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, May 25, 2020

THIS MEMORIAL DAY

The Blog this Memorial day remembers when the President said in February  that "It will all be over in a few days" which was the  president displaying his acute powers of prognostication. It is no surprise that the man who could not even squeeze a profit out of a casino where the odds are fixed in favour of the house, has little ability when it comes to anything, especially predicting events that call for an appreciation of science. 

On Sunday the NY Times took the extraordinary step of printing some of the names of the 100,000 Americans who died because of the "nothing" that became something. Think of this. In January, 100,000 of us were living our lives. In the back of their minds was the social compact that we all live by- in exchange for taxes and military service and jury duty, and following the law, we in return expect our government to protect us in times of crisis. Except when an Orange Orangutan who delights in grabbing women by their genitals is in charge. Now four months later one hundred thousand of us are gone- dead because we did not act one week sooner in recognizing this crisis.   Starting social distancing one week earlier would have saved 36,000 lives.

We  scanned the front page of the Sunday  NY Times here, and decided to randomly reprint some of the names and descriptions of our fellow Americans who died- some because of the criminal negligence of leaders who deny reason and science. 

As we wrote this, we were overcome with the basic goodness of our fellow citizens. It was a moving experience to read and re-write the short descriptions of full lives:

Cornelius Lawyer, 84, A sharecropper's son; Michael Mika,73, Vietnam Veteran; Carl Redd, 62, squeezed in every moment he could with his only grandchild; Dez-Ann Roman, 36, innovative high school principal; Freddy Rodriguez, Sr, 89, played saxophone at Denver's only jazz club for 40 years; Roger Lene, 93, could be a real jokester; Louvenia Henderson, 44, proud single mother of three; George Valentine, 66, lawyer who mentored others; Julian Anguiano-Mayo, 51, was the life of the party; Jessica Beatriz Cortez, 32, immigrated to the US three years ago; Cedric Dixon, 48, Police Detective in Harlem with a gift for interrogation; Douglas Hickok, 57, military's first virus casualty; Horace Saunders, 96, tailor; Jose Vasquez, 51, husband and father; Angelo Piro, 87, known for serenading friends with Tony Bennett songs; Roger Eckart, 78, retired firefighter and old-school barber; Mary Minervini, 91, sign-language interpreter; Albert Petrocelli, 73, fire chief who responded to ground zero on 9/11; Florencio Almazo Moran, 65, one man army; Harold L. Hayes, 96, original member of Navy's elite underwater demolition team; Lloyd Paul Leftwich, 91, inveterate harmonica player; Ann Kolb, 78, leader in interrogating schools. Lila A. Fenwick, 87, First Black Woman to graduate from Harvard Law School; Jose Diaz-Ayala, 38, served the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office for 14 years; Kyra Swartz, volunteered for pet rescue organizations; Kimarlee Nguyen, 33, writer who inspired her Brooklyn high school students;  Leo Sreebny, 98, preferred bolo ties to neckties and suspenders to belts; Peter Kafkis, 91, worked mostly factory jobs to support his family; Marie Scanian Walker, 91, never drew attention to herself; Myles Coker, 69, freed from life in prison;  Arola Rawls, 81, caretake of her neighborhood; Bernard David Seckler, 95, Math reader for Recordings for the Blind; Cynthia Whiting, 66, a retiree determined to spoil her granddaughter; Orlando Moncada, 56, left Peru and grabbed hold of the American dream; Jerry Glowczewski, 97, last of the WWII Polish fighter pilots; Michael Hill, 58, railroad worker with a big, joyful, personality; Rodrick Samuels, 49, never let anyone mess with his younger brother; Alan F. Krupp, 83, quoted Longfellow and Tennyson from memory; Eric Frazier, 44, well regarded bailiff and mentor to colleagues; Barry Webber, 67, general surgeon who volunteered to treat Covid-19 patients; Richard Emmett Powers, 76, well respected criminal defense attorney in Detroit; Wogene Debele, 43, mother survived by her newborn child; James W. Landis, 57, loved his truck, Dorney Park, Disney World, model trains and especially California cheeseburgers; Annie Glenn, 100, champion of people with speech disorders. 

This took a toll. 100,000 Americans dead. Soon we will pass two-Vietnam wars worth of deaths. 

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

As far as i can tell, not just trump but everybody failed at predicting how bad covid would be. Trump early on seems to have relied on facui the who and the other health experts. Youd have done differently?

If it was so obvious, why didnt any of the democratic candidates demand closings in january or february? Did biden call for action in February, or did he imply the china ban was racist? Pelosi? Cuomo? Anyone? Oh yea, they said everything was fine...

And if your issue is closings, the authority lies with the governors!

The only one who gets any tiny modicum of credit is newsom who closed California the earliest, but not by more than a few days as compared to many other states.

Anonymous said...

You are amazing. Now which scientists are we to be governed by? How often in your career have you been unable to hire an expert to say what you needed to prove. Progressives amaze me. They are so much smarter than the rest of us. But, one thing we have to thank Trump for. Without him, we never would have been given a wake-up call to the concept of freedom and privacy that would exist if you guys were in charge.
By the way, which of your Monday morning quarterbacks were counselling for harsher lockdowns in January. How many of them thought that barring travel from China was racist?

Anonymous said...

It certainly helped the stats that Democrat governors in the big NE states managed to kill inordinate numbers of elderly in their nursing homes.

Anonymous said...

Hey Rumpole.

Was Essen really the best DUI defense lawyer?

I think Mr. Catalano and Mr. Rieff were excellent.

Whatever happened to Jim Best? He was dam good and a force with the Judges.

Anonymous said...

The trump virus.

Real Fake Bill Belicheck said...

Brady cheating scandal- volume ??XX?
The ball was switched. He used a small magnet in the core of the new ball and activated an electromagnet in the cup. MIT analysis of the ball bouncing on the green shows 1- the ball moved in an unnatural manner towards the cup; 2- the club hitting the ball struck it at an angle that could not have placed spin on the ball sufficient to make it move in the manner indicted on the replays.
Another inglorious chapter in the Tom Brady thinks the rules do not apply to him.

Rumpole said...

Jim Best unfortunately passed away several years ago from a heart issue. Way too young and is still missed.

Anonymous said...

Reiff is the best DUI lawyer. No one knows the technicalities of the DUI from the machine to the roadsides like he does. But underrated were the L&L twins- Lurvey and Lyons. They won almost every dui they tried. Each on their own is a very very good DUI trial lawyer. Lurvey is excellent at all levels of all trials as well.

Richard Essen was a business man. Not a DUI lawyer.

Real Fake Bill Belicheck said...

Also- every ball in play by every player was auctioned off for charity. Except the ball Brady used on the shot where he holed it from 100 yards.
When asked, he said he was keeping it. When someone requested to inspect it, he laughed and walked away.

Show the ball. Prove he's innocent or not.

#bradycheatedatgolf
#Bradycheatedagain

trending on twitter.

Anonymous said...

In his day, Shumie could try a DUI with the best of them. Just sayin don't leave out the shumster.

Anonymous said...

By the way, what authority do the governors have to close anything down, or for that matter, the governors with authorizing legislation from their legislatures. If I were Trump and that young woman asked me what my authority was to open the churches, I would have said the same authority s the governors, none --- all of us are just trying to give our citizens the best advice that we can.

By the way, it looks like your normal cadre of fawning pinkos are not writing today. Presumably they are not in church

Anonymous said...

Trump defenders:

The asshole won't even put on a mask to set an example. They work, we know they do. Everybody around him has to wear one....he knows they work. Instead, he sets an example for a bunch of recalcitrant "freedom loving" assholes that it is okay to not wear a mask....it is a personal choice. That it is okay to criticize people who want to wear facemasks. That it is okay to be confrontational if somebody doesn't want you too close to them.

This is not leadership.

Letting the states cobble together an approach is not leadership.

Encouraging people to protest and oppose measures meant to curtail the virus is bad leadership.

If, whenever it dawned on him that there was a problem, he instituted a uniform policy, we would have a coordinated national response...not every location would need to be closed at once, but at least there would be some metric for the states to follow, and everybody would have a better sense of what is going on and where we are going.

Instead, this fucker does not form a policy because he would rather point fingers when shit goes wrong:

'you ruined the economy'

'you opened up too soon'

'you are responsible for testing'

At the same time, he takes credit for meaningless things (or misleading lies) he claims to have accomplished, which either did nothing or he can take no credit for:

'i shut down travel from china' (no, over 500000 people came from china' after the so called shut down)

'I got ford to make ventilators'

'I saw this coming and took action....nobody knew it could come from Europe too'

And on and on.

If you want to support the guy because:

Your dick is small and owning an AR-15 with 30 round clips makes it feel bigger.

You like the conservative judges he is appointing.

You like the tax cuts and loopholes for people who have so much more money than you (50,000,000 plus), they view you as nothing more than a necessary inconvinience when they cross your path.

You don't like black people or latins in your neighborhood.

You don't like women being viewed or treated as equals.

You love scientific ignorance.

You loath environmental protection.

You want to make it easier for industries to pollute our land, water and air.

You like the idea of a space force instead of supporting the civilian agency that has been the world leader for 60 years.

You hate the idea of countries cooperating together to solve problems rather than fighting.

You like piling debt on top of your children and grandchildren.

You think it is funny to make fun of handicapped people.

You like taking money from public schools and giving it instead to private profit centers that don't do a great job of education.

You like paying private companies to lock up criminals (while they also lobby for higher sentences).

Or, you are just fed up with liberals for one reason or another and he gives you a team to run to....

I am okay with it.

But an educated and smart(?) person like yourself doesn't need to make up or repeat a bunch of lies to support your position...or pretend that you believe his bullshit.

Just tell people you like him and you don't have to explain why. You don't. But when you start to make up a bunch of silly shit to defend yourself, you just come across as a dipshit.

Anonymous said...

In the day, Catalano, Rieff and Hersch were the best. Nobody else was even close. Jim Best was a really great guy who left us way too early. Essen was full of crap and only cared about marketing his practice by making all kind of false promises to get clients to sigh up.

Now, if you get a DUI, you want Reiff or Catalano. Nobody else puts so much effort in those cases. If you want a real kick ass defense at DHSMV, Catalano is king. If you want an encyclopedia of DUI law, Reiff is above king.

Anonymous said...

Rumpole address this honestly: Fauci said on March 9th that taking cruise was fine if you felt healthy..we shut down about 5 days later...was Trump just supposed to shut every business and most activities down despite the fact not a single person in the whole nation--not even Fauci-- was calling for it???

Rumpole said...

I do not believe that to be true. Regardless of that- you are engaging in the phenomenon of justifying current irrational behavior by pointing to a problem in the past. If you review thousands of ads from the 1920s to the 1950s many doctors smoked and recommended smoking and particular brands. Under your method of arguing you would point to that now as reasons why people can safely smoke- they were told they could before. As you can see, such an argument's weakness is ignoring current knowledge. So If you want- go into a crowd of people not wearing masks and don't wear a mask. Touch your eyes. Put your hands in your mouth often. It was done all last year with no problems, right? I am sure you will be fine- but in case you're wondering- I do not do wills.

Anonymous said...

Hey RUMPOLE:

What Judge do you miss the most appearing in front of? Who did you look forward to appearing in their court? What character and actions that they undertook as a Jurist That made you feel that way?

Can you tell us which Judge in your history gave you the opposite feeling? Where you knew you had a hearing or trial - and you dreaded the drive to court, walking into the courtroom and the entire exchange?

Without saying what Judge - did you ever feel that a Judge was corrupt? Do you think corruption still exists on the bench in Miami?

Thank you for your insight and candor.

Anonymous said...

People in his administration began warning him in January that the virus was or would be here, and that preventive measures were necessary. These are not briefings or intelligence shared with Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, etc. The fact that they were not calling for preventive measures reflects the fact that they were not privy to the information known by Trump and others in his administration. In fact, those few in his administration who tried to warn congress were demonized, demoted or fired.

Anonymous said...

515

You are an angry person. Go outside and get some sun. Drink a beer. Watch a movie. Realize that you just posted a profanity laden diatribe full of condescension. Is this the best you?

Anonymous said...

Re the dear departed Ann Kolb, 78, who you said was a "leader in interrogating schools" - actually, she was known for integrating schools peacefully, fully and successfully.

Anonymous said...

They need to develop a TDS vaccine for 5:15.

Anonymous said...

Today's comments demonstrate the need to bring back the Sunday DUI power rankings.

Anonymous said...

751 stop lying no one knew least of all your hero Dr falsie..its a matter of public record that he stated it was no threat over and over including as late as March 9 so cut the b.s. political lies

Anonymous said...

If you are not angry about what is being done to the country by this guy, you have problems that go beyond my need of sunshine, beer and movies.