Mondays should be all about good news so lets jump right in to it.
Two hurricanes in the Gulf will miss Florida and strike near New Orleans this week. LA 2-Fla 0. This is the type of contest you want to lose. True this is bad news for Louisiana, but we do not have as many readers there.
NASA is tracking a Near Earth Object (NEO) that has a .5% chance of striking earth just before election day. The size of the object is six and a half feet long. Who says the good lord does not play politics?
If you are a judge elect and have a pending bar complaint (or two) in which probable cause has been found, then you are not out of the woods. The JQC will pick up the ball and take it over the goal line. We have two such judge-elects facing this prospect. We put the odds of one of the two of these two distinguished individuals being suspended or disbarred above the odds of an asteroid striking the earth before election day.
Speaking of Judge elects, we call upon Judge Soto to let the voters' decision have consequences. New judges will often be "hidden" in juvenile or delinquency courts as they gain experience. This is not to diminish the hard work of the dedicated judges who serve in those positions.
But the voters of Dade County elected Judge Aponte to a circuit court position without her ever having tried a case. It is said she has never taken a deposition. But the voters have spoken. She was determined to be the better qualified of the two candidates.
So Judge Soto please assign Judge Aponte to the complex litigation division of civil court. Let her handle the biggest and most complex civil cases around. She worked for a plaintiffs' firm that demonstrably and illegally used runners to solicit clients from accidents scenes you say? So what- is what the voters of Dade said.
She has never taken a deposition and is unfamiliar with the rules and laws of discovery and complex litigation? Who cares!
How can we have a judge who never tried a case preside over complex trials? Elections have consequences we say- let the chips fall where they may.
Do not "hide" this judge in juvenile or dependency court. Our children are much to important to place in her inexperienced and unethical hands. Put her in complex litigation and let the civil lawyers, who did not raise a hand in this contest, deal with her. That's of course if the JCQ doesn't deal with her first.
Lawyers: wherever Judge Aponte ends up, consider filing a motion to recuse because you client does not feel s/he can get a fair trial from a judge who worked for a disbarred lawyer for a firm that illegally employed runners to go to accident scenes to solicit cases. The ethics stink to high hell. In other words- a community shunning of the "judge" who wants to play in the big leagues. We will be beating this drum until and through January 2021.
That's what we say. What say you?
19 comments:
Who are the two judge elects that have bar complaints pending. From your comments it seems that Aponte is one of them...who is the other?
So "cancel" her? Because of guilt by association? If she is as bad as you say then why not wait a few months for your Scarlet Letter shunning based on her record? You will likely be correct. But let the system and process deal with her. What if she were your client and she was being attacked anonymously in a blog? I am retired and do not know this judge. But I do know that "cancelling" her and "shunning" her before she even takes the bench isn't right.
The complex business division is one of the biggest ego stroking, fee enhancing, joke practices ever to hit the 11th Circuit. And that covers a lot of territory. Add a few parties, increase the amount you are extorting and, voila, you land in a “complex” environment defined by a bright line rule concocted by judges looking for a resume enhancer for federal court. When I left the SÃO years ago and waded into the civil (i.e., “uncivil”) arena, Judge Gordon told me that I was used to dealing with issues fo life and death. In civil court, the stakes are much more important. You are dealing with money. You have judges in REG handling criminal cases that are extremely challenging yet they are looked upon as no better than traffic court magistrates. By all means, throw Aponte in there. Nice way to stick it to the self important Brickell blowhards who infest that courthouse.
Leave Rosie alone and let the chips fall where they may. Wish her well instead of trying to poison people against her. I do not know her but I bet she WILL be a better Judge than nasty, arrogant Tunis.
Dumb
7:44 is full of rebullshit.
Now that any candidate has been voted in, you have to give them a chance
7:44 AM I respect your position. This is NOT guilt by association. She worked for a law firm run by an out of state lawyer. It was his firm. She was paid to use her bar number. He was then disbarred in New York State and she continued on running the firm in Miami. It is a violation of the rules of ethics for a non-lawyer to own a firm and for a lawyer to split fees with a non-lawyer. When the lawyer was disbarred his brother who is a lawyer ostensibly took over ownership of the firm. Before that She was THE ONLY lawyer with a florida bar number in the firm. The firm was sued several times wherein the plaintiffs were former clients. EACH of them filed affidavits detailing a pattern of being solicited by a non-lawyer for the firm. Those are the facts. Trust me that I have received dozens of other allegations about her personal and professional life that are allegations and I have not publicized those.
So let me ask you a question- knowing we have a judge elect who engaged in this type of ethical conduct, she would turn our heads, hold our nose, and hope for the best, or keep the pressure on the BAR to sanction her for the unethical conduct.
I generally would agree with your position. But this is egregious. And although I am sure there are Aponte supporters who do not agree with what I am going to say, this is about her and not any alleged friendship I have with Judge Tunis. I don't have a friendship with her or any judge. I do not associate with the judiciary for what I think are obvious reasons about my feelings about the lot. If you look at the blog during her prior campaigns she was treated just as rough because she is absolutely in close to 40 years of being a lawyer the WORST candidate I have ever seen for a judge and her performance at the Wilkie Bar Association proves it. She has NO cases she can point to where she has engaged in even decent lawyering. No briefs filed, no motions argued. I have no personal animus against her although she has NO business being a judge. It appears to me this was a paycheck issue pure and simple.
There are some things so wrong that to remain silent is also a crime. This is one of them. I invite your response on this and I appreciate your point of view.
HR
Rump . . your bias and arrogance is ever so evident. I bet you have a bumper sticker on your truck that reads “Will the last American to leave Miami bring the flag.” You and your posse were fine and dandy when Anglos dominated politics in this Town; when your posse controlled the key bureaucratic positions, patronizing the Latino’s while feeding them the crumps, but your posse cannot accept your diminution of influence or power.
You are committed to the posse, cheerleading for their agenda. You write complementary about the likes of Tunis and others who corrupt the system by abusing their influence, commenting about their high moral and ethical values. But when someone exposes anything negative about those who are part of your posse you suppress it or spine it, couching pejoratively.
Your advocacy for a campaign of retaliation and hindrance demonstrates the arrogance bread by your confidence about the influence and control your posse has over the Florida Bar. After all, you and your posse are above the law when it comes to the Florida Bar and the JQC, right?
I agree with you about the Florida Bar and Aponte. Your posse has the influence at the Bar and JQC and employs that influence to target other lawyers and judges. Your posse are tight with the likes of Arlene Sankel, head of the Florida Bar Miami office and her henchman. Of course, Arlene Sankel and Dori Foster-Morales, to name a few, supported Tunis. Thus, connecting the dots, as you say. So, the corruption is so blatant and arrogance so great that you feel very confident in proposing violations of ethical standards to advance the goal your posse could not achieve at the poles.
You must an ardent supporter of those who riot, loot, burn, destroy, assault and support de-funding police.
The problem is your posse does not have exclusivity on the tactics you preach, and I suggest your posse are not up to the counter-tactics. Perhaps one or more your posse’s judicial friends will garner opposition in her 2023 race, it is a possibility, she avoided an opponent when she was last up, but she might have acted honorably by protecting Tunis, who knows, things I hear. I also heard Thomas kissed up to members of your posse and is on the short list for an opponent in 2023.
In the words of Jack Ryan “I'm afraid if I dig any deeper no-one's going to like what I find.” But heck have to keep digging because there are things in the darkness that tempt my interest, and hell I like connecting the dots.
First of all I left Miami in late February in anticipation of the pandemic. I am in Europe and hope I never return.
Second, just what evidence do you have that I am not Hispanic or African American or from an Island in the Caribbean or from South America? Just curious about your own ethno-centric biases that automatically assume the author of the best legal blog in the United States has to be white.
I am a posse of one and you can quote me on that. If you read the blog for any time you would know I abhor crowds, I am iconoclastic and more than slightly misanthropic. To suggest I agree with a crowd or would ever do so is antithetical to all I am about.
RUMP, just wondering ... who do you think should have won all the judge races based on qualifications?
I do not know Ms. Aponte. Can’t say I have met her or dealt with her in any meaningful way. However, rarely I have seen the bloggers shown as much concern about a soon to judge. By all accounts, admittedly my assessment is based on information on the blog, she is going to be terrible. She obviously can’t be relegated to juvenile or delinquency court nor can she be sent to complex litigation “court.” The best solution is to have her do Arthur hearings for a while until she gets her feet wet and then let’s hope she surprises us all.
1:04 PM interesting enough you are the first person to ask me that question.
First, I think the comments over the last few weeks show that Judge Tunis brought this on herself. There almost nothing we detest more than a sanctimonious Judge who doesn't let lawyers do their job. It may well be stress and burnout. She handled back to back to back to back some of the longest and hardest and most complicated murder cases.
But we do not accept that as an excuse. A litigant appearing for a third degree felony is entitled to the same respect and concern and patience as defendants in capital cases. Judges like lawyers like surgeons are on- every case all the time. She was short and rude and if you review the comments you NEVER see me defending her on that.
But Judge Tunis was clearly the more qualified. As I said in the prior comment in this thread, I have been critical of Aponte in every race. At MOST and this is a stretch, she might have been ok to handle traffic tickets and even then she does not appear to know anything about litigation.
But as I have also posted- she won and is NOT entitled to any deference based on her lack of experience and skills. She wanted to be a circuit court judge so throw her in the deep end of the pool in complex civil litigation and she what she does.
Go figure that a reader of "Rumpole's" blog thinks the author is an old, fat, white guy.
Under 60 is not old. It's the new under 50. The others are ridiculous. Here on the continent everyone rides bikes. I'm biking 40-60 Kms a day.
Who is the other judge with a JQC issue?
Judge Tunis was appointed by the Bar in the matters of the pepe herrera and bernie roman disbarments. Indeed, let’s connect the dots.
Crumps
Spine
Bread
Poles
So, you think that anyone who is elected to the bench should be thrown into complex business division or just the ones you do not like?
Exactly. You have accurately discerned our feelings.
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