Federal Judiciary

Gustav, Hanna & Ike

Posted on September 01, 2008
Shouldn't we be able to stop these things? Apparently they stopped trying in the 60s, but now they are trying again.

Labor Day

Posted on September 01, 2008
If you are working (like I am), then the good news is that Starbucks is open. Bad news -- the parking ticket guys are out in force.

Maybe I need to rethink this appointment thing...

Posted on August 28, 2008
...after this.

"People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."

Posted on August 27, 2008
What an awesome line by Bill Clinton at the DNC tonight.

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Live blogging the fire alarm

Posted on August 27, 2008
So we were in a hearing with Judge Seitz when the fire alarm went off. And we only had 60 seconds until the hearing was over. Ahh, the new courthouse gremlins at work.

"Two words, your honor,Not guilty."

Posted on August 26, 2008
That was Charles Kuck said in his opening statement to Immigration Judge Kenneth Hurewitz for his client Lyglenson Lemorin. You remember Lemorin -- he was the one defendant who was acquitted from the Liberty City 7 trial (Joel DeFabio was his lawyer)...

Election Day

Posted on August 25, 2008
Tuesday is election day for state judges in Miami. As I look through the information available about most of the candidates, I become more convinced that the federal appointment system is superior.

Cracking the guidelines

Posted on August 22, 2008
Last year the Sentencing Commission retroactively amended the crack guidelines. But what happens when a defendant was sentenced as a career offender? Here's the Law.com article discussing how the 11th Circuit oral argument from the 5 consolidated cases (4 from Judge Hurley, 1 from Judge Middlebrooks) went in Atlanta today:Today, two of the most controversial issues in sentencing law -- the length of sentences for crack cocaine offenders and judges' ability to go outside the federal sentencing guidelines -- will intersect in arguments at a federal appeals court panel sitting in Atlanta...

"A rising legal star in Miami agrees to plea bargain involving mail fraud, laundering charges "

Posted on August 21, 2008
That's the headline from the National Law Journal article about Richard Simring. Here's the intro:A rising Miami legal star and community activist has quietly agreed to a plea deal in which he has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering in connection with his role as in-house counsel to an indicted billionaire businessman...

Tough times

Posted on August 21, 2008
From AboveTheLaw (which has a new editor):* It looks like 2008 will be the worst year for law firms since 2001. The American Lawyer says the "silver lining" is that firms can "winnow out unproductive lawyers and apply greater discipline to expense control...

Random questions from the last two days

Posted on August 19, 2008
Did you work on Monday and Tuesday this week?Yes, I went to the office both daysYes, I worked from homeNo, I played Guitar Hero at home Free polls from Pollhost.comAnd for the comments:How many billable hours were lost in the rain?Did BigLaw make their secretaries work?Should the federal courts track the school closures?If the court is closed, should you be able to e-file motions?

Federal court in Miami closed Monday & Tuesday

Posted on August 17, 2008
UPDATE -- because the SDFLA tracks Dade County Schools, Miami federal court will be closed Tuesday.Here's the notice from the court website:AUGUST 17, 2008, 7:30 p.m.Federal District Court Operations and Tropical Storm FayThe U.S. District Courthouses in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Monroe Counties will be closed on Monday, August 18, in accordance with Administrative Order 2007-44...

Rain

Posted on August 14, 2008
That was some storm this afternoon, no?It wasn't this bad:But apparently there was an F-1 tornado. Pics here.

Happy Birthday Judge P

Posted on June 13, 2008
We celebrated Judge Peter Palermo's 90th birthday at the new federal courthouse today. Yes, that's 90 years old. Chief Judge Moreno spoke as did Chief Magistrate Judge Bandstra. Lots of federal judges and lawyers were there to smile with Judge P, the very first magistrate in the United States(!!)...

In Defense of Kozinski

Posted on June 13, 2008
Even though the LA Times broke the Alex Kozinski story, it now runs an op-ed defending him. I agree that he should respond by saying "So what." This has been way way way overblown. Here's the op-ed in its entirety:Judge Alex Kozinski's statements about the stash of sexually explicit images he collected and that the public (until this week) could view on his website have been varied, although not necessarily inconsistent: He thought the site was for private storage and offered no public access (although he shared some of the material on the site with friends)...

Update on Kozinski

Posted on June 12, 2008
Above the Law has all the details here, including that Judge Alex Kozinski has suspended the trial for 48 hours to figure out what to do, and an email from Kozinski himself:David [Lat]: I can't comment on the trial.As for the other matter, the server was maintained by my son, Yale, for the entire family...

Former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell

Posted on June 12, 2008
Fascinating article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell who is serving a 30 month sentence for tax evasion. Apparently the Mayor tried to get out of prison early by faking an alcohol problem. In federal prison, you can be released early if you have a drug or alcohol problem (and otherwise qualify)and participate in an intensive rehab program...

Should a federal judge....

Posted on June 11, 2008
...post porn pictures on his personal website (when he is about to start an obscenity trial)? That's the debate after Judge Alex Kozinski did so in United States v. Ira Isaacs, a trial starting this morning. According to the LA Times:One of the highest-ranking federal judges in the United States, who is currently presiding over an obscenity trial in Los Angeles, has maintained a publicly accessible website featuring sexually explicit photos and videos...

Correct result?

Posted on June 11, 2008
Sean Conway has agreed to settle his bar case for calling Judge Aleman on the Broward Blog an "evil, unfair witch" for a public reprimand, the Sun-Sentinel has reported here (hat tip Rumpole). When the case was first brought, Fred Haddad, Conway's lawyer, said "If the state court is not sensible enough to dismiss this piece of shit, it will end up in federal court...

Plug

Posted on June 10, 2008
So, usually I don't blog about my cases, but I am making an exception here because the case is going to the Southern District of New York and because it got some press on the excellent White Collar Crime Blog here:With unemployment high, with people desperate for jobs, we may be seeing more instances of alleged puffing or fraud in the job search process...

Devil's Advocate

Posted on June 09, 2008
One of my favorite tipster's pointed out this listing in the Florida Bar News Classified section on Friday:DEVIL?S ADVOCATE - Every lawyer needs another lawyer to bounce ideas off of, and even to be a devil?s advocate, challenging your ideas even more thoroughly and incisively than your opposing lawyer would...

News and Notes

Posted on June 06, 2008
1. Ken Jenne's days in prison. (via Miami Herald and Sun-Sentinel). From Dan Christensen: Once Broward's most powerful politician, ex-Sheriff Ken Jenne now spends his days raising vegetables in the garden of a federal prison camp in rural Virginia...

Cuban Spy decision from 11th...

Posted on June 04, 2008
... is here.Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it's a 1-1-1 opinion. Pryor writes opinion affirming convictions and vacating sentences for 3 defendants. Birch concurs, but states that case should go to Supreme Court on venue issue and that murder issue is very close...

Katherine Harris upset by Laura Dern's portrayal

Posted on June 03, 2008
After my post about the HBO movie Recount yesterday, I received an email from Suzanne Schmidt, Joe Klock's PR person, informing me that he and Katherine Harris would be on Hannity & Colmes to "discuss[] how Harris was unfairly portrayed in the film and how the film could be nothing further from the truth...

More trouble for Kuehne prosecution and other lawyer news

Posted on June 03, 2008
In what already looks like a doomed prosecution against attorney Ben Kuehne, it just got tougher. Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided Cuellar v. United States, which holds (9-0 per Thomas) that the federal money-laundering statue did not require proof of ?appearance of legitimate wealth? and the statute could not be satisfied solely by evidence that a defendant concealed funds during transportation...

Recount

Posted on June 02, 2008
So I finally got around to the HBO movie Recount on my TiVo. I really enjoyed it. It threw me back to those days in 2000 when I was attached to the TV watching the twists and turns of the bitter election fight between Bush and Gore. I actually had dreams (nightmares) last night after watching the film...

Judge Highsmith to retire at the end of the year

Posted on May 30, 2008
So we were one year off in our prediction.John Pacenti covers the latest news here. We will have more on Judge Highsmith soon. We also send our condolences to friend of blog, Dore Louis, for the passing of his father Paul Louis. Like Dore, Paul was quite a character and quite a lawyer...

I'm back!

Posted on May 28, 2008
I admit it -- I was on vacation and just got back late last night... That's the reason for the slow blogging. I'm catching up on mail, DBRs, email, and so on. Ahhh, the joy of returning to work. Just a quick skim of the inbox shows that there are some really interesting things going on -- John Pacenti had a great article in yesterday's DBR about attorney's fees in criminal cases, and in today's DBR, Billy Shields discusses how the Justice Building Blog broke a fascinating story about the removal of a state prosecutor from a homicide investigation...

NYT: should we elect or appoint our judges?

Posted on May 27, 2008
The New York Times had an interesting piece this weekend concerning an issue we've discussed on this Blog before -- whether judges should be elected or appointed. Adam Liptak's article contains pretty good arguments as to why judges should be appointed, which is our position as well...

DNC lawsuit

Posted on May 24, 2008
From the Miami Herald:Florida's history of discrimination against African Americans should force the national Democratic Party to count all of the state's delegates at its national convention, a federal lawsuit filed Thursday claims.The suit, filed by state Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller and two other Democrats, claims that the federal Voting Rights Act prohibits the national party from stripping the state of its convention delegates as punishment for violating party rules by holding its primary too early...

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