Judge Carnes to take over as Chief of 11th Circuit

This summer Judge Dubina will hand over the reigns to Judge Carnes. Aly Palmer has more:

Chief Judge Joel Dubina of the U.S Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit will step down as chief on August 1, Dubina told the Daily Report this week.

Dubina, who maintains his primary chambers in Montgomery, Ala., has been chief judge since mid-2009. He said the next chief judge will be Edward Carnes, a Montgomery-based judge who is next in line by seniority.

Court rules allow chief judges to serve up to seven years. “It has been the highlight of my judicial career,” Dubina said of his time as chief. “But there comes a time when you need to turn the reins over to someone else, and I believe that time has come for me.”

Dubina said he was leaning towards taking senior status—a form of semi-retirement in which judges can work a lighter caseload—in August, as well, but he didn’t commit to doing so. “I have not sent a letter to the president yet about senior status, and I have not definitively made up my mind about that,” he said.

Recap (UPDATED)

UPDATE -- Everything you want to know about the Supreme Court Skullcaps (worn yesterday by Justices Scalia and Breyer) is here.

Last week was pretty eventful in the SDFLA and around the federal courts.  A quick recap:

1.  Judge Scola did the right and courageous thing by granting the defense's motion for judgment of acquittal in Izhar Khan's case.  Here is the JOA ruling. The money line: "This court will not allow the sins of the father to be visited upon the son." And here is Curt Anderson's coverage.



2.  Clarence Thomas spoke during an oral argument.  No one is really sure what he said. Here's the audio so you can hear for yourself.

3.  Raul Iglesias was convicted.  It was a hard fought battle.  Rick Diaz after the verdict: “An appellate court will allow that evidence at a new trial, and he will be vindicate. In the meantime, the verdict suggests that we should put all city of Miami police officers on a leave of absence and give their guns and badges and cruisers to the crack addicts in the city of Miami.”

4.  The Supreme Court weighed in on houseboats.  Lozman's was a house and not a boat.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/18/3189017/veteran-miami-police-sergeant.html#storylink=cpy

Raul Iglesias jury back

Convicted on eight counts, including two civil rights violations, conspiracy to possess and possession with the intent to distribute cocaine and crack cocaine, obstruction of justice and making false official statements.

Breaking-- Judge Scola grants rule 29 in Pakistani terror case

For one of the defendants, Izhar Khan. He was represented by Joe Rosenbaum, Dore Louis, and Kim Acevedo.

Congrats to the defense team. This is the second of three defendants to be dismissed from the case. The first was represented by Michael Caruso, the FPD. Also congrats to Judge Scola for having the courage to issue this ruling.

From the Herald article by Jay Weaver:

A federal judge threw out the terrorism charges against a young Muslim
cleric from Broward County in a trial where he and his father, an imam in
Miami, are accused of providing financial support to the Pakistani Taliban
terrorist organization.

Izhar Khan, the imam of a mosque in Margate, will be a free man later
Thursday after U.S. District Judge Robert Scola issued a verdict of
acquittal for the 26-year-old Muslim scholar.
The prosecution, which rested its case Wednesday in the material support
trial, failed to mount sufficient evidence of wrongdoing against the
younger imam, imam of Masjid Jamaat Al-Mumineen mosque off Sample Road.

“I do not believe in good conscience that I can allow the case to go
forward against Izhar Khan,” Scola ruled Thursday.

The judge also noted that the government nonetheless “proceeded in this
case against Izhar Khan in good faith.”

After the judge’s verdict, the defendant hugged defense lawyer Joseph
Rosenbaum and members of his Margate mosque shook each other’s hands,
quietly celebrating.

Liars or Heroes?

That's the question for the jury today in the case of Raul Iglesias, the Miami police officer on trial for allegedly planting evidence. The prosecution has called the witnesses heroes and the defense has called them liars.  I know this was a hard fought battle between Rick Diaz for the defense and Rick Del Toro and Michael Berger for the prosecution, in a case where the defendant testified. 

Should be interesting to see what happens.  More from closing (via the Miami Herald):

“We had four eyewitnesses — police officers who stood up to corruption, who stood up to what was wrong,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ricardo Del Toro told the 12-member jury during closing arguments Wednesday.
“What reason do these guys have to lie? None,” added fellow prosecutor Michael Berger. “Which person has the only reason to lie? That’s the defendant. And that’s because his liberty, his job and his livelihood are at stake.”
***
On Wednesday, his defense attorney, Rick Diaz, argued that none of the four detectives in Iglesias’ unit testified that they ever witnessed him stealing drugs seized from street dealers, and only one claimed he saw the supervisor swipe money confiscated from a trafficker in April 2010. Diaz said that detective’s testimony was a lie, pointing out that the dealer testified at trial that he had no money on him.
Diaz told jurors that an anonymous letter was sent on April 13, 2010, to Miami police’s Internal Affairs, claiming Iglesias stole drugs and money from dealers two to three times a week over a four-month period. He said it was written by detectives seeking revenge against their new boss because he was trying to tame the “undisciplined” squad and transfer a few officers.
“That letter came back and hit them in the head like a boomerang,” Diaz told jurors, adding that the prosecution’s case doesn’t “mathematically” add up. He suggested that Iglesias’ former undercover officers, internal-affairs detectives and FBI agents were “trying to set this man up.”
Diaz strived to portray Iglesias, an 18-year police veteran who served with the Marines in the Iraq War, as a man of character who deserved to be acquitted on all nine counts.
“This is all or nothing for Raul Iglesias,” Diaz implored jurors. “Make no mistake about it.”