SOTO CONSIDERING CLOSING COURTS PRESS CONFERENCE FRIDAY

UPDATE FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Miami Dade Mayor Francis Suarez has tested positive for Covid-19.

UPDATE FRIDAY MORNING: Your State Attorney is promoting a 2pm News Conference with Judge Soto today. Based on her handle of breaking events, expect her to say that H1N1 does not represent a serious threat to health. 
Expert court operations to be drastically restricted for the next two weeks. We think operations will return to normal by mid-April as the US experience will be more like South Korea and less like Italy.

Based on our independent research, you can expert US numbers of infected individuals to exceed one million as testing ramps up, but rates of death and hospitalizations to lower.

The market will rise Friday morning. Do not bite. People are still scared and there will be sell off into some strength and the rally will fizzle. You cannot control the news over the weekend. Wait until Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday. You won't get in at the bottom and you won't get out at the top. But you can make a nice profit on the middle 80%. 

CONSTANT CONTACT:  It is time for public officials to stop using the phrase "we are in constant contact..." with whomever. Treasury Secretary said this morning he was in "constant contact" with the Fed Chairmen. He is not. At the time he made the statement he was on a conference call we were on, and the fed chairman was not on the call. He repeated the statement on CNBC later this morning. It's a misnomer. It is a very poor use of the English Language and in this time of crisis, the English Language more than ever needs to be defended. We have taken up arms as is our wont. 

UPDATE: SDNY SUSPENDS ALL JURY TRIALS but as of yet Dade County Misdemeanor cases are still set for trial. Racketeering and fraud is one thing, but by golly we aren't going to let go of those disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence cases.

Here is a list of new closures and cancellations: 
NCAA College Basketball tournament- dashing the hopes of prosecutors everywhere who, although they prosecute gambling cases, always have an office wide pool. 

NHL. Major League Baseball.  More to come. 

Judge Soto ("Betterlatethannever.com") held a series of meetings Thursday and may  announce during a press conference Friday afternoon at 2PMthat Dade County Courts will be effectively closed for two weeks starting Monday. Of course she could have mitigated the problem by canceling civil court and non-custody jury trials and all misdemeanor jury trials, but she waited and now we have this. 
Courts will remain open for emergency hearings and in custody arraignments and bond hearings. Judges will rotate in to handle the emergency calendars. Probate Court will remain it's vigorous self, with top notch litigation continuing unimpaired. (Not true but we like taking shots at probate). 


We will be your clearing house for news and rumors. Things will be back to normal May 15. You heard it here first.