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
No one knows. Jay Weaver covers a lot of the competing interests in this piece. The article starts this way:
When Joe Biden won the presidency, Florida’s congressional Democrats thought they might finally get a chance to serve up his picks for federal judges.
But they had a significant hurdle: Florida’s two Republican senators still dominated the commission that scrutinizes judicial candidates to be nominated by the Democratic president.
So, in an unprecedented move, longtime Democratic Reps. Alcee Hastings and Debbie Wasserman Schultz created their own Florida judicial nominating commission earlier this year to compete with the GOP-controlled Senate panel — even though the House of Representatives has no authority to confirm federal judges for lifetime appointments. The Senate has that power.
The shifting political landscape has caused confusion for judicial candidates seeking to fill two openings for federal judges in the Southern District of Florida and a new vacancy for the U.S. attorney’s job in the same region. Some said it is not clear who will have the last word in recommending finalists for each of the coveted positions.
The judicial openings in South Florida have been created by two U.S. District Court judges assuming “senior status,” Federico Moreno and Ursula Ungaro. The U.S. attorney’s post became vacant with the recent resignation of Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Ariana Fajardo Orshan.
Among the several candidates who have expressed interest in applying for the judges’ two seats: U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Becerra, Federal Public Defender Michael Caruso, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Lisa S. Walsh, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Tanya Brinkley and Miami-Dade County Judge Ayana Harris.
The U.S. attorney’s post has drawn the interest of former South Florida federal prosecutors Jacqueline Arango, Andres Rivero, David Buckner and Markenzy Lapointe, along with Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg.
In the end, President Biden has the sole authority to nominate whomever he wants to be a federal judge or U.S. attorney. But as senators, Florida’s two Republicans, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, have the unique power to block anyone from being confirmed by the Senate. During the Obama administration, Rubio refused to issue a “blue slip” for two of the Democratic president’s nominees for federal judges in South Florida, Miami-Dade Circuit Judges William Thomas and Mary Barzee, preventing them from going through Senate confirmation hearings. As a result, their nominations stalled.
Well, the pool of 49 applicants has been narrowed to 5:
Melissa Visconti
Randy Katz
Lornette Reynolds
Erica Zaron
Reginald Corlew
The district court judges will be conducting interviews on May 13. Good luck to all.
Defense attorneys make the argument all of the time -- hold the client responsible for the actual loss in the case, not the "intended" loss. The Third Circuit raised this interesting point about the issue in a case where a defendant made about $30,000 but the "intended" loss, according to the district court, was $36 million:
Under a Guidelines comment, a court must ... identify the greater figure, the actual or intended loss, and enhance the defendant’s offense level accordingly. Only this comment, not the Guidelines’ text, says that defendants can be sentenced based on the losses they intended. By interpreting “loss” to mean intended loss, it is possible that the commentary “sweeps more broadly than the plain text of the Guideline.” United States v. Nasir, 982 F.3d 144, 177 (3d Cir. 2020) (en banc) (Bibas, J., concurring). But Kirschner assumes the comment is correct, and so we will too.
I haven't seen this argument before, which I'm sure will be making its way into all sentencing briefs and appeals going forward. Let's hope some more sensibility comes around for these crazy loss calculations. By the way, the 3rd Circuit reversed the loss finding on other grounds and remanded to the district court for a fuller hearing and analysis.
1. Amy Comey Barrett finally got to meet her colleagues in person. From CNN:
2. Can Chauvin win on appeal? From the AP:
The defense has said it was impossible for Chauvin to get a fair trial in Minneapolis because of pretrial publicity and community pressure on jurors to convict. That claim is sure to underpin any appeal.
As they arrived at and left the courthouse each day for testimony, jurors passed clear signs that the city was preparing for renewed protests. The courthouse downtown was encircled by razor wire and guarded by armed troops. Most storefront windows were boarded up.
A prime target of an appeal would be key rulings by trial Judge Peter Cahill, including that the trial should remain in Minneapolis rather than be moved and that jurors should be sequestered only for deliberations.
Cahill also refused to delay the trial after Minneapolis announced a $27 million settlement with Floyd’s family during jury selection. The defense says that suggested guilt before jurors even heard evidence.
The defense has decried as prosecutorial misconduct remarks by the state during closings, including that aspects of the defense case were “nonsense.” That claim could make its way into an appeal.
3. Is it a federal crime to inflate your law schools U.S. News rankings? Orin Kerr has this thread looking at this interesting question. The 11th Circuit's Takhalov opinion will be a hurdle...
4. Yours truly was in SDNY this week. Here's some coverage from Ghislaine Maxwell's arraignment.
