Americans for Immigrant Justice expanding to DC

They used to be called FIAC -- Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center.  From the new and improved website:

AI Justice was founded in 1996 as the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center when federal funding restrictions prevented Legal Services Corporation (LSC) agencies from representing most immigrants, unless they already had legal status.  The organization was cofounded by its current executive director, Cheryl Little, Esq., along with two Catholic nuns, Sr. Maureen Kelleher RSHM and Sr. Catherine Cassidy HM.  In its first year of operation, the staff inherited over 3,000 cases that LSC agencies in Florida were no longer allowed to handle.
Since its inception, AI Justice has represented immigrants from all over the world.  Beginning with ten employees and a $400,000 budget, it has grown to a staff of 38 and a $3.5 million budget.  Since 1996, its lawyers have closed over 80,000 cases, and AI Justice has become a national trendsetter in the immigration field.

 Holly Skolnick is the current President and one of the leaders, helping to expand the group to DC (where she started as a public defender).  She's a good choice as she has a long history with public service (President of the Greenberg Fellowship Foundation and a member of UM's Center for Ethics and Public Service).

Monday Morning

Nothing much new to report....

The Heat looked pretty good yesterday, even after Bosh got hurt.  Indiana is pesky but shouldn't be a problem.

Rumpole covered the FACDL banquet.  It was a very nice event at the Biltmore.  Judge Gold was honored as was Judge Hubbart.  Roy Black did a nice job introducing Hubbart and explained what it was like to be a PD before he took over (i.e., no jury trials and only part-time PDs).

Barack Obama may be the first president in 30 years to have more judicial vacancies at the end of his first term than when he started.

The John Edwards trial is still going.  Will Rielle take the stand?

Anyone in trial down here?

Judges read blogs

Even Justices do:

Supreme Court justices – most recently Elena Kagan – routinely cite Bashman's blog as a must-read, and visitors to the chambers of Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. have spied How Appealing displayed on his computer screen. A federal appeals judge once chided a prosecutor in open court for not following the blog and not knowing about a case Bashman had cited.

Judge Jordan answers questions at the Bankers Club

It was a good talk -- Judge Jordan is extremely patient and answered everyone's questions, even the silly ones that drag on and on where lawyers just want to hear themselves say something.  Judge Marcus even joined in on one answer and explained that the judges on the court do not engage in "collective bargaining." 

While we had two circuit judges in attendance (which is about 20% of the court!), there is a fight brewing over President Obama's most recent nomination to the 11th Circuit -- Jill Pryor.  From the AJC:

The 11th Circuit opening, created by Judge Stanley Birch in August 2010, also has been declared a judicial emergency. The circuit has jurisdiction over cases in Georgia, Florida and Alabama.
No pick for any of the vacancies has made it to the committee hearing stage and the process typically slows in an election year, with Republicans hoping for a new administration with more friendly nominees.
But the tango between Georgia’s senators and the White House has been odd even by the standards of the often contentious judicial nomination process, according to longtime observers.
Chambliss and Isakson refuse to say why they are blocking President Barack Obama's nomination of Atlanta attorney Jill Pryor for the 11^th Circuit appeals court, after both senators said they would approve her if she were nominated to the district court.
In January Chambliss and Isakson wrote to the White House saying they would approve Pryor and U.S. Magistrate Linda Walker for the district court openings, and Atlanta attorney Mark Cohen for the appeals slot.
Obama nominated Walker for the district court judgeship in early 2011, but as is often the case with multiple nominees from the same state the White House demanded she be included as a package with federal public defender Natasha Perdew Silas, whom Isakson and Chambliss blocked without giving a reason.
The Senate returned both nominees to the White House at year's end, and Obama has not renominated anyone for the district court openings.
The two senators also have not given "blue slips" to the Senate Judiciary Committee to allow a hearing on Pryor, a longstanding courtesy for home-state senators. Representatives of both senators said they do not comment on judicial nominees.
“They need to explain publicly why they’re holding up her nomination, which has been vacant for a long time,” said University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias, who studies the confirmation process. “They’re sort of turning the Constitution on its head. The senators don’t nominate and give the president a chance to reject.”
Party politics is a potential motive. According to campaign finance records, Pryor often donates to Democrats, and last year she gave $2,500 to Obama’s re-election campaign.
Cohen, the senators’ preferred appellate pick, served as executive counsel and chief of staff to Gov. Zell Miller.

Glenn Sugameli calls out the senators:

Glenn Sugameli, who tracks judicial nominations for the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife, noted that Georgia's two senators were outspoken in opposing filibusters of President George W. Bush's judicial nominees. In a 2005 joint op-ed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Chambliss and Isakson wrote “denial of an up-or-down vote goes against basic principles of fairness."
Sugameli said the turnaround is striking, considering that the senators are preventing a hearing, much less a filibuster.
“To pervert that into a situation where you’re essentially demanding the right to make all of the nominations for all of the slots is outrageous, unwarranted, and ... it really hurts the people not only in Georgia but in the rest of the circuit for whom justice delayed is going to continue to be justice denied,” Sugameli said.

State vs. Feds

Who doesn't love a good fight between the federal and state governments?  Yesterday, the en banc First Circuit decided a fascinating case in which the Government of Rhode Island refused to turn over a murder suspect to the feds because they were seeking the death penalty.  The Providence Journal has more:

If Chafee were to prevail, "Pleau could be permanently immune from prosecution ...," the judges wrote, continuing, "Instead of a place of confinement, the state prison would become a refuge against federal charges."
Chafee had refused to surrender Pleau based on what he called Rhode Island's longstanding opposition to the death penalty. He could face the death penalty for his crimes under federal law.

And here's your moment of zen for the day:

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