THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:
DEATH IS DIFFERENT .......
On Thursday, Florida executed Edward Zakrkewski, age 60, for killing his wife and his two children. He was the ninth person put to death in Florida this year, breaking the record for the most executions in our state in one year since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976. The good news (for those of you who are proponents of the death penalty) is that Governor DeSantis still has five months left in 2025 to extend his record.
In fact, DeathSantis has already signed two more Death Warrants for August. Florida has scheduled the execution of Kayle Bates on August 19 and of Curtis Windom on August 28. Florida executed two men in July, including Zakrkewski. If he keeps up this pace of two executions per month, Florida will have executed 19 inmates by the end of the year, 11 more than any other year. Texas and South Carolina are a distant second - they have each executed four this year.
Florida uses a three-drug cocktail to carry out the death sentence: a sedative, a paralytic, and a drug that stops the heart.
Attorneys for Zakrkewski filed numerous appeals in an attempt to stay the execution. They cited Zakrkewski’s military service in the Air Force as well as the fact that the jury voted 7-5 for death. Under current state law, he would not have received the death penalty.
If you are a criminal defense attorney and have an interest in handling Death Penalty cases, you will need to take a death penalty seminar. The two most popular seminars in Florida include:
1. Death is Different. Sponsored by FACDL, the statewide organization hosts this seminar over two days every March.
2. Life Over Death. Sponsored by the Florida Public Defender’s Association, the seminar will be held on September 4 - 5, 2025, in Charlotte Harbor, Florida. You can register for the seminar by going here:
MATTHEWMAN IS CHIEF .....
Let’s end the week on a more positive note. Longtime readers know that attorney Bill Matthewman was one of us for a long time. He began his career as a police officer. He eventually went to law school at the University of Florida, graduating in 1983. If recollection serves me correctly, Judges Scott Bernstein and Jonathan Colby were both in Matthewman’s graduating law school class.
For 29 years, Matthewman was a lawyer, one of the best in South Florida, spending much of his time as a criminal defense attorney. One of his most famous cases was the last case he tried to a jury, here at the GJB, in 2012. In that case, his client was Adam Kaufman, a real estate developer from Aventura who was accused of murdering his wife. The case received heavy media coverage, and Court TV covered the case, gavel to gavel. The case was dubbed “the spray tan murder case” because Matthewman’s initial defense was that Kaufman’s wife may have died from an allergic reaction to a full-body spray tan. Matthewman dug further and discovered that Lina Kaufman had actually died as a result of an undiagnosed heart condition, myocarditis. The jury found Kaufman not guilty. Six weeks after the trial, Matthewman accepted an appointment as a United States Magistrate Judge in the Southern District of Florida.
On Friday, July 25, Matthewman rose to Chief Magistrate Judge, taking over for retiring Judge Jonathan Goodman. Best of luck, Judge Matthewman, although we know you won’t need it.
Captain4Justice@gmail.com
20 comments:
Very nice post by the captain, especially the kudos to Judge Matthewman. It would be great if he is moved to the Miami Courthouse. Many people are emailing us to update our stock picks. Here's our thoughts. Own Nvidia don't trade it. If you listened to us and bought it at 95-105 you're very happy as it crossed 180 yesterday. It is on its way to 200 and 400 by 2027. Apple had a blowout quarter with its iPhone sales (remember the chatter that it was losing shares in China? That was nothing more than background noise as sales in China rose 4%). Apple is more than 40 points below our valuation of 260. We would hold and buy more on any weakness. Amazon also reported a blowout quarter beating street estimates across the board. So why is it down 8% in pre-market trading? One line in the conference call lowering expectations for its cloud-based revenues for the next quarter has freaked analysts out. Again we view this as background noise. Amazon is well positioned to continue its market dominance and we are a buyer this morning as the market opens. This time next year that one line will be forgotten and the company will still be posting blowout numbers. Our biggest concern is OLED which continues to drift downward in the face of increased cap-ex spending by Apple, its largest customer, on foldable screens. OLED reported sales up 8.5% with full year revenue guidance of 675 million, about .7% above estimates, and GAAP profit of $1.41 a share, 22% above street estimates. And yet the shares have been hit hard. This is puzzling for us. We remain confident in OLED and do not understand the weakness after this very strong quarter and raising guidance for the next quarter. OLED remains a stock we like to pick up on weakness, but we are holding back until we see it steady a bit perhaps holding above 150 for a week.
Kudos to Kathy for being the best prosecutor in America! Kudos to the best team in America! Remember no pleas below guidelines unless I approve. However, I recommend max pleas. If you need anything I’ll be walking laps outside the Graham building. I love you all! Most importantly I love Kathy! 💕
As a random side note on a Friday, I just discovered that 305-324-8811 got disconnected. What a tragedy and sign of the times. :(
The Gang Unit Chief is a complete unprofessional.
Alan Fine was also in that class.
As well as Peter Lopez.
What if I told you that named partners in a well known miami firm were at the center of a vast conspiracy stretching from Hillary Clinton's emails , through Hunter Biden's laptop, past the leak of Covid from a Chinese lab, through the stolen 2020 election and ending with direction from the tri lateral commission and the Knights Templar ? Because it's all true and I have the documents in the cloud. They are after me. But I'm turning the docs over to you so that you can publish them in the event of my timely disappearance. Remember Vince Foster and Jeff Epstein? This would be the same. You've been warned and informed dear Rumpole. Welcome to the inside and the other side.
Judge Peter Lopez. Judge Alan Fine. Judge Scott Bernstein. Judge Jonathan Colby. Judge Bill Matthewman.
And a few other Judges in the middle and northern district were in there class and were all close friends. It was an epic class. Judge Mike Hanzman was a semester later.
Universal lifted its 2025 revenue forecast to $650 million-$700 million, up from $640 million-$700 million, and now sees its operating expenses decreasing year over year by a low single-digit percentage compared to its prior guidance of flat. That implies better margins in H2 2025, and the expectation for larger royalty and license fee revenue in H2 2025 also supports that outlook.
That supports our bullish outlook, but comments collected from key customers, LG Display (LPL) , and Samsung bring even more support. During its earnings call, LG Display revealed that organic light-emitting diodes displays continued to become a larger part of its overall display business. The company also reiterated its strategic focus to shift to organic light-emitting diodes from liquid crystal displays (LCDs) for smartphone, automotive, and display markets.
Samsung’s Display business commented that organic light-emitting diode adoption rates continue to rise in the TV market, and it is seeing strong demand for organic light-emitting diode monitors. Samsung also sees better volumes ahead for its smartphone business largely due to its premium segment, which has larger display sizes and utilize organic light-emitting diode displays.
Longer-term, research firm Omdia continues to see higher organic light-emitting diode adoption ahead in smartphones, TV, and the automotive sector. That includes a wider array of foldable products, including Apple’s (AAPL) expected foldable iPhone next year. That backs many of the signals we’ve discussed with you in the first half of 2025 regarding design wins and other product announcements utilizing organic light-emitting diode displays.
Wither shum dog this long hot summer? Carolina ? Ibiza ? Turks and Caicos ? Azerbaijan ? Montreal?
RIP—six decades of the correct time!
You forgot evidence about JFK's murder, Jimmy Hoffa's whereabouts, the truth behind the disappearance of Judge Joseph Crater, and finally, and most important, smoking gun proof that the second Ali/Liston bout was not on the up and up.
Captain
Thanks for writing about Matthewman. He is one of the best.
Why haven’t you written about FHP. Since March they have conducted 1000 traffic stops that resulted in them taking into custody 2,500 illegal immigrants who had no criminal record. They were all hard working people just trying to get by. Most are tax paying. All were law abiding. But Gov DeathSantis had them all put in jail.
I like Philip Morris. One word - Zyns. It pays a 3.4 percent dividend too. Buy the dip.
President Trump unleashed his fury about weakness in the labor market on Friday, saying without evidence that the data were “rigged”
Or “data was rigged “ ? I know data is plural so “were” is technically correct but “was rigged” sounds better. Thoughts ?
anything and everything that goes against the orange tangerine is "rigged". When he came in third to Cruz in the Iowa Caucus in 2016, he said it was "rigged". I cannot see why anyone with common sense would put this moron in the White House.
Any trial lawyers in that class?
He gets paid to walk laps all day. Best waste of money in America.
Bill has always been a great lawyer and a great person.
Ali hit Liston right on the button and down he went. Perfect right hand. Known for his Jab, Ali had a superb right hand including the one he threw that knocked out big George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire.
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