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.

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

COMPASSIONATE RELEASE

Your client is 68 years old. She has served 8 of a 9 year sentence (your client, not ours. Ours don't go to prison). She has diabetes, hypertension, a prior heart attack and has lost most of the vision in one of her eyes and suffers from loss of feeling in her extremities (diabetic neuropathy). She wants to be released from prison to home confinement for the last year of her sentence. She was convicted of a financial fraud crime. Was a first offender and has an exemplary prison record including a citation for saving a guard's life who was choking by applying the Heimlich maneuver. 

If your client is in a federal penitentiary, the good news she is probably going to be released. If your client is in State custody, not only is she not going to be released, there is nothing for you to do as her lawyer. There are no provisions in Florida Law to allow a prisoner to seek compassionate release. Mr. Markus' blog is chockfull of orders seemingly every day by Judges Scola, Cooke, and Magistrate Goodman granting motions for release. 

State court ? Nary a whisper because there is nothing state court practitioners can do. 

What has Covid-19 exposed? Inter alia, that Federal Courts are more caring and compassionate and accessible than state court. Even the Attorney General got into the act, authorizing wardens without prior judicial approval to release federal prisoners to home confinement who have more than a year left on their sentence. 

Federal court is a better place to be. Whodathunkit? 

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ummm lolol...u would never get 9 yrs for a first time financial fraud case in Miami state court

Anonymous said...

For Mount Rushmore of Judges, I would select Arthur Winton- Scalia before Scalia was Scalia; Mary-Ann Mackenzie- Ruth Bader Ginsberg before Ginsberg was Ginsberg; Pete Capua- just a nice guy who got it right; and Arthur Snyder because any judge who has a tennis court named after him must have done something right. Because he was both a politician- Mayor of NMB and Aventura, and a Judge, Snyder was our generations William Howard Taft.

Top those four Romplioio.

Anonymous said...

8:45am. What? No Judge Rosemary Usher Jones?

Anonymous said...

Judge Arthur Snyder had a dark side. He did things that were not nice. He humiliated certain attorneys in court. He did bad things off the bench. Believe me. I’m being nice. I could slaughter him with a shocking incident within my personal knowledge.

Not a nice or good man. He shouldn’t be on anyone’s list of “great” judges ... or human beings.

Anonymous said...

Mary-Ann Mackenzie exemplar of one of those who served while impaired, (sitting close during hearings you smelled the alcohol). She, like of Phil Davis and others, protected by fellow judges who knew the fitness for office was compromised by their dependency and mental health component of that dependency. Cannon 3A(1) "A judge who receives information or has actual knowledge that substantial likelihood exists that another judge has committed a violation of this Code shall take appropriate action." The commentaries to Cannon 3A make it clear that a judge having knowledge of conduct of another judge that raises a substantial question as to that other judge's fitness for office is required to report it, not protect that other judge.

So I ask you, if judges know a judge is having emotional problems and abusing alcohol or other substances, do they hold a counselling session but allow the judge to continue to hear cases. Do you assign that judge to a can hopefully do nothing wrong division and hope the judge gets help while still hearing cases. The answer should be no, but it has and is happening in our lovely building.

the trialmaster said...

MY 4 for the worst. 1. Rosemary Usher Jones(house of Usher is not where you want to go).2. Mckenziem 3. Martin Greenberg 4. Fredric Barad. Honorable mention, james earnest, david popper, Harold featherhead, Feds, Zloch and Billy D. I believe that some appointees of our present Governor Will probably replace some of the top 4. Forgot C. P. Lantz and probably a few others

Anonymous said...

Hey knucklheads- I wrote the 8:45 comment. Cannot you all not see humor and someone being ridiculous? Or did you all really think someone with half a brain thought any of them as the greatest? Geeze lighten up Francis.

Anonymous said...

4 worst:

How could anyone forget Peter "Camacho" Adrien?;
Cardumb;
Gordon;
Tony "I am the greatest" Marin

Anonymous said...

What I’m about to say is terrible. Please try not to visualize this.

As a young judge, I went to Judge Martin Greenbaum at his Justice Building Courtroom to get guidance on an evidence issue. He was in a murder trial with the death penalty on the table.

During closing argument, I went sidebar silently while the prosecutor asked the jury for death.

Judge Greenbaum had his shoes off. His socks off. HE WAS CLIPPING HIS TOENAILS.

I almost vomited right there. “Clip. Clip. Clip”. I heard it. I saw it. Yellow and fungus.

It was worse than the Covid pandemic, Legionare’s Disease, mold ... or even Shenberg’s overt corruption!

I’m very sorry. Judge Greenbaum should not be included in the Best Judges Ever list. Ok?

Anonymous said...

I second that .Re Judge Synder .. not quite the upstanding citizen ..Should gave bwen tossed off the benxh ...

Anonymous said...

Rumpole,

Interested to hear your thoughts on the developments in the General Flynn case.

Politics aside, have you ever seen a judge delay ruling on an unopposed motion to dismiss by the govt to allow amicus briefs?

Have you seen a judge seek to hold somebody in contempt for vacating a plea? I assume the judge wants to hold Flynn in contempt for his factual proffer.

Thoughts?

Anonymous said...

Yes - re factual proffer - you can not play every side of the fence - probably would have been best to pick a Judge who had not just written an op-Ed on the topic -

Anonymous said...

Oh, please 10:15:00, like judging so is hard? Really? It ain’t rocket science. A glass of wine at lunch isn’t going to change anything. Puritans!