"will do anything to stay at the trough"

That was one of Donald Trump's recent tweets about Jeb!.  The New York Times has compiled this entertaining list of all of his "insult" tweets.  Enjoy.

Meantime, in Broward, there was sex [allegedly] in the jail between a lawyer and a client.  The Sun-Sentinel has the details.

And today's moment of zen comes from the Pac-10 where Michael Phelps distracted a college basketball player shooting a free throw...  watch the video here.

Can a bankruptcy judge order the marshals to arrest a lawyer?

There is some debate about whether a non-article III judge has that power.  But in any case, the answer is certainly NO after a district judge has issued a stay of the order.  Julie Kay has the very interesting story here:

Palm Beach bankruptcy lawyer Tina Talarchyk said she was getting ready to drive her twin girls to school Tuesday when federal marshals showed up to arrest her on a civil contempt order.
Talarchyk said she persuaded the marshals that an arrest order issued last week by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Olson was stayed U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke in Miami pending appeal. She said the marshals left after getting new instructions.
"I think Judge Olson overreached when he entered an incarceration order without due process of having an evidentiary hearing," Talarchyk said in an interview. "I am shocked that after Judge Cooke entered her order that Judge Olson continued to personally reach out to the marshals to have me apprehended. I think it shows he lacked impartiality. The fact that it happened with my children in the car was traumatizing."
Olson held the Talarchyk Firm partner in contempt of court, suspended her from practicing in bankruptcy court and ordered her to be detained until she paid $10,949 into a client trust account. She insists she paid the money and doesn't owe her client anything.
Cooke issued an emergency stay of Olson's order Thursday after Talarchyk appealed, so Talarchyk and her lawyer are baffled about why the marshals showed up.

Be careful what you ask for

See, e.g., this prosecution of two abortion opponents who had asked for an investigation of Planned Parenthood:

A grand jury here that was investigating accusations of misconduct against Planned Parenthood has instead indicted two abortion opponents who made undercover videos of the organization.

Prosecutors in Harris County said one of the leaders of the Center for Medical Progress — an anti-abortion group that made secretly recorded videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood officials trying to illegally profit from the sale of fetal tissue — had been indicted on a charge of tampering with a governmental record, a felony, and on a misdemeanor charge related to purchasing human organs.

That leader, David R. Daleiden, 27, the director of the center, had posed as a biotechnology representative to infiltrate Planned Parenthood affiliates and surreptitiously record his efforts to procure tissue for research. Another center employee, Sandra S. Merritt, 62, was indicted on a felony charge of tampering with a governmental record.

The record-tampering charges accused Mr. Daleiden and Ms. Merritt of making and presenting fake California driver’s licenses, with the intent to defraud, for their April meeting at Planned Parenthood in Houston.

And congrats to the Canes last night for crushing Duke at home.  

SCOTUS decides jury instruction issue

What happens when the jury is instructed on a higher level of proof than is required by the law?  Does the prosecutor need to meet that higher burden or not?  Justice Thomas, for a unanimous Court, said the prosecution does not need to meet the higher standard, even though the jury instructions so stated.  From Law360:

The U.S. Supreme Court held Monday that a shipping executive sentenced to five years in prison for hacking his former employer can’t parlay erroneous jury instructions into an acquittal, rejecting his claim that those instructions meant the federal government had to meet a higher burden of proof than required by law.

In a unanimous decision, the high court rejected former Exel Transportation Services Inc. CEO Michael Musacchio’s claim that prosecutors had to abide by the incorrect instructions, which stated that a guilty verdict rested on two prongs of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act rather than just one.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion, which held that the executive had to held accountable to the letter of the law, not faulty instructions.

“The government’s failure to introduce evidence of an additional element does not implicate these principles, and its failure to object to a heightened jury instruction does not affect sufficiency review,” the court said. “Because Musacchio does not dispute that he was properly charged with conspiracy to obtain unauthorized access or that the evidence was sufficient to convict him of the charged crime, the Fifth Circuit correctly rejected his sufficiency challenge.”

Musacchio left Exel in 2004 to start his own shipping company, Total Transportation Services Inc., but a forensics firm hired by Exel hired discovered that Musacchio had accessed confidential information after he left, according to court filings.

Exel settled its civil claims against its ex-CEO for $10 million, but the federal government then indicted Musacchio in 2010, leading to a Texas federal jury’s guilty verdict against Musacchio three years later.

The jury convicted him on three counts under the CFAA, but part of its instructions stated that a conviction rested on proof that he made unauthorized access to Exel’s information “and” that he exceeded his authorized access.

Musacchio appealed to the Fifth Circuit, arguing that the government didn’t provide evidence sufficient to satisfy both prongs, but the court of appeals affirmed, stating that the substitution of “and” for “or” was an “obvious clerical error.”

After the Supreme Court agreed in June to review the Fifth Circuit’s decision, Musacchio said the jurors didn’t know the instructions they received were wrong and convicted him without enough proof to meet the standard they believed to be correct.

On Monday, the Supreme Court also rejected Musacchio’s attempt to show that the government’s allegations were barred by a five-year statute of limitations, finding that he could not raise that defense for the first time on appeal.

“When a defendant fails to press a limitations defense, the defense does not become part of the case and the Government does not otherwise have the burden of proving that it filed a timely indictment,” Justice Thomas wrote. “When a defendant does not press the defense, then, there is no error for an appellate court to correct—and certainly no plain error.”

And here's your Monday Moment of Zen:

Another PD Not Guilty

What a way to start the year for the FPD's office.  This one is out of West Palm and the lawyer was Peter Birch.  From Paula McMahon:

Jurors deliberated less than 10 hours over two days before finding a Palm Beach sheriff's corrections deputy not guilty of federal charges he violated jail inmates' rights and falsified a record to obstruct an FBI investigation.
William D. Wheeler, 46, was acquitted of three charges after a two-week trial in federal court in West Palm Beach.
"We are very grateful for the jury's verdict and Deputy Wheeler is very happy to put this behind him and hopefully get back to work at the Sheriff's Office as soon as possible," said Assistant Federal Public Defender Peter Birch, Wheeler's lawyer.
Phone messages left for Wheeler were not immediately returned.
Wheeler has been on administrative leave without pay since he was indicted in February. The corrections deputy was receiving a salary of $88,980 a year when he was removed from his position.
Wheeler was accused of using excessive force against two inmates, Joreel Sine and Jermaine Smith, in September and October 2013 while they were locked up in the Palm Beach Sheriff's jail system.
Smith, 22, is serving 10 years in state prison for carjacking, records show. Sine's whereabouts were unclear.Federal prosecutors did not call either of the inmates to testify in Wheeler's trial but security video of both incidents was shown to the jury, according to court records.
Wheeler testified in his defense that he used an appropriate level of force to prevent one inmate from spitting at him and that he did not cause the other inmate to bang his head against a door.

UPDATE -- I've been informed that the PDs also had two other wins this month: Bob Adler got a NG in a mortgage fraud case and Fletcher Peacock got one in a gun case.