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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

Breaking -- applicants for District Judge, U.S. Attorney, and Marshal

Posted on June 09, 2009
The applicants for District Judge are:Jerald BagleyGerald CopeMary Barzee FloresDarrin GaylesRandee GolderJudith KorchinRobert LeeRobert LevensonPeter LopezPatricia LowryAna Maria MartinezCaroline Heck MillerMaria OrtizEmmanuel PerezRobin RosenbaumRobert Scola Jr...

Will Supremes grant cert for Cuban 5?

Posted on June 09, 2009
That's the question raised by Jay Weaver in today's Herald.Less than 1% of cert petitions get granted, but Tom Goldstein signed on to this one and there are very interesting legal issues getting lots of pub. I'll go out on a limb and say cert will be granted in this case...

Loring Spolter does not like Judge Zloch

Posted on June 08, 2009
And he has alleged a conspiracy involving the clerk to have his cases assigned to Zloch. Yikes.Here is the study that Spolter relies on to say the assignments aren't random. It's been a while since I took statistics, but the sample size here (Spolter has had 15 cases from 2006-2009) does not seem to be all that significant...

Stormy weather

Posted on June 08, 2009
The Herald got all artsy today with a big picture of a rainbow above the fold and above the articles in the metro section. Lots of people captured the double rainbow. I like this one:The kids are out of school and camp doesn't start till next week... making this the second quietest week of the year, right after the Christmas-New Year week...

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Twitter?

Posted on June 07, 2009
I've resisted Twitter for a while now, and am still not sure why I just signed up for it. But now that I have, let's see how it goes. Click here to follow. (And yes, Judge Moreno, I know -- no twittering from inside the courtroom).

Jeff Sloman acting U.S. Attorney

Posted on June 06, 2009
It was Alex Acosta's last day on Friday. He's off to FIU. Acting U.S. Attorney: Jeff Sloman (he's pictured in white next to Bernie Kosar). Jeff has put his name in with a bunch of other people for the permanent slot. Interviews are next month.

JNC interviews are open to the public

Posted on June 05, 2009
If you wanna go watch, here's the info:July 15, 2009 at 9 a.m.U.S. District Judge, Southern District of FloridaJudges Conference Room, 14th FloorWilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. U.S. Courthouse400 North Miami AvenueMiami, FloridaJuly 16, 2009 at 9 a.m.U.S. Attorneysame placeJuly 17, 2009 at 9 a...

"We asked that question of the attorneys at oral argument, and once they got past the deer-in-the-headlights moment..."

Posted on June 04, 2009
Whether or not you agree with Judge Carnes, he's an excellent writer and a lot of fun to read. Check out his opinion today in Friends of the Everglades v. So. Fla. Water Mgmt. Hat Tip Curt Anderson. The text below in italics is Carnes'.Here's the issue: This appeal turns on whether the transfer of a pollutant from one navigablebody of water to another is a ?discharge of a pollutant? within the meaning of theClean Water Act, 33 U...

Dore Louis is tall.

Posted on June 04, 2009
Here are the pictures from the FACDL banquet which took place a few weeks back, where Judge Hoeveler was honored. (So were the Liberty City lawyers and Ben Brummer). Hector Flores is the new president. And at the link, you'll see pictures of Judges Hoeveler and Graham, Magistrates Garber and O'Sullivan, former Florida Supreme Court Justice Kogan, FPD Kathy Williams and soon-to-be former USA Alex Acosta...

All Sotomayor all the time

Posted on June 04, 2009
Via ScotusBlog:Judge Sotomayor?s completed Senate Judiciary questionnaire is available for download here.The transcript of her confirmation hearing for the Second Circuit is available here and her Judiciary questionnaire from that hearing is available in two parts: here and here...

There is only one good thing about the summer:

Posted on June 03, 2009
The traffic. Okay, maybe it's not that good. Just saying.

"Do letters from the public ? often or ever ? influence sentencing judges?"

Posted on June 02, 2009
That's the question raised by sentencing guru Doug Berman. In his post, he discusses the Mary McCarty case and the "flood" of letters being filed with Judge Middlebrooks. Here's the Palm Beach Post coverage:They're hailing Mary McCarty and flailing her...

U.S. Attorney's Office still keeping cooperation secret from public

Posted on June 01, 2009
Although Chief Judge Moreno and the rest of the SDFLA court have made plea agreements public again by allowing them to be accessed by PACER, the government is still attempting to keep cooperation agreements secret and off-line.A number of AUSAs and AFPDs have emailed me the new government policy when a defendant is cooperating: Just delete those sections* from the plea agreement and include them in a letter agreement, NOT FILED WITH THE COURT...

Killing your Friday afternoon...

Posted on May 29, 2009
And more fun Friday afternoon stuff here.

Ruining summer vacation

Posted on May 29, 2009
No one respects childhood anymore, you know? Nowadays, it's all about pushing and prodding the kids to get ahead of the brats next door or the Chinese or whomever. And now we're doing that to our incoming batch of UM 1Ls. This showed up in my inbox just about the time my SDFla blogging wrapped up: This summer we plan to use our orientation blog to begin to explore some ideas about the law through books and films...

Justice Scalia and Rumpole

Posted on May 28, 2009
Rumpole is getting all hot and bothered by Justice Scalia's recent decision in Montejo v. Louisiana, overruling Michigan v. Jackson. I don't agree with the result either, but I have taken issue with Rumpole's attack on Scalia as a "dangerous" Justice and with Rumpole's defense of stare decisis...

Congrats to Alex Acosta

Posted on May 27, 2009
NEW DEAN AT FIU!Congrats Alex.

"Alas, once a sea cow, always a sea cow."

Posted on May 27, 2009
I reproduce here for your reading pleasure section I of a motion to dismiss filed by John Kallen of Badiak, Will & Kallen, counsel for MarineMax in CLEAR MARINE VENTURES, LTD., v.BRUNSWICK CORP., etc., et al. The case is assigned to Judge Moreno....

A Hispanic judge is nominated to the Court...

Posted on May 26, 2009
...but alas not one from Florida. Sonia Sotomayor is the pick.... No real surprise here.I was rooting for Harvard (Elena Kagan) instead of Yale, but another spot will open up soon.Sotomayor has more courtroom experience (she was a prosecutor and a district judge) than any of the other justices and many are calling her the liberal Sam Alito (both went to Princeton and Yale, both were prosecutors, both were Circuit judges, and both were appointed by Bush I)...

Unbelievable

Posted on May 25, 2009
So dear readers, now that Helio Castroneves has won the Indy 500, Dancing with the Stars, and his federal criminal case, I have this question for you:What was more difficult to win?The Indy 500Dancing with the StarsFederal Criminal Case pollcode.com free polls

``The jury finds him not guilty, then he wins the pole position at Indy, and now the government drops the case completely..."

Posted on May 22, 2009
"...All he has to do now is win the race and climb the fence.''That's Roy Black's reaction after the government announced today that it would drop the final charge pending against Helio Castroneves. Jay Weaver has the details here.The government did the right thing, as I explained before:I would be really surprised if the feds chose to retry this one count...

It's Friday!

Posted on May 22, 2009
Long weekend ahead! Woohoooo! But the weather...... Looks like downtown is abandoned today, doesn't it? Just be careful driving this weekend, especially because Florida drivers rank 43rd out of the 50 states on driving knowledge. (New York is the worst...

"I've sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn't want to do it. I felt I owed it to them."

Posted on May 21, 2009
I don't know who Magistrate Wallace Dixon is (apparently he's from the Middle District of North Carolina) but I he's jumped up my favorite judge list. Apparently Rudy Giuiani's son, Andrew Giuliana, got kicked off the Duke golf team and sued in federal court for breach of contract...

Bonanno crew busted

Posted on May 21, 2009
Curt Anderson covers the infiltration of the South Florida crew here. The intro:An FBI agent posing as a crooked businessman with ties to shady bankers was key to the indictment announced Thursday of 11 people on charges they ran a South Florida racket for New York's Bonanno organized crime family...

The Sun-Sentinel sucks

Posted on May 19, 2009
I had a lot to post about tonight -- from Paris to dumb associates to heavy Cuban accents -- but instead I'm going to tell you how stupid the Sun-Sentinel is. That paper, which has always given the Herald a run for its money, had one of the young star reporters in South Florida: Vanessa Blum...

?While some of the tales of woe emanating from the court are enough to bring tears to the eyes...

Posted on May 18, 2009
...it is true that only Supreme Court justices and schoolchildren are expected to and do take the entire summer off.?That was John Roberts' response in 1983 to White House counsel Fred Fielding, who asked Roberts to evaluate a proposal then in circulation to create a kind of super appeals court to assist the Supreme Court with its ostensibly pressing workload...

Jay Weaver covers Liberty City verdict

Posted on May 17, 2009
Check out the interesting piece in the Herald today. Here's the intro:Did booting a holdout juror off the panel seal the fate of the Liberty City Six?That is a central issue in the courtroom documents released last week after the five guilty verdicts that attracted national attention...

"43 stun-gunned at prisons' Take Your Kids to Work Day"

Posted on May 16, 2009
For real!

Justice Moreno??

Posted on May 14, 2009
Obama's short list for filling Justice Souter's seat on the Supreme Court has been leaked. And there's a Moreno on the list. Unfortunately, it's not our Moreno -- it's California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno (that's him on the left). Here's the rest of list:Solicitor General Elena KaganMichigan Gov...

Sentencing question

Posted on May 13, 2009
So will the Liberty City 7 6 5 get more or less time than Jose Padilla? Remember that Judge Cooke sentenced Padilla to 17 years and his co-defendants to less time. (The over-under line was 20 years). Certainly the Liberty City defendants will be citing to Padilla's case and arguing that they should get way less time...

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