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Federal Judiciary

Southern District of Florida

News and notes on the Southern District of Florida

Post Frequency: 3.1/day

Last Entry: November 03, 2020 at 07:42:00

Scalia likes My Cousin Vinny and Marisa Tomei

Posted on September 15, 2009
Here's a piece of the article (HT: ABL):Before signing copies of his book, Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges, (which came out more than a year ago) Scalia dished a few pointers to the spillover crowd of mostly senior citizens who gathered at the Friendship Heights Village Center in Chevy Chase, Md...

Monday Night videos

Posted on September 14, 2009
The Fins looked dreadful.Rumpole's picks look worse.What's with the 10:30pm late game?Here are some videos for those of you who are waiting for game 2 to start:v\

"In Mr. Conway?s case, the post that got him in trouble questioned the motives and competence of Judge Cheryl Aleman, and appeared on a rowdy blog"

Posted on September 13, 2009
Sean Conway and the Broward Blog made the front page of Sunday New York Times. Very cool!! (Our prior Conway coverage is here.)And it's timely -- the article addresses an issue that we have been discussing on the blog recently: how far can lawyers go in criticizing judges?Here's the intro to the article:Sean Conway was steamed at a Fort Lauderdale judge, so he did what millions of angry people do these days: he blogged about her, saying she was an ?Evil, Unfair Witch...

"Miami's ex-DEA chief charged with shredding documents for disgraced banker Allen Stanford"

Posted on September 11, 2009
That's the headline from this Miami Herald article about Tom Raffanello, who was Stanford's security chief after leaving the DEA five years ago. The superceding indictment, which added Raffanello, was filed today. Interestingly, the co-defendant's case is set for trial September 18...

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James Hendrick resentenced to probation

Posted on September 11, 2009
Our prior coverage of the case is here. You remember this one -- the 11th Circuit reversed Judge Highsmith's sentence of probation for James Hendrick, "once Monroe County's powerful government attorney." Well, he was resentenced today before Judge Zloch (because Highsmith retired) and got probation, again...

Are Sentences for Possession of Child Porn Too High?

Posted on September 10, 2009
Yes, according to some district judges testifying before the Sentencing Commission. From the National Law Journal:Judges testifying before the U.S. Sentencing Commission in Chicago told the panel that sentences for people convicted of possessing child pornography have become too severe...

Judge Zloch strikes back

Posted on September 09, 2009
Remember Loring Spolter's wild claims that there was a conspiracy with Judge Zloch and the clerk's office? Well, the DBR reports that it didn't go so well for Mr. Spolter:District Court Judge William Zloch is considering suspending a Fort Lauderdale employment attorney from practicing in South Florida federal courts for criticizing him in an interview with the Daily Business Review...

1-0

Posted on September 08, 2009
C-A-N-E-SOkay, now that that's off my chest, back to business.The Chief has formed a committee to look at building a new Broward courthouse. From the DBR:With its maze-like corridors, dead ends and multi-level pools, the Fort Lauderdale federal courthouse is outdated in the post 9/11 world...

Justice Stevens to retire?

Posted on September 04, 2009
We're a little late on this story, but it's starting to get a lot of traction, so here goes... It looks like Justice Stevens might be on the retirement track as indicated by his lack of hiring law clerks. From the NY Times:Justice David H. Souter?s failure to hire clerks this spring accurately signaled his decision to step down...

News & Notes

Posted on September 02, 2009
1. The big interviews are today with Senators Nelson and Martinez. They've flown down here and the interviews will be held at the federal courthouse. But they are closed to the public. (They should be open, shouldn't they?) If anyone hears anything about them, please email me...

That's hot -- Paris wins again...

Posted on September 01, 2009
...this time in the Court of Appeals (the 9th Circuit -- here's the opinion). From Reuters:The celebrity and heiress Paris Hilton may pursue her lawsuit against Hallmark Cards over its use of her picture and catchphrase "That's hot" on a greeting card, a federal appeals court ruled on Monday...

Lyglenson Lemorin still sits in immigration jail

Posted on August 31, 2009
From Jay Weaver's article in today's Miami Herald:A Tampa engineering student acquitted of terrorism-related charges walked out of an immigration court a free man earlier this month, after a judge rejected the U.S. government's bid to deport him to his native Egypt on identical charges...

"Gov. Charlie Crist and ex-aide George LeMieux cleared in federal probe"

Posted on August 29, 2009
That's the headline from Jay Weaver's story about the Mutual Benefits case, which keeps taking stranger and stranger turns:Gov. Charlie Crist and former chief of staff George LeMieux -- the subjects of a federal public corruption investigation -- have been cleared of allegations that they tried to thwart a state criminal probe into a Fort Lauderdale insurance company, according to sources familiar with the ongoing case...

News & Notes (the PD's edition)

Posted on August 28, 2009
1. Paul Rashkind has been working on Guantanamo cases and he just got a nice win in DC: hearsay is not admissible in the detainee cases. Here's SCOTUSBlog's coverage:U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton went further than any of his District Court colleagues has gone in cutting back on the Pentagon?s option of proving its detention cases by using a kind of evidence that normally would not be allowed in court ? hearsay, as a substitute for direct proof of facts...

Judge Kozinski champions right to privacy in computers

Posted on August 27, 2009
The Fourth Amendment is not dead... at least in the Ninth Circuit. Judge Alex Kozinksi,* writing for an en banc Ninth Circuit, ruled that many additional safeguards must be put in place before a computer search can go forward. See United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing...

$$$$

Posted on August 26, 2009
Today's DBR covers the net worth of state court judges and their spouses. No surprise that former AUSA John Schlesinger tops the list as his wife Marilyn Milian is the judge of "The People's Court." But does Billy Shields have a man-crush on Schlesinger (not that there's anything wrong with that)...

Should judges reject agreed to plea agreements?

Posted on August 25, 2009
We've discussed this issue many times on this blog. If two parties in the adversary system work out a deal, should the judge be able to reject it? (Along the same lines, should a judge be able to reject a civil settlement?) I think the answer is clearly no for reasons I've articulated before...

Bueller, Bueller, Bueller....

Posted on August 24, 2009
Is there a better comedy than Ferris Bueller's Day Off?Talk to me people. What's going on in Federal Court this week? Is it just going to be more UBS postings...Summer's over -- there's gotta be something good going on.You know it's slow when SFL is comparing Tom Julin to Kingpin and Rumpole is already doing football posts...

Judge Zloch slaps UBS cooperator

Posted on August 21, 2009
We covered earlier the UBS defendant who was asking for probation for his extensive cooperation. The government was asking for 2 1/2 years (or a 50% reduction). Judge Zloch today sentenced Bradley Birkenfeld to 40 months, or 10 months more than the government asked for...

11th Circuit update

Posted on August 21, 2009
Thanks very much to JANE MOSCOWITZ for this guest post:Richard Strafer and Howard Srebnick had a big win in the Eleventh Circuit this week in United States v. Kaley. Judges Marcus, Wilson and Tjoflat reversed and remanded the district court's decision not to permit the Defendants to challenge the pretrial restraint of assets they wanted to use to hire their counsel of choice, Howard Srebnick and Susan Van Dusen...

Friday's notes

Posted on August 21, 2009
School's back Monday. To get you in the mood, here's a clip from Back to School:The DBR reports that the mold lawsuit filed by Ted Klein's family has been dismissed by Judge Story. Apparently, you can only get $1,000 under the Federal Employees Compensation Act when death results from on-duty injuries of a federal employee...

Quick Poll

Posted on August 20, 2009
I had a lengthy debate with some friends today about whether Plaxico Burress' sentence was the right result or not. (If you aren't familiar with the case, here's some background).Settle a score for us and vote:How do you feel about Plaxico Burress' two year sentence?Just rightToo shortToo long pollcode...

Why Professor Dershowitz Rocks

Posted on August 19, 2009
The challenge. This time to Scalia on his dissent, blogged about a couple of days ago by one of our favorite readers:I hereby challenge Justice Scalia to a debate on whether Catholic doctrine permits the execution of a factually innocent person who has been tried, without constitutional flaw, but whose innocence is clearly established by new and indisputable evidence...

Order in Paris Hilton case

Posted on August 19, 2009
Judge Moreno ruled in Paris Hilton's favor on Monday (background here) -- she does not have to pay $8.3 million even though her film ?Pledge This!?? bombed. From Judge Moreno's order: ?The court finds compelling evidence in the record that ?Pledge This!? lost money because the film?s inexperienced producers hastily cobbled together a wholly inadequate marketing plan...

Judge Barkett's "fervent, lonely" dissent reaches open ears of Supreme Court

Posted on August 18, 2009
One of my favorite readers has sent in this guest post, and I post it here:Three days ago The New York Times highlighted Eleventh Circuit Judge Barkett as the author of a "fervent, lonely" dissent which expressed frustration with AEDPA's "thicket of procedural brambles...

UBS snitches

Posted on August 18, 2009
Oh, there are going to be a bunch of these. Here's one where the government is recommending a 50% reduction (via Curt Anderson):A former Swiss banker should get a sharply reduced prison term for helping the U.S. government as a star witness in a wide-ranging tax evasion investigation of banking giant UBS AG, federal prosecutors said Tuesday...

The last week of good traffic

Posted on August 17, 2009
Gridlock starts next week with the start of school...Looks like the storms are gonna miss us. Rumpole has been updating us all weekend on the positions of the storms. A tip for the future: keep an eye on the Herbert boxes.The blawgosphere is aflutter over the possibility of free PACER...

News & Notes

Posted on August 13, 2009
1. Prosecutors in Georgia are in hot water about their handling of a prosecution against a criminal defense lawyer. Friends of the blog Tom Withers & Craig Gillen represent the defense lawyer. They were part of the defense team that tried the Savannah case with me a couple years back...

UBS settles with US

Posted on August 12, 2009
Indictments to follow.

Richard Simring's co-defendant sentenced to 100 years

Posted on August 11, 2009
That's 50 years less than Mr. Madoff, but still -- that's quite a whopper of a sentence for Edward Okun. (The feds were asking for a 400 year sentence!) Here's the DOJ press release for background. (As an aside, anyone know the largest sentences handed out in this district?)Okun's co-defendant Richard Simring, who was a rising star here in Miami before this case, is scheduled to be sentenced this Thursday...

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