by the jury in the Kenneth Wilk case. Here's the Herald article and the Sun-Sentinel article. Both mention that the majority of jurors were against the death penalty. I'm not sure what that means because the jury had to be "death qualified." I think Wilk's jury consultant will be getting a bunch of calls soon.

2. Julie Kay covers an interesting case where a NYSE company asked that its directors' addresses be removed from an animal rights' website. Judge Hurley denied the motion. So, you can get these addresses from websites, but we still can't get plea agreements online. Explain! (And to be clear, I'm not saying that I disagree with Judge Hurley's decision. What I really cannot understand is our District's policy of keeping public documents offline.)

3. Rumpole has been following the strange circumstances surrounding Judge Gerald Klein's recent resignation in state court. The DBR has lots of coverage today, including the resignation letter.

Big firm salaries in Miami

Above the law covers Miami salaries here.

From an April DBR article:

Playing its hand in the South Florida associate pay stakes, Greenberg Traurig raised the starting base salaries of its rookie lawyers in Miami and Fort Lauderdale to $135,000 and their total compensation packages to more than $150,000....
The base salary of Greenberg’s first-year lawyers now will match that of White & Case, which in February announced that it had raised first-year salaries to $135,000 in Miami.
Holland & Knight, Hogan & Hartson and Akerman Senterfitt recently raised salaries for rookie lawyers to $130,000 in South Florida.
Hunton & Williams has raised its first-year salaries to $145,000 in Miami. Two New York-based firms, Weil Gotshal & Manges and Boies Schiller & Flexner, pay first-years $160,000 in their South Florida offices.


Any thoughts?

Kenneth Wilk sentenced to life

Most people that I spoke to thought that he was going to get death, but as I said earlier, the federal death penalty is very difficult to achieve:

The death penalty phase is coming up. Although many death penalty advocates will point to this case as the prototypical case for death (the admitted shooting of a cop), I'd be surprised if Wilk gets sentenced to death. The federal death penalty is an almost extinct dinosaur. The standards for being qualified to do a federal death penalty case are so high that the lawyering is always at a very high level, as it was in this case.

Any reaction to the life sentence?

More Padilla and Wilk stuff

1. Jose Padilla's voice was heard again today in Court. Apparently that's newsworthy.

2. The AP's request (earlier coverage here) for same day access to the tapes played by the Government was denied, but the Court gave the media next day access.

3. The Miami Herald has written about the lead prosecutor and lead defense lawyer in Kenneth Wilk's trial. Here's the story about Assistant U.S. Attorney John Kastrenakes and here's the one on Bill Matthewman.


on the left is Bill Matthewman's picture from the Herald article and on the right is John Kastrenakes' picture from the Herald article

Alberto Gonzalez in town

Julie Kay covers Alberto Gonzalez's talk yesterday in Miami:

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales came to Miami Monday to talk about the threat of nuclear terrorism worldwide — but ducked questions about whether he will keep his job and about a new immigration judge scandal involving his Department of Justice.

"Ducked"? More like a sitting duck...

Gonzales was the luncheon keynote speaker at the Global Initiative Nuclear Terrorism Law Enforcement Conference in Miami. Law enforcement officials from 36 countries are attending the weeklong conference, featuring speakers including FBI Director Robert Mueller and New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. After his speech about how countries must work together to intercept and foil plots by terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons, Gonzales fended off questions from reporters at a brief news conference. His demeanor was calm, even bemused. He didn’t seem ruffled, as he frequently was during his recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating the alleged political firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

Why be upset? Why get ruffled? He works for the Decider!

When asked how he can be effective while facing an unusual no-confidence vote in the Senate Gonzales said: “I’m not focusing on what the Senate is doing, I’m focusing on my job. That’s what the American people expect. I serve at the pleasure of the president.” By deadline Monday afternoon, the Senate had not yet voted on the non-binding resolution. When asked about an editorial in the New York Times Monday calling for his ouster, Gonzales laughed and said, “I haven’t read it.” Like President Bush, he said, “I remain focused on sprinting to the finish line. The issues we’re working on are too darned important. That’s why I’m here today talking about global terrorism. That’s why I was in Mexico recently talking about violent crime.” When asked by a reporter if he could still be effective in his job, he answered: “I’m still meeting with my counterparts and they’re interested in meeting with me.” Gonzales also was asked about a report in Monday’s Washington Post that the Bush administration and the Justice Department emphasized Republican Party loyalty over expertise in selecting immigration judges.

Read a newspaper?! Ha! No need to read newspapers! Let's go sprinting.

Gonzales declined to comment on the Post report except to say, “I don’t approve of practices that are not permitted by law.” He also deflected questions about why Jose Padilla, currently standing trial in Miami with several co-defendants for allegedly plotting acts of terrorism, was never indicted or charged with plotting to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb, as the Justice Department originally accused him. “He’s currently on trial and it would not be appropriate for me to comment,” he said. But he’s not standing trial for the dirty bomb charge, a reporter countered. “I will not comment on any activities involving Mr. Padilla that are not in the indictment,” Gonzales responded.

Yes, he left that to his predecessor John Aschcroft.

There's a new warden in town

The current warden of the Federal Detention Center in Miami, Florida -- Loren Grayer -- is moving. No word yet on the new warden.

Maybe I'm a sucker, but...

... I feel bad for Paris Hilton.

If she wasn't a celebrity, she wouldn't be treated this way. She'd be on house arrest right now and that would be it. She probably wouldn't have even gotten the 45 day sentence in the first place (for driving with a suspended license).

I actually think the fight between the judge and the jail as to who controls release dates and other prison decisions is very interesting. Most would think that of course the judge trumps the jail, but criminal practitioners know that judges oftentimes defer to jailors and marshals even though I believe that judges would and should win if a true showdown occurred.

Here's a prior post about a judge not backing down to the jail in a case that I was involved with.

11th Circuit quote

A tipster emails me:

Oral argument in the 11th Circuit on Thursday in a sexual harassment case where the defense was, apparently, that the sexual gestures/advances were welcomed by the receiver.

Judge Wilson made the point that, even if there was no sexual harassment at the outset, it at least became a jury question by the end, when defendant allegedly had opened his pants to the plaintiff in the workplace and exposed his genitalia to her, to which defendant's counsel replied, as best I recall:"I cannot leave the inflammatory comments from Judge Wilson hanging out there." Not the best choice of metaphor . . .