The judges are back from the 11th Circuit conference, which was in Savannah, Georgia last week.
Apparently the agenda included a re-enactment of a slavery trial that occurred in Savannah and also a speech by a Thomas Jefferson impersonator.
Meantime, there are still two openings on the 11th Circuit and apparently no progress being made in moving those nominations forward.
Since the 11th got back to business this week, it has ruled on an interesting case involving Cuba. From Bloomberg:
Florida lost a court bid to reinstate
a law prohibiting state agencies from entering into contracts
worth $1 million or more with companies that do business with
Cuba.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta said today that the
Florida measure “reaches far beyond the federal law in numerous
ways and undermines the president’s exercise of the discretion
afforded him by Congress.” A three-judge panel upheld a July
ruling by a lower court in Miami barring enforcement of the law.
The “Cuba Amendment” legislation was signed on May 1,
2012, by Florida Governor Rick Scott, a Republican, and covers
an estimated $8 billion in annual state contracts, the appeals
court said. The law, designed to apply economic pressure to the
communist regime in Cuba beyond the U.S. government sanctions
already in place, was challenged by Odebrecht Construction Inc.
And back home in South Florida, it looks like Judge Rosenbaum will be busy with this case filed by Frank Haith. From the Herald:
Former University of Miami basketball coach Frank Haith on Monday
morning filed a petition in Miami-Dade federal court seeking subpoenas
to try to uncover whether his checking account records were accessed
illegally by unauthorized parties as part of the NCAA Nevin Shapiro
investigation.
He and his attorney, Michael Buckner, want to be
able to depose Bank of America employees and make sure the bank
preserves evidence in anticipation of a civil lawsuit.
The Rule
27 Petition, obtained by The Miami Herald, states that in October 2012,
Haith and his wife, Pamela, became suspicious of a possible privacy
breach and have tried unsuccessfully to resolve the issue through
repeated requests to the bank. If a Bank of America employee or agent
permitted an unknown party to view or procure the records, it could be a
violation of federal and state laws.
Haith, now at the University of Missouri, had been asked by the
NCAA to provide microfiche copies of three checks dated June 10, 2010.
He had already provided photocopies of those checks, and other financial
documents, in October 2011, but the NCAA wanted clearer images. Each
check was for $3,200 andmade out to his assistant coaches — Jorge
Fernandez, Jake Morton and Michael Schwartz.
The SDFLA Blog is dedicated to providing news and notes regarding federal practice in the Southern District of Florida. The New Times calls the blog "the definitive source on South Florida's federal court system." All tips on court happenings are welcome and will remain anonymous. Please email David Markus at dmarkus@markuslaw.com
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
Monday, May 06, 2013
How pro-business is this Supreme Court
Apparently, the most pro-business Supreme Court ever... From the NY Times:
But the business docket reflects something truly distinctive about the court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. While the current court’s decisions, over all, are only slightly more conservative than those from the courts led by Chief Justices Warren E. Burger and William H. Rehnquist, according to political scientists who study the court, its business rulings are another matter. They have been, a new study finds, far friendlier to business than those of any court since at least World War II.
But the business docket reflects something truly distinctive about the court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. While the current court’s decisions, over all, are only slightly more conservative than those from the courts led by Chief Justices Warren E. Burger and William H. Rehnquist, according to political scientists who study the court, its business rulings are another matter. They have been, a new study finds, far friendlier to business than those of any court since at least World War II.
In the eight years since Chief Justice Roberts joined the court, it has allowed corporations to spend freely in elections in the Citizens United case, has shielded them from class actions and human rights suits, and has made arbitration the favored way to resolve many disputes. Business groups say the Roberts court’s decisions have helped combat frivolous lawsuits, while plaintiffs’ lawyers say the rulings have destroyed legitimate claims for harm from faulty products, discriminatory practices and fraud.
Whether the Roberts court is unusually friendly to business has been the subject of repeated discussion, much of it based on anecdotes and studies based on small slices of empirical evidence. The new study, by contrast, takes a careful and comprehensive look at some 2,000 decisions from 1946 to 2011.
Published last month in The Minnesota Law Review, the study ranked the 36 justices who served on the court over those 65 years by the proportion of their pro-business votes; all five of the current court’s more conservative members were in the top 10. But the study’s most striking finding was that the two justices most likely to vote in favor of business interests since 1946 are the most recent conservative additions to the court, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., both appointed by President George W. Bush.
I wonder how district courts around the country as a whole rank now -- I would bet that like the Supreme Court, they are more pro-business now than ever.
Friday, May 03, 2013
Cuban spy to give up citizenship and remain in Cuba
Curt Anderson has all of the details:
One of the convicted spies known as the "Cuban Five" will be able to permanently remain in Cuba in exchange for renouncing his U.S. citizenship, a federal judge ruled Friday after U.S. officials dropped their initial opposition.
Rene Gonzalez, 56, has been in Cuba since April 22 to attend memorial services for his father, who died earlier last month. Gonzalez was released from U.S. prison in October 2011 but was still serving three years' probation, which the Justice Department had previously insisted must be completed in the U.S.
This week, however, the Justice Department reversed its position, leading to U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard's ruling accepting Gonzalez's offer to give up U.S. citizenship.
Reached in Havana, Gonzalez told The Associated Press he was thrilled but wanted a chance to review the judge's decision.
"First I have to read the order," he said. "If the order is real, it will be a great relief to me."
Thursday, May 02, 2013
Nominees for Florida Circuit Court
The blog generally doesn't cover state court appointments (that's Rumpole's domain), but that latest Circuit Court seat has some interesting applicants from the federal family. The Governor will decide from the following five, three of which have federal court ties:
Jason Bloch
Donald J. Cannava
Wendell M. Graham
Ayana Harris
Robert Luck
Bloch is a county attorney. Harris is a AFPD. Luck is a AUSA. Cannava and Graham are county judges.
Jason Bloch
Donald J. Cannava
Wendell M. Graham
Ayana Harris
Robert Luck
Bloch is a county attorney. Harris is a AFPD. Luck is a AUSA. Cannava and Graham are county judges.
Above the Law ranks law schools
It's a very interesting read and analysis:
The basic premise underlying the ATL approach to ranking schools: the economics of the legal job market are so out of balance that it is proper to consider some legal jobs as more equal than others. In other words, a position as an associate with a large firm is a “better” employment outcome than becoming a temp doc reviewer or even an associate with a small local firm. That might seem crassly elitist, but then again only the Biglaw associate has a plausible prospect of paying off his student loans.
In addition to placing a higher premium on “quality” (i.e., lucrative) job outcomes, we also acknowledge that “prestige” plays an out-sized role in the legal profession. We can all agree that Supreme Court clerkships and federal judgeships are among the most “prestigious” gigs to be had. Our methodology rewards schools for producing both.
Now more than ever, potential law students should prioritize their future job prospects over all other factors in deciding whether to attend law school. So the relative quality of law schools is best viewed through the prism of how they deliver on the promise of gainful legal employment. The bottom line is that we have a terrible legal job market. Of the 60,000 legal sector jobs lost in 2008-9, only 10,000 have come back. So the industry is down 50,000 jobs and there is no reason to believe they will ever reappear. If you ignore school-funded positions (5% of the total number of jobs), this market is worse than its previous low point of 1993-4. The time has come for a law school ranking that relies on nothing but employment outcomes.
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