“Judge, may I address the court. We’re ready to go.”

That was U.S. Attorney Ariana Fajardo Orshan appearing in state county court. From the Miami Herald:

U.S. Attorney Ariana Fajardo Orshan, a former Miami-Dade judge, made a recent return to the state courthouse to watch a trial — involving a minor car crash.

Fajado appeared recently in support of her niece, who was the victim in a fender-bender accident in West Miami-Dade. Fajardo never identified herself on the record nor said she was the top federal prosecutor in South Florida.

But when the judge called the case, Fajardo did speak up, schooling the courtroom’s young prosecutors who appeared to be waffling on whether to proceed to trial against the woman who hit her niece’s car.

“Judge, may I address the court. We’re ready to go,” Fajardo said, according to the audio of the Oct. 22 hearing. “The issue is restitution. I told them you can reserve restitution, per statute, for 60 days to produce the deductible. They seem to think they can’t proceed forward. So I’m here on behalf of my niece, who has now missed school all day. I’m not understanding why we can’t go forward without restitution.”

Prosecutors fighting against First Step Act

That’s according to the Washington Post in this article:

The five former inmates assembled on the White House stage weren’t scheduled to speak, but President Trump couldn’t help himself. “Where’s Gregory? Greg?” he said. “Come on, get up here!”
From behind the president, Gregory Allen saluted and then made his way to the microphone. “Two months ago, I was in a prison cell, and I’m in the White House,” declared Allen, a Florida resident who had been freed under Trump’s signature criminal justice legislation. “That’s continuing to make America great again!”
The gathering in April was a triumphant celebration of the First Step Act, the most sweeping overhaul of the federal criminal justice system in a generation. Since its passage nearly a year ago, the law has led to the release of more than 3,000 inmates — including Allen, who was convicted of cocaine trafficking in 2001.
The Justice Department, though, had never wanted to let Allen out of prison. In fact, even as he and Trump shared a joyous embrace on television, federal prosecutors were trying to persuade a judge to put Allen back behind bars.
***
“DOJ is pushing against the will of the people, the will of Congress, the will of the president,” said Holly Harris, a conservative activist and leader of the Justice Action Network who worked with Congress and the White House to pass the law.
***
The First Step Act aims to lessen long-standing disparities in punishment for nonviolent drug offenses involving crack cocaine. Having five grams of crack, a form of cocaine that is more common among black drug users, used to carry the same mandatory minimum sentence as having 500 grams of powder cocaine, which is more common among white drug users.
But federal prosecutors are arguing in hundreds of cases that inmates who have applied for this type of relief are ineligible, according to a review of court records and interviews with defense attorneys. In at least half a dozen cases, prosecutors are seeking to reincarcerate offenders who have been released under the First Step Act.

This isn’t just happening in First Step cases. It’s happening across the board at sentencing. Lately, prosecutors have taken a new strategic tact — ask for middle or top of the guidelines in an effort dissuade judges from giving variances. Prosecutors are even doing this — not only opposing variances, but opposing low end sentences — in plea cases. This is done so that judges feel like they are doing the defendant some sort of favor by giving an oppressive low-end guideline sentence. Prosecutors are also asking probation to come back much higher than plea agreements state in an effort to have judges believe that a regular old guideline sentence in the plea agreement is a huge benefit to the defendant. Most judges are rejecting these outrageous tactics. But there are a few judges out there that seem to be moved by these new tactics, refusing to give any variance even for first time, non-violent offenders... which is just horrible.

Happier topics

Let's move on to nicer subjects after the last post, shall we?

It looks like the old Dyer building is on the way to a recovery, courtesy of Miami-Dade College.  From the Miami Herald:

Three years after taking possession of Miami’s grandly historic but long vacant federal building, Miami Dade College is nearing completion on the initial phase of a massive $60 million renovation that will return the 1933 Neoclassical masterpiece to public use.

The public college has wrapped up cleanup work to remove asbestos and mold from the vast former courthouse and post office, which has been shuttered since 2008. Next comes remodeling and restoration, a job expected to take two years, said Miami Dade’s interim president, Rolando Montoya, in an interview.

Once that’s done, the monumental building will house the college’s architecture, interior design and fashion design programs in appropriately splendid surroundings. The college also plans to install flexible-use classrooms, robotics and computer labs, faculty and administrative offices, and a conference center with capacity for 400 people.

“I think this is going to be beautiful,” Montoya said: “The building will be an interesting combination of several historical facilities with some high-tech, very modern facilities. It’s very nice architecturally, this combination.”

But, he added: “It’s a lot that has to be done. The building was in very bad shape.”

The limestone-clad federal building, widely regarded as one of the finest works of architecture in Miami, occupies most of a city block at Northeast First Avenue and Third Street across the street from the college’s Wolfson Campus in downtown Miami. Known in latter years as the David W. Dyer building after a prominent judge, the building is on the National Register of Historic places and is also a city of Miami designated historic landmark.

As part of the renovation, the college will restore the Dyer building’s pièce de résistance, an ornate central courtroom adorned by a mural depicting the role of justice in Florida’s development. The federal General Services Administration meanwhile will do its best to restore the badly deteriorated contemporary abstract frescoes by artist David Novros that grace the building’s interior courtyard, Montoya said.

Judge Moore is really serious about the Bluebook (updated)

Footnote 2:

The Court adopts in part Magistrate Judge Reid’s R&R with the following alterations: the pin cite in the citation on page six, line seven should be “1279” and omit citation to “n.2”; the pin cite in the citation on page seven, line seven should be “1223, n.2”; the case name on page seven, line nine should read: “Goebert v. Lee Cty.”; the quotation on page nine, line six should read: “[The] right must be . . .”; the pin cite in the citation on page nine, line thirteen should be “1121”; the quotation on page thirteen, line eleven should read: “We do not require a case directly on point, but existing precedent . . .”; the pin cite in the citations on page fourteen, lines one and six should be “589–90”; the quotation on page seventeen, line five should read: “Miami-Dade County and/or Public Health Trust”; the quotation on page eighteen, line nineteen should read: “[it] can rise to the level . . .”; the pin cite in the citation on page twenty, line seventeen should be “589–90”; the parenthetical on page twenty-one, line nine should read: “offering extraction over a root canal is not a constitutional violation if an extraction is medically appropriate to remove tooth decay”; the citation on page twenty-seven, lines five to six should read: “219 F.3d 132, 137 (2d Cir. 2000)”; and the citation on page twenty-seven, line nine should read “219 F.3d at 132.” Finally, the Court notes that it does not adopt citations in the R&R that do not conform to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (Columbia Law Review Ass’n et al. eds., 20th ed. 2015).

Yikes.

Here’s the R&R and the District Order.

Update— both in the comments and in emails/texts, people are criticizing me for posting this public order. I didn’t write the order, of course. This blog is meant to publish news about the District. Lawyers and judges around town are talking about the order. Numerous folks sent it to me. It certainly seems newsworthy. I have personal feelings about the order and who it makes look bad, but I’m not putting those out there. I’ll let you comment on that issue. I just put it out there because it happened.

Breaking Andrew Brasher nominated to the 11th Circuit

As predicted on this blog, President has nominated Andrew Brasher to fill Chief Judge Carnes’ seat.

From the White House release:

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 6, 2019

President Donald J. Trump Announces Judicial Nominees

Today, President Donald J. Trump announced his intent to nominate:

Andrew L. Brasher of Alabama, to serve as Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

Andrew Brasher currently serves as a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Alabama. Before taking the bench in May 2019, Judge Brasher was the Solicitor General of the State of Alabama, where he argued cases before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and the Alabama Supreme Court. He previously served for several years as the Deputy Solicitor General and practiced in the litigation and white-collar criminal defense practice groups in the Birmingham, Alabama office of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Brasher served as a law clerk to Judge William H. Pryor Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Judge Brasher earned his B.A., summa cum laude, from Samford University and his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review.