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, June 13, 2016

WHERE IS OUR BOBBY

Before we begin, a footnote- 87 people died by handgun violence on Monday, June 13, 2016. About an average day in the United States. About 32,500 people will die in 2016 from handgun violence. 
There are 88 guns for every 100 people in the United States. We have two variables here- deranged people and a proliferation of handguns. And because of the cowardice of politicians, we only want to discuss one of the two problems- and it's not the handguns. For shame.  "The hottest places hell are reserved for those, in times of moral crises, preserve their neutrality." 
President John F. Kennedy, misquoting Dante.  

WHERE IS OUR BOBBY?

In the "long, hot summer of 1967, snipers in Newark and Detroit fired upon police and firefighters. Cities burned.  In 1968, the Tet offensive showed that the war in Vietnam could not be won. Dr. Martin Luther King was killed. President Johnson sent tanks and troops into America's inner cites, and Southeast Asia. The times cried out for a leader who could speak to people of color who rioted in ghettos, and were lynched and murdered in the deep south for just trying to vote; students on protest lines, and white, blue-collar workers who feared them both. 

President Johnson wouldn't run for re-election. Always politically astute, Johnson knew he couldn't win and would probably not even be his party's nominee. 

Who could lead the county out of Vietnam, start the long and agonizing process of racial acceptance, and bring some peace and faith to a  white America bewildered at the anger and rage?  Could one man do this? Could any politician speak to everyone and speak the truth and not just say what people wanted to hear?  

Enter Bobby Kennedy. 

Today we  have troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and there is a humanitarian tragedy in Syria calling out for American leadership. The planet is overheating, threatening the survival of the next generation. School children are gunned down in mass murder, as are young gay people dancing at a nightclub, and every-day workers at their job. Radical Islamist terrorists are shooting people in France and trying to strike the United States again. Families are working two and three part and full time jobs just to pay their rent or mortgage. 

The country and the world are in crisis. It is a time for leadership. 

Where is our Bobby Kennedy? 

CHAOS IN BROWARD? 

According to the JAA Broward Blog here, judges running for re-election are out, as are the judges who are supposed to be covering for the judges running for re-election. Morale is at an all time low (What do you expect? It's Broweird.).  And the chief judge won't return anyone's phone calls and spends his time planning lunches for visiting 4th DCA judges. 
What to do? 
As if we care.  It's Broweird. 

See you in court. 




21 comments:

Anonymous said...

If the Orlando shooter doesn't represent all Muslims, why does he represent all gun owners. Liberal logic...

The Professor said...

Crying out for Bobby Kennedy is almost a daily event for me.

Anonymous said...

Whither Brexit Horace? And how should one play the markets as it approaches?

Rumpole said...

Brexit won't occur. Just got back from London today. It won't happen.

7:27- the Orlando shooter doesn't represent all gun owners. What he is a glaring example of is a derranged person who could waltz into a gun store and buy and automatic rifle which is designed only to kill a whole lot of people quickly. Not for hunting. Not for target practice. Not for protection but to kill.

Your attitude, which lead to the mass shooting at a school and in Orlando is typical of a neanderthal gun owner and it will never change until a nut with an AR kills someone close to you who was at a movie or shopping or at church or a football game. Until then, you and your NRA pals will shout about the second amendment.

What you can't see is that he doesn't represent all Muslims or gun owners. What he does represent is what a mentally ill person can do in America in 2016.

BTW- 93 more GSW deaths today. Just an average day in the United States. Hope that gun feels good under your pillow.

Anonymous said...

Interesting. Last time i checked, murder was illegal in every state in the US. That didn't seem to stop this guy. What makes you think tougher restrictions on possession of rifles by law abiding people would have stopped him? Let's say this guy decided to strap a bomb around his waist and kill not 50 but 100 people. Would you be advocating a ban on the raw materials that are used to make these devices? Of course not.

Anonymous said...

Sorry Rump, but the AR 15 he purchased is not a fully auto weapon, it's a semi-auto. This means he would have to pull the trigger on the AR15 just as many times as on the any other semi-auto handgun, which are most handguns except revolvers and a few specialty guns. Keep in mind he had a G-license which even allowed him to open carry, let alone conceal carry.

That said, he clearly had a mental illness and that needs to be the focus.

Anonymous said...

Publish the crime scene photos and see if the American people can still stomach their gun addiction.

Anonymous said...

Zero. Reset the clock. Zero days since an Islamic attack on America. See Texas Walmart violence.

Anonymous said...

7:27 - what exactly is your point? Can you finish a thought? Of course he does not represent all gun owners. He does not even represent all bigots. Most gun owners however do not go out and buy AR-15's. Is it any coincidence that all of these mass shootings involve more than just simple hand guns? Most of us liberals agree with your right to have gun. We just cannot see why it is necessary for an average citizen to have AK-47's and AR-15's. That is the over-riding liberal logic that you are attempting to discredit.

Anonymous said...

We can discuss why nobody needs an AR15, but is that some sort of new Constitutional standard. Where does the "need" standard fall. Is it something less than rational basis, because I never learned that one in law school.

While we are at it, why does anyone need a lawyer if they did nothing wrong? Why should anyone insist on a warrant if there is nothing to hide?

The cops could have tortuted this terrorist and probably prevented this by getting a confession. Or maybe they could have indefinitely detained him until they gathered proof of a crime.

Why not make it a crime to express anything remotely like praise or sympathy for Islamic terrorists.

I'm sorry, I thought this was a blog for Constituitoonal lawyers. If you want to talk expedient solutions, there are plenty of practical solutions that would be highly effective.

Anonymous said...

Ah yes!! Bobby Kennedy, that liberal pure of soul and heart who would have slayed all that is bad in this world had he not been gunned down in a hotel kitchen in 1968. Before we all genuflect to this after the fact hagiography, the record should bear out that:
1. RFK worked for Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn. McCarthy was a world class nut case who had a wild imagination about the US Army being controlled by communists. But RFK, who should have known better, went along for the ride to bolster his and his brother's anti Red bona fides.
2. RFK illegally tapped MLK's phones at the behest of J Edgar Hoover, another crackpot right up there with McCarthy, whom he and his brother feared more than any man on earth.
3. RFK was responsible for the attempted sabotage of MLK's I Have A Dream speech. Justice Department henchmen tried to cut the speaker wires during the speech. They were not successful. Got this tidbit of info from an interview of Bayard Rustin.
4. And finally, RFK hated LBJ for reasons that I could never fathom. They were both philanderers, liars, and purveyors of the black arts of politics. But for real insight into what type of person our "Bobby" was, check out Robert Caro's biography of LBJ. Give RFK some credit for never actually shitting all over LBJ to humiliate him but he did just about everything else. Nice guy!

Anonymous said...

Those wanting to ban guns or allow heavy governmental regulation of guns are no doubt well-intentioned. What they are not is influenced at all by the Founding Father's intense, experiential distrust of governmental tyranny.

It's funny that so many of them are apparently defense attorneys, because we wouldnt have a career were it not for this same intense distrust. Proof BRD is an absurdly high standard, when crime is pernicious. It would be so much easier and make things so much safer for the 90% of people who follow the law to just lower that standard.

And it might save some lives (though after the UK ban on handguns murder went up!) to ban guns or some types of guns.

But our fathers were terrified of giving government that much power. And that fear permeated every decision they made.

Today's liberals do not share that fear. At all.

They may be right or wrong about government, but it's worth pointing this out. They have a remarkably different starting point and world view, and this explains the enormous cognitive dissonance. If government can generally be trusted and should be the solution of first resort, then of course -- why wouldnt you grant government the power to ban guns?

Anonymous said...

It sounds like none of you have ever fired an assault rifle. If you have and you still think you should be able to own one, you just like your toy and feeling like a bad ass child.

There is a huge difference between the damage that someone can do on a crowd with an assault rifle compared to a handgun. It is just not the same thing.

1) An assault rifle has reduced recoil
2) It has much greater accuracy at short, medium, and long range
3) You can easily put a "bump fire" stock on an AR-15 (completely legal) and effectively make it an automatic rifle (see the internet and youtube)
4) You can legally buy a 150 ROUND magazine for an AR-15 (see the internet)

What do you want, need, or anything a killing machine like that for. You might as well give people hand grenades. How do assault rifles in the hands of civilians make this a better country? The Russians aren't really going to invade like in "Red Dawn" people.

Anonymous said...

Judge that had PD handcuffed to teach her a lesson loses election. 😀


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/conrad-hafen-judge-loses_us_57618da5e4b09c926cfdd61f?section=

Anonymous said...

5:53 p.m., please inform yourself with accurate information and first hand knowledge before repeating ignorant myths and misconceptions about firearms. Perhaps you should get the CD from one of the CLE seminars taught by Tom Cobitz and Ricky Gomez on firearm laws so that you don't make statements like the ones in your comment that demonstrate an utter lack of knowledge on the subject.

AR-15's are not automatic weapons. They are semiautomatcs that fire one round per pull of the trigger. The M-16's and M-4's used by the military are fully automatic true assault weapons but are highly restricted and unavailable to most civilians. AR-15's look outwardly like M-16's but the mechanism of fire is totally different. Contrary to your non-factual assertions, AR-15's are used by their tens of millions of owners mainly for target practice at ranges. They are also used for protection of homes and businesses and many police agencies issue them to their officers for defensive use. AR-15's are used for hunting small game with the required 5-eound magazine. They are classified as modern sporting rifles not as "assault" weapons as the media likes to falsely portray. Contrary to your assertion, AR-15's are not "designed to kill a whole lot of people quickly". They fire .223/5.56x45mm cartridges witb small and light bullets, usually 55 grains in weight and with full-metal jackets which have a much lower lethality than larger hunting and, even, handgun rounds. That is the reason why more than half of the victims shot survived and why it takes 2 to 3 shots of that ammo to kill a person.

Re-read your post and you will see that, while exudeing plenty of emotion, it is wanting in logic and reason.

Anonymous said...

8:29, your left-wing statist "logic" is based on the collectivistic idea that, somehow, some "enlightened elites" in government can paternalistically abrogate for themselves the "right" to choose for others how to exercise a constitutional right. That blind "logic" does not allow you to see facts like most gun owners do buy AR-15's and all kinds of semiautomatic modern sporting rifles including AK-47's , the vast majority of which are used for sport and are never used to hurt anyone. Look up the FBI statistics and you will see how facts, like the fact that rifles of all types are used in a very small fraction of homicides, destroy your left-wing "logic". Look in the mirror and ask yourself who do you think you are to come up with the wholly illiberal "logic" to try to impose your preferences on others and force them to buy/not buy the product that you believe they should buy/not buy.

Anonymous said...


Rump. You got your stats wrong on handgun violence. The number you gave of 32,000 are the number of deaths by firearm in a calendar year. But two out of every three of those, about 21,000 are suicides. The other 11,000 are homicides. Of course that number is just as unacceptable. I am all four a ban on assault weapons in our country. Limiting the amount of bullets in a clip is another way to legislate. California has done that.

Anonymous said...

8:48 is absolutely right. Publish crime scene photos of slaughtered children at Sandy Hook and see if the NRA can justify the "need" and "right" to own a military inspired weapon.

Anonymous said...

Solution to DUI: limit the amount of alcohol a person can buy and punish straw buyers of liquor or beer. Limit the number of horsepower and cylinders a vehicle's engine can have. Put an interlock in every car with a GPS to report to police where the vehicle is and also install a cannabis smoke detector that reports in real time to police. Force every driver to give DNA to test for alcoholism genes before getting a driver license. That's the same logic of those taht would ban weapons by type and limit magazine capacity.

Kissimmee Kid said...

“Put an interlock in every car.” This jerk is trying to be funny, but the question is why don’t we put an interlock into every car?

DUI is an engineering problem. We have one ton machines that move a mile in a minute. The machine operators tend to use substances that impair their ability to safely run said machines, causing damage to persons and property. Do we, as a society, say to the machine’s builders, “hey, we know drunks are gonna want to drive these things, figure out how to stop them?” No. We give the task to lawyers. Stupid. Our solution is to have impaired people make good decisions. THEY CAN’T - THEY ARE IMPAIRED!

Every car should be designed so that drunks can’t drive them. The problem is one of engineering and design; not one of laws and legislation.

Anonymous said...

10:14 - show me a pic of everyone who overdosed on drugs last year. Maybe that'll convince me the war on drugs is working....