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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.

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

THE CONSCIENCE OF A CONSERVATIVE

When in due course of human events a woman is faced with career choice that sets her values against her goals...

We are guided by the principle that all it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to remain silent and do nothing.

What should a talented lawyer/judge do when a person of such low values and intellect who occupies the highest office in the land offers them a career defining job like the US Attorney For the Southern District Of Florida?

Gaary Wills, writing in this month's Vanity Fair as one of a group of authors who are presidential historians, finishes his article on Trump thusly:

"People who have crawled to him are feeling the sickness of shame...More people must resign from office on principle. More people must explain why they refused his offers of government jobs. He degrades women. He degrades races and religions. He degrades us."

What would a person of high moral character, integrity, and intelligence like Judge Ariana Fajardo-Orshan  do as US Attorney? Would she enforce immigration policies that deport Dreamers- many of them young, Hispanic men and women who are good Americans in all but legal name only?  Would she follow the recommendations of Attorney General Sessions and seek maximum incarceration penalties for marijuana cases? Would she subvert the property rights of Americans by enforcing the new and draconian forfeiture laws that Sessions seeks to enforce? Can a conservative, knowing that the Philosopher Ayn Rand persuasively wrote that property rights are the foundation of all rights, seek to deprive citizens of their property based on the suspicious innuendo of the police state?

At the end of WWII, Dwight Eisenhower supported the prosecution of all Nazis to the end that two million Germans were prosecuted and one million were convicted of crimes associated with joining the Nazi party.  Eisenhower knew that National Socialism could not have succeeded without the cooperation of the middle class professionals. The college professors who took over from their jailed Jewish colleagues. The lawyers who prosecuted laws against Jews and the Judges who found the Jews guilty. The shop owners who refused to serve them, the business men who bought the Jewish businesses for pennies on the dollar when Jews were prohibited from owning businesses.
All of them profited from the turn of events of Germany in the 1930's. All of them turned a blind eye to the rantings of the Chancellor of Germany and accepted the professional and business opportunities their mad times dropped in their laps.

Will our next US Attorney lend her imprimatur to the xenophobic  policies of our President who seeks to ban people based on their race and religion? Will she seek fines designed to pay for a wall on the Mexican border?

Will any person of good conscience accept any job- Judge, prosecutor, government bureaucrat from a man who called the white-supremacist protesters in Charlotte "Good people"?

Turning down the offer of a dream job may hurt. But some day, when your daughter or granddaughter asks you "Mom, what did you do when Trump was trying to deport Dreamers, and called global warming a hoax, and demeaned women and gave hope to racists?"

Will you be able to hold your head up high and talk to your children and grandchildren about the higher call? What Senator John McCain reminded us is "Duty, Honor, Country?" The same Senator who as a POW refused to be released from the torture and beatings until all his men were released first. The same Senator our president who didn't serve his country  said wasn't a war hero because he was captured.

Or will you be unable to look at yourself in the mirror because you compromised your morals?

We all like to think that if we were on that bus with Rosa Parks we would have spoken up and said "Not today. Today Ms. Parks sits in the front next to me."

That we would have stood firm on the Freedom Bridge in the face of the dogs and the water cannons. That we would have sat at the lunch counter and demanded they serve our black brothers and sisters with us. That we would have gone to jail with Dr. King and countless others rather than back down to the racist police. That we would have stood outside the arena in Chicago in 1968 during the Democratic National Convention and suffered the beatings of police nightsticks while chanting "The whole world is watching."

Now is the time to make that stand.
No government can exist without the support of the governed.
Evil cannot exist without the silence and compliance of good people.

If you are offered the job of US Attorney Judge Ariana Fajardo-Orshan, don't take it. Don't compromise your ideals and morals.
Take a stand.
Be a hero.

Fight the power.











26 comments:

CAPTAIN JUSTICE said...

THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:

So, You Want To Be A County Court Judge ......

The JNC has met and voted to send six names to Governor Scott to replace Judge Lourdes Simon who was elevated to the Circuit Court.

They are:

Ramiro C Areces
Peter Heller
Elijah A Levitt
Gordon Murray, Sr
Julie Harris Nelson
Luis Perez-Medina

So, You Want To Be A Circuit Court Judge:

Gov. Scott is mulling over 12 names to replace Judge Norma Lindsey (3rd DCA) and Judge Gisela Cardonne (retired). We should have an announcement within the next ten days. They are:

Judge William Altfield
Alex Spicola Bokor
Judge Tanya Brinkley
Raul Cuervo
Judge Ivonne Cuesta
Ayana Harris
Carlos Lopez
Joseph Mansfield - (already named a County Court Judge)
Judge Spencer Multack
Laura Stuzin
Luis Perez-Medina
Judge Andrea Ricker Wolfson

CAP OUT .....
Captain4Justice@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

Great post!

Anonymous said...

Peter Heller all the way!

Anonymous said...

Heller is best for Kangerooo Court. Areces is totally unqualified. No trial experience and riding on Mom's coattails who sold Amway before beating Bruce Levy. Altfield best for Circuit Court.

Anonymous said...

Rump: what happened to this year's suicide football pool?

Anonymous said...

Lol, yes Judge Fajardo should turn down the job of US Attorney simply because she may have philosophical differences with the Chief Executive. She may even not respect him or want to emulate him, who knows?

Similarly, "Rump" (and really, does anyone not know which lawyer writes this?) should turn down the job of representing any criminal defendant who appears guilty.

Something tells me the money "Rump" uses to buy the fancy dinner he will later blog about came, in part, from men who sold drugs to kids, men who raped women, and even men who killed others. Not to mention the money paid out by a government agency on behalf of indigent defendants. Yes the same government that supports and uses the death penalty, and yes the same government led by Rick Scott.

I gleefully await "Rump" turning down the state paycheck, as well as any jobs offered him by nefarious individuals. After all, he's consistent, right? No way he would simply single out Fajardo and Trump in any way that is hypocritical.

Anonymous said...

FYI- Bokor and Stuzin are also county court judges

Anonymous said...

Do I stand or do I kneel? Do I stand alone or not got out at all? Do I lock arms and kneel or lock arms and stand? Do I watch NFL games or not? Do I fire my employees or not? Can I say what I want or not? Should I tweet or not? I am so confused.

CAPTAIN JUSTICE said...


11:36 am. Thank you for that. My apologies for the error in the post.

Cap Out .....

Anonymous said...

I wonder whether Rumpole would have given the same advice to a male candidate for the job. Could be. Don't know.

I also wonder how many demonstrations Rumpole has gone to, how many protesters he is representing, how many times he has served as a legal observer. Granted, he isn't silent -- he blogs about Trump. And I think that's important. Has he inspired his readers to go to demonstrations, represent protesters, act as legal observers.

But hey, we're all very busy all the time in this profession, whether we're earning a lot or a little. Rumpole says he earns a lot. Has he spent as much money supporting democratic candidates as he has spent on fine dining.

There is a lot we can do to combat Trumpism: march, represent other marchers, canvas and fund-raise for democratic candidates, phone-bank, get people registered, demand restoration of civil rights for clients with convictions, donate money to good causes and candidates.

Anonymous said...

When did the flag and anthem become synonymous with the military? I thought it was an honor to the constitution. If I believed it was merely a bow to militarism I may not have been as willing to honor or as proud when I looked at the flag or heard the song. Geez the President has openly disrespected P.O.Ws, goldstar families and he dodged the draft while 58 thousand of his contemporaries died and countless maimed. Is not that a profound disrespect and insult to our armed forces?

Anonymous said...

I think that Trump's point was not that the extremists and racists were good people but that the good people and the bad people were both fighting and ought not to have been doing so. It is interesting to me that Trump was rightly criticized for his embarrassing attack on the disabled reporter, yet St Stephen Colbert gamely made harsh mimicry about the face of Secretary Mnuchen. But, since he is a bad guy, that is O.K. God protect us from Progressives and liberals and we can only hope that you guys pick Senator Warren Hillary, or Bernie as your standard bearer in 2020, which will cause independents to again flock to Trump as the least repulsive alternative.

Anonymous said...

Rump, you ignorant dumb ass, once again you show how inconsistent and dishonest you. If you are advising Ariana to turn down the job because she’s be serving under President Trump then surely you must be calling for all in that position to resign rather than continue to serve under President Trump. And surely you were overjoyed when Peter Bharara was fired bc he no longer had to serve under President Trump. Bharara was FREE! Actually, it’s funny that you advised him to “respect the office” (March 11, 2017) and pack up and leave. Shouldn’t Ariana, if it’s her ambition to be the US Attorney, respect the office and the offer as well?

Ariana, as a long time admirer and a colleague, I say go for it!

By the by, Rumpsie, in a comment to that March 11, 2017 post, you bash President Trump for accusing Obama of wiretapping him without evidence. What say you now? You ever think he might’ve known something?

Anonymous said...

Does Dependency Court Judge Blumstein (coming soon to a criminal courthouse near you, supposedly) still recite the Pledge of Allegiance before court every day? If so, has anyone knelt down or locked arms during the pledge?

Rumpole said...

Have I ever protested? I grew up in the 60's. You bet your ass I have protested.

5:23 Did you read what Gaary Wills wrote that I quoted? Do you know who Wills is?
Can you see a difference between Trump in March and what we know about him now? Like his response to Charlotte calling white supremacists "good people too" and his recent decision to deport the Dreamers? His withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. His ridiculous name calling with North Korea.

I Personally would never work for that ignorant moron. But we have so much more evidence now as to why working for him is a a moral, if not legal crime. Trump is evil and I am very satisfied from an epistemological if not metaphysical point of view, philosophically, that joining his government is morally akin to becoming a National Socialist in Germany in 1930.

I would suggest 5:23 that you don't know who Mr. Wills is and had to Google him. Just who is the ignorant one here?

And yes, I think most people serving in this government should resign. And I especially think that no one who has a conscience should work for the United States Justice Department under Sessions and Trump.

In was there when the Federalist society was formed. I mean in the rooms. To paraphrase our president, I know more about the federalist society than almost all the current members.

Any Rand's legal counsel was also instrumental in assisting certain founding members of the federalist society.
Have you read any of Rand's writings? Do you understand her metaphysics? Have you read her essay on rights? Would you care to debate her assertion that all rights are based on property rights? To simplify it for you, Rand wrote that if Man didn't have the right to the property he created, earned or purchased, then he could have no other rights, since property rights (not how you thought about it when you initially read it- you thought it was about land and zoning) means the right to own what you create and sell it for what you wish and what the market will bear. And if you cannot own the product of your efforts, and since your efforts were means of survival, then all other "rights" were meaningless.
Rand's breakthrough was her pining the source of rights on something other than an unknowable creator- whose meanings and desires people are dependant upon mystics to discern.

So knowing that the federalist society owes its philosophical foundation to objectivism, how can any member of the federalist society seek to enforce the forfeiture laws being advanced by the current DOJ?

Just who is the ignorant dumb ass here?



















Anonymous said...

RIP, Hugh Hefner

Anonymous said...

3:35 - You're right, there's no difference between Stephen Colbert, a comedian, mimicking Mnuchin and Donald Trump, president of the United States, mimicking McCain's awkward thumbs down gesture, resulting from permanent injury to his arms from torture in N. Vietnam.

And can you explain to me how a neo-nazi, white supremacist or klan member marching for robert e. lee in Va. is a good person? What, he didn't molest his toddler or kick his dog? He prays to God every night -- for the confederacy to rise again? Those marches are, as they have always been, about sowing terror in communities of color. And I don't think Rumpole's point was that they were morally equivalent to the people who fought them. That was Trump's point.

Rumpole, I don't think you (or we) know anything more about Trump now than we did in March 2017 or in March 2016 for that matter. No one who ever joined his administration can say that they didn't know Trump's character or couldn't predict its impacts. To this day, I can't understand how anyone could have voted for him, let alone gone to work for him. And I say this as someone with dear friends who voted for him.

Anonymous said...

3:06. I sincerely want to know. What is a "legal observer"? How does one go about becoming a legal observer?

CAPTAIN JUSTICE said...


Whilst you kids are fighting in the sand box, there is an important upcoming seminar being held at the P.D.'s office that everyone should consider attending:

On Friday, October 20, 2017, Miami-Dade Public Defender Carlos Martinez and FACDL-Miami will jointly co-sponsor a training session on Veterans Court.

APD Myles Raucher will present an informational training to explain how Veterans Court works, including eligibility criteria and how clients can satisfy Veterans Court requirements.

This training will be conducted in Room 110 of the Bennett H. Brummer building located at 1320 NW 14th Street and it will run from Noon until approximately 1:30pm.

The training will provide important information to help you identify eligible clients and to advocate for them effectively. However, it will not count as CLE hours for The Florida Bar.

If you are unable to attend this session on October 20th, it will be recorded and available to view on a future date.

Transitions Recovery Program will be providing free lunch for everyone who RSVPs and attends.

If you are interested in attending, please RSVP by emailing Barby at BZaldivar@pdmiami.com by Monday, October 16th.

Anonymous said...

Im not Jewish, but I wonder how it would feel to someone who is to read this blogger argue that all current US Attorneys are the moral equivalents of German Nazis only years before the Holocaust. We all know people who seemingly cannot prevent themselves from making hyperbolic political arguments. After all, to believe partisans on either side, the USA would be doomed if the opposing party has four years in the White House.

But this particular argument -- that holding a federally appointed office today is the SAME THING morally as being a Nazi.... Again, I am not Jewish. But I have been to Auschwitz. And I have stood in Babi Yar ravine outside Kiev. I will never forget either. I use words to make a living, as does almost everyone who reads this blog. But I have never felt such wordlessness, such silence. Any description fails, but to stand in a ditch where thirty-thousand men and women and kids were stripped naked and shot in the head, in a single day.... to imagine my own children, torn out of my arms, stripped naked and thrown in a pile of corpses.... I will forever be shook.

To read this particular blogger state unequivocally that the perpetrators of that genocide are the MORAL EQUIVALENTS of Judge Fajardo if she becomes US Attorney.... It makes my stomach churn at the insult to the memory of the dead.

Were their deaths so cheap that they will now be exhumed and used as ammunition because some American Democrat doesnt like some American Republican? Disagreeing on DACA, an executive order that is less than ten years old, is now license to summon the dead of Auschwitz?

I attended once by invitation a local ADL meeting. On the agenda was a local homeless man who, in his delusions, scribbled swastikas on Citi Bike stands. Seemed harmless to me, but the ADL took it seriously. Gentile that I am, I propose my Jewish brothers think long on the ease at which some political commentators today throw words like Nazi around. There is real danger there. If being US Attorney is the same as being a soldier at Babi Yar, after all, how is the murder of those children such a big deal?

Anonymous said...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


5:23

Anonymous said...

As a lifelong Democrat, I believe that Mr. Trump is ill-advised, tweet-happy, and divisive and that his presidency will be merely an ellipsis in the story of our history. I believe he is misguided, misanthropic, and ill-informed about many unassailable truths (e.g. global warming, Iranian missile tests, and crowd sizes). He is, however, only one man and the executive branch is but one pillar of our democracy.
Rumpole suggests that Judge Fajardo Orshan should “take a stand” by refusing an appointment to serve her country and its people as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Rumpole’s article is well written but misapprehends the responsibilities and obligations of serving in the executive branch. I call Rumpole’s invocation of Eisenhower and raise a Kennedy—“Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country”. Those words perhaps have more meaning now than ever. In times where this country is being led by a cartoon, it is more important than ever for well-educated, intelligent, and principled citizens from both sides of the political spectrum to step into public service, something Judge Fajardo Orshan has already done once, when she left private practice for the bench. Rumpole implies that acceptance of positions with Trump administration presupposes a slavish adherence to Trump’s carnival barker “politics”. He forgets, perhaps, that the oath of office requires allegiance to the United States, not to the President of the United States. Judge Fajardo Orshan will devote herself to that oath.
Tyranny takes root when good people stand idly by. Our country requires people like Fajardo Orshan, people who understand the law and will not compromise principles just to keep a job. Indeed, Fajardo Orshan, a conservative federalist, can be a positive influence in this administration. Good people, like Fajardo Orshan, should not recoil from opportunities to serve her and his country, simply because of POTUS.

Finally, can we all agree to stop conflating leaders on the opposing party with Hitler?

ABE LAESER said...

Ridiculous! Every person of conscience must take public service jobs -- particularly ones where they would have the power to act in a proper and moral manner, consistent with their true beliefs.

Change comes daily from the "INSIDE", as each public person can influence the course of decisions and cases that come before them. If one can disregard the political philosophy of the persons who appointed them and be bound by their own views of the their 'true North', an appointee can do far more good than the multitudes shouting; yet having no power to create even the most miniscule iota of change.

BRAVA!! Take the job. Act with courage. Work for the public good!

Anonymous said...

Things are escalating quickly for DJ Esq
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article175948701.html

Anonymous said...

7:47 a.m., lots of people who voted for Trump did so because Hillary Clinton was a worse alternative.

Anonymous said...

2:38 . They ""thought'' Hillary was a worse alternative. With the benefit of hindsight, it is difficult to imagine how that could be true considering the first few crazy, incompetent and criminal months of the Trump administration. However I have to disagree with Rump on this one. Unless the President request direct action from the prosecutor which is deemed illegal, unethical or firmly in contrast to conscience, most of the work of the local U.S Attorney is apolitical. Somebody has to administer local law enforcement.