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.

Tuesday, March 08, 2022

DO SVDANYA BIG MACKSKI ; PRIVYET RULE OF LENITY

 McDonalds has bowed to social media pressure, especially on Twitter and is closing all 600 restaurants in Mother Russia. Russia and Ukraine account for about 9% of all revenue, or about 2 Billion dollars (not rubles) a year. 

Speaking about social media, if you're not following @justicebuilding on Twitter, you're missing what one expert said was "the most exhilarating social media experience since Kim K debuted a black two-piece bikini in St. Barts with Pete..." 

So click follow and hop on board. 

If you're following you would have seen this Gem: 


there is NO truth to the rumor Stephen Ross offered #Ukraine $100,000.00 to throw the war. Well, it's probably not true.

Coca Cola, Pepsi Co (which owns Pizza Hut), Shell Oil, BP Oil, and Starbucks (ouch- no morning cup of coffee- talk about sanctions taking a bite) are also shutting down Russian operations.  

Do NOT believe rumors that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered Ukraine $100,000.00 to throw the war... It's probably not true. 

DOM beat us to the punch with his post on the excellent SCOTUS opinion in Wooden v. United States  resurrecting the Rule of Lenity (or completing the task started by DOM's fav justice- Scalia) . 

Here are some gems from OUR new fav justice- Gorsuch- in his concurrence on one of our favourite concepts- the Rule of Lenity:

Respectfully, all this suggests to me that the key to this case does not lie as much in a multiplicity of factors as it does in the rule of lenity. Under that rule, any reasonable doubt about the application of a penal law must be resolved in favor of liberty. Because reasonable minds could differ (as they have differed) on the question whether Mr. Wooden’s crimes took place on one occasion or many, the rule of lenity demands a judgment in his favor. 

The “rule of lenity” is a new name for an old idea—the notion that “penal laws should be construed strictly.” 

Lenity works to enforce the fair notice requirement by ensuring that an individual’s liberty always prevails over ambiguous laws

  Of course, most ordinary people today don’t spend their leisure time reading statutes—and they probably didn’t in Justice Marshall’s and Justice Story’s time either. But lenity’s emphasis on fair notice isn’t about indulging a fantasy. It is about protecting an indispensable part of the rule of law—the promise that, whether or not individuals happen to read the law, they can suffer penalties only for violating standing rules announced in advance. As the framers understood, “subjecting . . . men to punishment for things which, when they were done, were breaches of no law . . . ha[s] been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instrumen[t] of tyranny.” The Federalist No. 84, pp. 511–512 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton);

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

330 on a Thursday. Going to renew an old blog tradition. Shumie time! Hitting a package store and taking the Hunt Ocean 63 out for a spin.
Thank the lord for Med mail referral fees

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Anonymous said...

This is not funny. Russians and Ukrainians are being killed. This is not funny. How would you feel if this was YOUR family dead in Ukrane?

Why don't we simply depart all Russians here with visas?

Anonymous said...

Ukraine could have avoided war. They should have agreed to demilitarize and then worked toward an agreement with NATO to protect it from invasion. Ukraine is a corrupt country , even more corrupted then Russia. Ukraine misplayed it's hand and won't find real military support from the west, nor should it. It's a brutal reality. War is hell.

Anonymous said...

FS ch 775.021 is FLA’s Rule of Leniency

Anonymous said...

@852am

Could Ukraine have avoided the war? Sure. They could have surrendered their sovereignty (i.e. demilitarized because another country wanted it).

Could the battered spouse have avoided having her drunk stupid husband kick her ass? Sure. She could have left the minute she saw him pick up the bottle.

But moral people do not blame victims for the actions of violent aggressors. Deal with it. Ukraine did not invade or attack Russia. Russia is the unambiguously violent aggressor in this and there is no excusing that.

And tell me again what Ukraine's level of corruption has to do with this? Is your argument that they somehow had bombing of civilian hospitals coming to them?

But let me help you with your argument a little. If you want to argue that we should mind our business, your argument should be "we lost any moral authority to criticize Russia for a trumped up preemptive invasion of another country when we preemptively invaded Iraq in 2002 on trumped up 'WMD' bullshit."

Anonymous said...

To the comment at 8:52, that makes zero sense. Putin has explicitly said he would not allow Ukraine into NATO, and there really is no other protection NATO can provide unless a country is a member. If they agreed to demilitarize, Putin would have rolled right in afterwards. It is naive to think otherwise. You've ignored everything Putin said leading up to and after his invasion. He will not let Ukraine enjoy the right to self determination, and the same will go for the other former Soviet states.

Anonymous said...

The idea that "Ukraine is a corrupt country," is Putin's propaganda. Don't believe it.

Could Ukraine have avoided war. Of course it could, by abject, unconditional, surrender and loss of sovereignty.

Anonymous said...

852 is mostly right especially about the corrupt fake democracy part. I disagree that Ukraine should ever be part of NATO. NATO is already far overextended and probably should be disbanded as Europe is rich enough to defend itself.

Rumpole said...

8:42
Outside of anti-tank tow missiles, shoulder launched stinger anti-aircraft missiles, one of the most effective weapons against the Russian invasion is humor. If we make fun of Putin, it will embarrass him on the world stage. Private company sanctions are also very effective. Thus while the average citizen in Moscow might not understand the full ramifications of removing Russian banks from the SWIFT system, they understand when McDonalds and Starbucks are closed and they cannot buy Pepsi or Coke. I am not trivializing the human costs to Ukraine, I am supporting Ukraine.

Anonymous said...

I didn't say join nato I said work out an agreement for nato to protect them from invasion in exchange for demilitarization.

Anonymous said...

@11:10pm - that is a distinction without difference.