JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG

WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL RICHARD E GERSTEIN JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG. THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO JUSTICE BUILDING RUMOR, HUMOR, AND A DISCUSSION ABOUT AND BETWEEN THE JUDGES, LAWYERS AND THE DEDICATED SUPPORT STAFF, CLERKS, COURT REPORTERS, AND CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS WHO LABOR IN THE WORLD OF MIAMI'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE. POST YOUR COMMENTS, OR SEND RUMPOLE A PRIVATE EMAIL AT HOWARDROARK21@GMAIL.COM. Winner of the prestigious Cushing Left Anterior Descending Artery Award.

Monday, January 04, 2010

BACK TO WORK

Shooting at LV federal courthouse. One security officer (former police officer) dead. One suspect dead. David Markus working on a blog post as we write this.

BROWARD BLOG UPDATE ON JUDGE HURLEY- CONTEMPT SENTENCE REDUCED TO CTS.
Ooops - by now, everyone's seen The Daily Pulp's piece on Judge Hurley's wedding, which also took the good Judge to task for slamming cocky Defendant Brian Noval with a four month contempt of court sentence. Well, it turns out we could have saved two of our favorite FOB's (friends of the Blog) a bit of embarrassment, if we hadn't been so lazy. If only we'd followed up on the widespread media exposure regarding Noval's chicken flavored comments, we could have told Bob that Hurley had mitigated the sentence down to time served just a few days later, having clearly made his point. Instead, we had to find out Sunday evening, in no uncertain terms, that the kid was released a long time ago, long before The Pulp called about the nuptials. Our apologies to both, since the whole issue could have been avoided, and since we should have known a mitigation was inevitable. Chalk it up to being fat and giddy on an overabundance of free Holiday Continuances ..


After two weeks of miniscule calendars and nothing much going on, it's back to work on Monday. A new year with new resolutions. Some have vowed to try more cases and some have vowed to be a little bit fairer with defendants. As the Captain points out, this is an election year, and at least one Judge (Adrien) has two challengers and counting. Your reap what you sow, eh?

But with all the hope a new year brings, it's business as usual North of the Border where Bob Norman of the Daily Pulp recently reported on Broward Judge Hurley's hissy fit over the Broward Blog's reporting of Hurley's marriage to a courthouse cafeteria worker. (Talk about "marrying up"....Hurley that is.) Hurley called the police (but we doubt he dialed 911) to complain about the Broward Blog's reporting of his impending marriage. This is the same Judge Hurley (recently appointed by Charlie Crist with a ringing endorsement by Scott Rothstein, and a large donation by Rothstein to the State Republican party within days of the appointment) who gave a man 6o days and then another 60 days for contempt of court during a bond hearing. CBS4 of Denver (of all places) has the story here on Hurley's other hissy fit. The Defendant expressed surprise about being held no bond and an increase in charges. Rather than the Judge understanding the natural disappointment of a person being incarcerated without bond, and rather than the Judge showing the experience and temperament we expect of a Circuit Court Judge to deal with a defendant having a bad time in court, the judge came down hard and then twice as hard on the unsuspecting defendant who cursed after being held without bond.

Can you spell J-U-D-I-C-I-A-L- T-E-M-P-E-R-A-M-E-N-T? Neither can Judge Hurley. But you'd better believe he'd love to give us 120 days for having the temerity to speak out about him. First amendment be damned.

Well, we already broke one of our New Year's Resolutions (#5- Give Broward a second chance) so we'd better stop before we break the other 5.

Still out west, but some movement on a plea.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really don't have a problem with the judge holding that defendant in contempt. I'm sorry, but I'm tired of the permissiveness that makes offenders like that one think they can curse at judges and call them names in open court.

I've seen defendants and attorneys call judges idiots, curse loud enough for everyone to hear, turn their backs on judges, etc. It is (or at least should be) unacceptable. The sentence was longer than what I would've preferred, but it doesn't offend me. I know several very well respected current and former Miami-Dade judges (and some not so well respected but nonetheless good judges) that would have done the same.

BTDT

Anonymous said...

There is a civil procedure CLI coming up and guess who the teacher is? Adrien! I'd like to learn a new area, but....

Anonymous said...

Judicial Temperament,now that's a concept we could use in Miami-Dade county. How about some of these Judges realizing that they are PUBLIC SERVANTS??? New concept? No. Forgotten conpcept? Yes. Needed concept? Very much so.

Anonymous said...

OK but, many of us have had very good relations with Judge Hurley.

i was surprised to hear there was a problem.

He has been more than fair with my clients.

Anonymous said...

rump: as Ernie Yokum use to say,"plead em"

Anonymous said...

Rump,

Pull the last comment or fix it. Take out the last sentence about Yokum being possibly dead.

Yokum is listed as alive with the Bar.

I apologize. I should have checked first.

Rumpole said...

NO HARM- NO FOUL. Any comment referencing Ernie Yokum is welcome. I would add one thing- I read your comment mistakenly announcing that Ernie had passed away, and regarding why Judge Solomon appointed Ernie on many cases- i would say Judge Solomon was a wonderful man and had a soft spot for Ernie and just wanted to help him and not for any other reason. Judge Solomon tried many many big cases, - read the opinions in the Dieter Reichman case. Judge Solomon was the trial judge in that and many other long and important murder cases. Albert San Pedro as well, I believe. Anyway, it's nice to start the year off with an Ernie comment.

Anonymous said...

Dead link alert!

" CBS4 of Denver (of all places) has the story here on Hurley's other hissy fit. "

Dead link alert!

Rumpole said...

The link works.

C.L.J. said...

The link does not work in the original location, but it DOES work if you use it in the Comments section: something's broke in Blogger. It's adding something to the URL in the body of the main blog.

But no need to go to Denver, anyway, since the story originated locally:
http://cbs4.com/watercooler/bond.aggravated.judge.2.1376845.html