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.

Saturday, April 02, 2011

NO FOOLIN

Yes, the email on the blog yesterday was an April Fools prank.
No, we will not be paying tolls to enter the REGJB anytime in the near future.

How long did it take before you realized you were being pranked? Be honest.


Congratulations to your new County Court Judge: ASA Legal Eagle Fluer Lobree was appointed to the county court by Governor Rick Scott, who immediately told her to get to work. A news article on Ms. Lobree is here. Note the Rudy Sorondo connection.

If you follow us on Twitter you already know this, but the SAO and PD are up in arms over proposed budget cuts. The Herald has the story here.

Enjoy your weekend.

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

Three years from now when the offices are in complete disarray, cases are being screwed up left and right and society pays the price with increased crime rates and innocents going to jail ...........

everyone will blame Kathy and Carlos.

Sickening.

You get what you pay for. The SAO and PDO already are under-resourced and struggling to attract and retain decent lawyers. I just hope the public is smart enough to hold the jokers cutting the budgets accountable when things really get bad.

BTDT

Anonymous said...

Lobree is a fine person and will be a good judge.

Anonymous said...

Rick Scott is the only governor who could make me remember the days of jeb bush fondly. This guy is the biggest moron we have ever had in higher office in this state.

The state GOP program is a fraud. keep cutting taxes in a state that already has the lowest taxes. then claim there is a crisis that demands we anally rape state workers and the poor.

a disgrace.

Anonymous said...

BTDT
Unforetuneately the public at large does not seem to care how under funder and under staffed the offices are. Gov't is seen as an enemy , as evil and State employees as useless bloodsuckers at the public trough
DS

Anonymous said...

BTDT,

What makes you think three years will pass before we see disarray? How about three months!!??

Anonymous said...

Great...more judges that know more about trials from reading them than from participating in them....and NO, sitting there silently while another ASA handles EVERYTHING is not "trying a case."

Secret Judge said...

As a sitting judge here in Dade County over many years, I observed incredible wasteful expenditures of money on a daily basis for needless evaluations and expert witnesses who submitted overly inflated bills. I routinely cut these bills, which infuriated many, and outraged others. Now there is no more money. Now everyone is upset, but the truth of the matter is that the gravy train never lasts forever. So the question now becomes, what are YOU doing to keep costs down, as well as what have you done in the past. Maybe you just made your own bed, so now go lie in it.

Anonymous said...

Was it the late Tom Carney who said
"Drive for show....putt for dough." ???

Rumpole said...

Quick question Secret Judge- just which clients should the PDs office not try so hard for? Just which clients should they skimp on? WHo should choose which clients get expert assistance and which are not worthy of expenditure of public funds?

Anonymous said...

It wasn't Carney. It was Dan Lurvey. Its the slogan on his website.

Anonymous said...

Rump,

I wonder if "SECRET JUDGE" has the same venom for his lazy colleagues who refused to try cases, allow their audits to grow to astronomical numbers because of their laziness and call it a day everyday after the morning calender. Many of the judges in our circuit work at most 20 hours a week and collect $140K. How about we tie their pay the to the amount of cases they try and their docket management?

Anonymous said...

Rump, the judge is talking about police officers. Cutting their overinflated salaries would help the tax payers.

Secret Judge said...

Rump, you miss my point. The PD should make max effort on all its clients, but an expert from California when an equal one exists in Florida. Any way you shake it, that's an extravagance. You still want the dude from California, fine - but don't get bent out of shape when the system goes broke and your salary is being cut.

Secret Judge said...

Oh by the way, the phrase "Drive for Show, etc. was first used by the legendary Sam Snead.

Rumpole said...

Fair enough mysterious judge. What you wrote initially came out wrong. There are no "equal experts" as there are no equal lawyers or judges. Everyone has their own strenght and weaknesses. But your point is well taken and the system has been abused by those who are now complaining. I suggest you stop appointing the Pd for those people who have houses, cars and bling. There are enough private lawyers available to do most of the work at a reasonable price. The whole pd, pcac, regional counsel system is bloated and needs to be cut back.

Ok- let the attacks begin on poor ol rumpole.

Anonymous said...

The PD gets appointed routinely at jail arraignments in misdemeanors and traffic cases. In order to increase the statistics for budgetary purposes, the PDO immediately files a notice of appearance with written plea of not guilty, and demand discovery and jury trial, even in cases where the state will not be seeking jail and they will be discharged (1st DUI's for example) before a formal arraignment date is even set. The clerk, based on the written plea immediately cancels arraignment and puts the case in "to be set for jury trial status". After bonding out, the defendant hires a private attorney who now has to deal with the PDO's understaffed division to get the discovery. Needless to say, with that statistical-budgetary maneuver, the PD has eliminated frome the speedy-trial period the three or four weeks between arrest and arraignment.

Secret Judge said...

To 5:44 - Absolutely yes. In fact more so. The cruel truth is that most of the judges serving (and I use that word loosely) are horribly under qualified and vastly overpaid. I once took over a division where the previous judge left a jury in the jury room while she was getting her hair done. She left me 80 page calendars and C cases that had as many as 17 previous continuances. I put an end to that shit fast. Another cruel truth is that most of my ass holy colleagues can't wait to escape Criminal and get transferred to General Jurisdiction so they can advance their pathetic careers. With the exception of Murphy and maybe 3 or 4 others, the entire Criminal Court bench is a sham of a mockery of a fraud. ( See Woody Allen in 'Bananas') It is incumbent on our experienced defense bar to seek judicial office and remember why many of us became lawyers in the first place. Good old fashioned Altruism. Not money, not prestige, not power, but a desire to be of real service to the community, and to have the balls to say NO when you esteemed lawyers keep asking for continuances. I say, let's pick 6 if you got the cojones to go to trial. See ya in Court.

Anonymous said...

I knew Lurvey didn't come up with that line. I'm pretty sure it is older than he is.

Tea Party Ted said...

Government lawyer are evil. PDs are really evil, ASAs just sorta evil.

We hate you. Go away and die.

Anonymous said...

I know of a court reporter who would get a TRX Request Form signed by the judge for a plea hearing and when a jury trial was appealed, this court reporter would be paid the appeal rate for the 0+2 out of the appeal fund and then another 0+1 out of the judges' fund from the TRX Request Form. This court reporter did it for years and saw nothing wrong with it.

Anonymous said...

We're bitching about the budget, but what is Carlos and KFR doing about it? I see lip service in the paper but can anyone say who they have lobbied or met with?

Anonymous said...

To his credit, Carlos has spent most of the last two weeks in Tally...hopefully not holed up in a hotel watching March Madness.

FACDL list serve leaker said...

Secret Judge is exactly right, and you know it in your hearts.

And here's the thing -- keep cutting judicial pay and benes, and the "Mommy Bench" will continue to grow. That and judges who have only ever been at the SAO. (And how is that working out for you?)

I have a buddy at big law. They are getting regular calls from some of the best people on the bench looking to bail out. He has heard from half a dozen judges since Scott was sworn in.

This is going to get bad bad bad.

Anonymous said...

FIRST they came for the teachers, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a teacher.

THEN they came for the State Employees, but I didn't speak out because I wasn't a State Employee.

THEN they came for the Judges, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Judge.

THEN they came for me, and there was NO ONE left to speak out for me.

Rick Scott and the 2011 Florida Republican Legislature are scary people. We cannot forget history.

Anonymous said...

Secret Judge, 5:44 here. I cannot say I disagree with a word you said. See you in court and lets pick 6!

Anonymous said...

Read Hiaasen today? It would be very funny if not so true..lol while crying.
DS

Today’s lackluster assemblage in Tallahassee is possibly the worst in modern times, and cannot fairly be compared to anything except a rodeo of phonies and pimps. It’s impossible to remember a governor and lawmakers who were more virulently anti-consumer, and more slavishly submissive to big business.

The list of who’s getting screwed in the state budget battle is long and sadly familiar: the schools, college students, foster children, the poor, the elderly, the sick and the jobless. The happiest faces, of course. belong to lobbyists for corporations, insurance companies and utilities, who are getting almost everything they want.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/02/v-fullstory/2147592/the-best-legislature-money-can.html#

Anonymous said...

Fleur Lobree a judge.

Maybe this Governor really is looking for qualified people and not just friends of high powered Cuban Republicans?

Fleur has absolutely no politcal connections. She is a rather good lawyer who is probably too smart to be in Kounty Kourt.

Anonymous said...

and the cubans just keeping walking into the booth and pulling the lever for anyone with an R next to their name because they prattle on about Castro. Wake the F up!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

all you republicans out there should sit in a chair lean back and jerk off your yourselves for electing this fucking criminal turd as governor.

you all make me sick. i wish we could re-do the civil war. now that there is no slavery let all you ignorant motherfuckers have your own country. See how far you would get. You morons love to whine about taxes yet all the red states that vote for gop morons contribute less to the federal treasury than they take out of it. you could look it up.

Anonymous said...

O.K. Guys. We are all lawyers, and we have an obligation to treat the court fairly. I am in that building as frequently as any of my colleagues. I do not see 20 hour per week judges, but frankly, if they can handle those calendars in less than 40 hours per week, God bless them. While we are taking potshots at our criminal court judges, check round the state where the same money as is earned by our judges is paid to judges with six to 10 items on morning calendar.
I think I am a snob when it comes to talent. To suggest that we only have five or six good judges is just nonsense. I don't think we have five or six bad ones. I do not like a few of them and think some are inexperienced or mean-spirited or nasty, but all in all, I think we have a good bench. If we don’t like what one of them says, we ought not piss on the entire pile.
What we should do is to urge our judges and Kathy to get rid of the crap - refuse to prosecute the cases used by our brave boys in blue to pile up their overtime and their frequent flier miles to Hell, and focus our attention to getting the serious cases to trial, with all rights protected, and get the really bad guys off of the streets
.

Anonymous said...

Secrect Judge is Zwieg couldnt be Tunis

Anonymous said...

So I was lucky to find a parking spot in Lot 26 @ 9:30 in the morning (I was stuck in a line of cop cars when the guy right in front of me backed out of his space to which I quickly pulled in) only to be confronted by one of the county's finest in a marked patrol car blocking my car and asking if I was an 'offica'. I indicated that I was a paying customer and went on my way but it was quite clear she wanted me to move my car and let her park there.

The invasion continues...