Judge Singhal denies CNN's motion to dismiss Dersh's defamation lawsuit

Law & Crime covers the interesting case here:

Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz on Tuesday secured a significant procedural victory in federal court against CNN as part of his ongoing defamation lawsuit against the network.
CNN’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the $300 million lawsuit for failure to state a claim last November. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida was not convinced, and the parties will now move on to the discovery phase of proceedings.
“Looking forward to deposing the commentators and heads of CNN and of the truth coming out,” Dershowitz told Law&Crime in an email.
The famed celebrity attorney sued the liberal media outlet last September after CNN aired an edited clip of his defense argument in favor of then-president Donald Trump during the latter’s 2020 Senate impeachment trial over the Ukraine phone call affair.

Here is the well-reasoned order by Judge Singhal.

"He loves his job."

 That was Judge Chuck Breyer (N.D. Cal.) about his brother, Justice Stephen Breyer.  Per Bloomberg:

U.S. Judge Charles Breyer won’t say whether his older brother Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer plans to retire.
“I think we’ll find out at some point,” the California trial court judge said with a laugh when asked by Bloomberg Law about his brother’s plans. “I will tell you one thing: He loves his job.”
Justice Breyer, 82, has come under intense pressure from Democrats to retire this term and make way for President Joe Biden to name his successor. There was some speculation that Breyer’s announcement might come before the end of the term, but his decision to hire a full slate of clerks, as reported by legal blogger David Lat, diminished some liberals’ hopes.
Judge Breyer, who is three years his brother’s junior, has already switched to part-time work as a semi-retired judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. He was appointed to the court in 1997 by Bill Clinton and took senior status in 2011, which allows a judge to vacate their seat and take on a lower number of cases.

Judge Breyer is really fantastic.  He is part of an upcoming mini-season for my podcast, For the Defense, on judging.  We'll also have Judges Pryor and Rosenbaum, following up on the reception of the Jed Rakoff episode.  I'm pretty excited about it. 

Dave Aronberg not pursuing U.S. Attorney gig

 Jay Weaver covers the story here:

A half-dozen Miami lawyers have made the cut for interviews with a state congressional nominating commission to be the next U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida.
But a notable seventh candidate did not submit an application to the House nominating commission: Palm Beach State Attorney Dave Aronberg.
In a letter to a handful of South Florida politicians, Aronberg said he was “honored by reports” that he was being considered for the U.S. Attorney’s position but he did not apply because of his “love” for his current job, which he has held since 2013.

The Congressional JNC will do its interviews next week.  Should be interesting. 

News & Notes

1.  Terrible news -- CA11 Judge Beverly Martin is retiring in September.  She's been a bright light on the 11th Circuit and she will be very missed.  Let's see if Biden can get it right with her replacement. 

Martin, one of the 11th Circuit’s more liberal members, noted that a person of color has yet to fill one of the court’s four judgeships allotted to Georgia. “I’ve read that the president is committed to diversity, so I’m happy to give him that opportunity here,” she said.

As for what’s next, Martin said she wants to do what she can to help reduce the nation’s prison population.

“There are too many people incarcerated who shouldn’t be,” said Martin. “It costs way too much.”

This includes many who are elderly, she said.

“Every year I’ve been here I’ve heard the stories of incarcerated people and I go to bed at night thinking about them,” Martin said. “We really do need to reevaluate who needs to be in prison and who doesn’t need to be there.”

2.  Marco Rubio has asked his separate JNC to provide finalists for Judge, U.S. Attorney, and Marshal.  Here's his letter to Carlos Lopez-Cantera.

3.  Meantime, the competing Congressional JNC is interviewing next week.  Here's a link to the list of interviewees and times.

RIP Magistrate Judge Dave Lee Brannon

 Man, this is a sad one.  Judge Brannon was such a good guy.  I knew him back from his federal defender days.  Always willing to share a story or advice or his time.  And such a compassionate and nice judge.  Awful news.

There has been a ton of really nice comments on the CJA listserv.  Here's one from Richard Klugh:

I wanted to share one memory of working with Dave Lee Brannon when we were AFPDs.   We had adjacent offices in Miami (starting in June 1986) and then in Ft. Lauderdale four years later. It was in that later period that he and I wrote the first of what became an FPD staple—songs about our defense work. The song, The Christmas Guideline Song, performed at the FPD Holiday party by Celeste, Pat Hunt, and others, was eventually followed by the songs Pat Hunt, Jackie Shapiro, Celeste, Daryl, and Neison wrote for seminars. The guideline song was mostly Dave’s idea.  It went through each section of Chapter 2 of the manual from A to X, beginning with “‘A’ is for assaultive, mean behavior. ‘B’ is when you burgle steal or rob ...”   To paraphrase, put them all together they spell, ‘Dave was just a really great guy.’