MONDAY JUNE 8 NEWS AND NOTES

 We have some good news. See below. 

The Pino trial began today, and we heard it was broadcast live on television. We did not watch it, but overheard someone say that the defendant was sobbing so badly at one point during his counsel Scott  Howard Srebnick's  (tomato- tomahto?) opening that Judge Tinkler-Mendez stopped the trial.  Never a good sign. 

Once we had a jury come back in less than thirty minutes and our client started taking off his belt and watch and handing it to his wife. We walked over and snarled "put your f'ing belt back on. You ain't going nowhere." And he all he did was go home that night. It's a hard enough job. Client's need to have a little faith in their counsel. 

Laura Adams leads the prosecution and she's as good as it gets. 

GUESS WHO IS BACK? 

He's like a bad penny that keeps turning up. 

Everyone's favourite Miami crime reporter extraordinaire- David Ovalle- is back as the failing NY Times Florida Correspondent. 

Florida needs a reporter devoted full time to a national newspaper. We lead the country in weirdness. It's not like the NY Times has a New Mexico reporter, or a South Dakota reporter. 

Here is part of the Times news release announcing David's position: 

For years, many of the wildest and most memorable stories coming out of Florida bore the same byline: David Ovalle. 

Covering crime and criminal justice for The Miami Herald, David wrote about a murder rooted in Miami’s niche world of pigeon racing. A businessman who used $2.1 million in pandemic loans to buy “the peak Miami status symbols,” including a Lamborghini. The brazen theft from a warehouse of thousands of pairs of the body-shaping undergarments known as fajas – think Spanx, but Spanish.

In his more recent job at The Washington Post, David spent three years covering addiction, illegal drugs and public health policy. Steve Smith, his editor for most of that time and now a deputy on Metro, says: “David reports with intensity and empathy. He writes with precision and elan. He can spot a great story — and a charlatan — a mile away. And his talents as a writer and a reporter are eclipsed only by his decency and caring as a colleague.”... He owned the crime and courts beat thanks to deep sources that he built in police departments and courthouses. He wrote about police shootings and alleged misconduct; the Parkland school massacre, and complex legal cases involving the Stand Your Ground defense and the death penalty.

We’re pleased he’s joining the National desk as Florida correspondent.

Just who were they speaking of about Ovalle's "deep sources"? We'll never tell. 

OVALLE'S LAST HURRAH

 The Miami Herald posted the very last article super srcribe (and friend of the blog) David Ovalle wrote for them this past weekend. It was a thoughtful examination of the  new bond system Miami Dade is about to employ. The article is here. 

In one of his great books (and you should read them all, and we recommend listening to them since he is the narrator and his voice adds to the excellent writing) Malcom Gladwell in Talking to Strangers examines, inter alia, the fact that Judges are no better than anyone else in determining the danger a person seeking bond represents, or whether they are a risk of flight. No surprise there about the lack of perspicacity of those who sit above everyone else in a courtroom, but the bigger question we now face is whether we want to have that decision made by a human with mostly limited insight into the issues, or a computer running software? 

We do not mind a computer assisting a pilot landing a plane, or a robot assisted surgery, or even a Tesla on self-drive, but do we want decisions made by software- and how do you as an advocate argue against the decision the software has generated? Just how do you argue against a grouchy jurist, sitting in the REGJB on a Sunday morning with six hundred arrests to plow through, telling you "Counsel the Hal 9000 says your client is a risk of flight."  

(almost none of our 30 something robe wearers caught the reference to 2001 a Space Odessey, which we are happy to inform our latte-swilling gen-xer Judges was made in 1968, when your grandparents were in Haight- Ashbury in San Fran making love, not war. And for those of you who did catch the reference, did you know Hal was an acronym for Heuristically Algorithmic Programmed computer?)

While we understand several judges have devoted valuable half hour swaths of their time working with the Arnold Bakers (you have to read our previous post here to get this reference no matter how old or young you are), when they could have otherwise been saving humanity with their brilliance in court, there is something that doesn't sit right with justice via algorithms   (JVA (c) 2023 Rumpole, all rights reserved). 

BECAUSE...drum roll please- this is the thin edge of a large wedge.  Computer assisted decisions on bail and bonds, are one step removed from CADs on motions to suppress (not that it's that hard to write DENIED on orders) which are one step removed from...double drum roll please....CADs on bench trials....which are one step removed from ....triple drum roll please CAD JURY TRIALS. (cue the Tubular Bells music from the Exorcist, which has been remade and is being released this spring). 

In other words dear readers, regarding the fast-fading art of legal advocacy, it is all downhill from here. 

The Scene: The REGJB ELECTRONIC WAITING ROOM CHAT- circa 2055

Lawyer one- LOOK! It's that old guy who's been around since 2015. He's actually in court. 

Lawyer: OMFG ROLFL I heard he is the last lawyer alive who still argued a case to a jury of humans.

Lawyer Three- Gross. They were in court? Breathing on each other?

Lawyer One- Yup - until the Covid/Asian/Bird Flu CABF2029 wiped out 25% of the population. Remember when in 2028 they actually discovered the Microsoft microchip in the covid vaccines in some classified briefing papers found in the garage of President Buttigieg, which then caused everyone in 2029 to not get the CABF2029 vaccine, which caused the pandemic. 

There is no more frightening and eerie soundtrack for a scary movie then this:

GOODBYE TO A LEGEND

 We say a fond REGJB Blog goodbye to a blog friend, supporter, and all-around great guy - ace Herald reporter David Ovalle. Like other Herald reporters before him, he is going to the Washington Post to cover the Opioid crisis. Yes, the Washington Post needs a reporter dedicated to the opioid crisis. Meanwhile the Miami Herald has trouble getting a reporter to cover Miami. 

David carried on the tradition of great Miami crime reporters. Edna Buchanan. Susannah Nesmith. And then David Ovalle. 

Along with covering crime in our beloved REGJB, David covered more hurricanes than anyone from San Diego should have to, and he was part of the Herald Pulitzer prize winning team of reporters that covered the Surfside building collapse tragedy. They won the Pulitzer in the Breaking News category. 

David was and is a great reporter. He quickly consumed the Miami REGIB lore. He covered the greatness of Sy Gaer, Richard Sharpstein, and knew about Janet Reno and Richard Gerstein and Bennett Brummer.  The Lozano riots were before his time, as were the McDuffy riots, but he knew about them and how they affected Miami and the REGJB. He took the time to learn about our legendary building and our legends. And that helped him do his job in the superb manner he did. He covered murders, and REGJB characters. He covered justice and injustice and reported on the each with the same fervor and ferocity for the truth. 

David became part of the REGJB for the last twenty years or so. When the story of this unique building and people is finally written, he will be in chapters integral to who we are as a legal community. He reported our stories without becoming part of the stories until his leaving us became the story. 

We do not know if he will keep his @davidovalle305 twitter feed. @davidoxyDC doesn't have the same ring to it. February 1 will be his first day at the Post. 

But in this day and age of social media, media feeds, on-line stories, twitter, IG and the like, David will only be a click away. Until otherwise you can wish him well in a tweet. 

Woodward. Bernstein. Ovalle. Has a nice ring to it. He will be perfectly positioned to cover the second presidency of Donald Trump, and his criminal trial(s). 

Meanwhile: WRITER WANTED Must know about crime and law and be comfortable drinking mediocre coffee while huddling in wifi hot spots of a 60+year old building while covering trials before prima donnas who wear black.  Must not be squeamish and ok to view crime scene pictures. Must not be susceptible to the charms of prosecutors who hide discovery, judges who take long lunch hours, and criminal defense attorneys who pass off murders as simple batterys with an unhappy ending. Long hours and low pay a must. Inquire at the Miami Herald. 

OVALLE v. PUBLIX

If you have not been following the contretemps of Ace Herald scribe David Ovalle and the express lane at Publix on his twitter account @davidovalle305 then you have been missing a treat. The issue has, at last, through the volunteer efforts of two retired Judges from the Third DCA, and yours truly, been resolved. While we will not ruin the ending, it is our strong advice that if you bump into Ovalle at Publix, you walk the other way. He's a rabble-rouser.

Ovalle v Publix by Rumpole21 on Scribd

AN ARTHUR HEARING

THIS IS THE CITY. MIAMI, FLORIDA. 

There's a lot to do here. You can splash in the surf, eat like a king, dance until dawn, sail a boat at sunset. According to the 2010 census, there's 2,496,435 people who call this city home. And when one of them dies, that's when I go to work; I write a blog. 

The story you are about to read is true. The names have not been changed. The defendant is presumed innocent. 

On October 7, 2013, an Arthur Hearing was held at the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building. This is how it unfolded as  tweeted by Herald reporter David Ovalle:

David Ovalle ‏@DavidOvalle305

In court for missing body Arthur hearing. Actually this is my first hearing of any substance in Judge Hendon's. Det. Juan Segovia up first

David Ovalle 
Det. Segovia says Maqueira, laughing and mocking, constantly challenged them to show him Raquel's body.

David Ovalle 
Alex Michaels bellowing re: why MDPD never records most interviews (this case, post-sworn statement). Judge calmly overrules objection

David Ovalle 
Det. Segovia says Maqueira, laughing and mocking, constantly challenged them to show him Raquel's body.

David Ovalle ‏ 
For leverage in interrogation, Det. Segovia showed Maqueira that his daughter was in office talking to cops. "He looked like he saw a ghost"

David Ovalle ‏
Alex Michaels objected. "Not sure the detective is familiar with ghosts ... what they look like," Michaels said.

David Ovalle 
Prosecutor asks about unnamed jailhouse informant.  "You can call him Rat No. 1," Alex Michaels says. Judge shakes head, says nothing

David Ovalle 
Alex Michaels just went ballistic, pointing out Maqueira's phone located at scene of vanishing, not neccesarily defendant himself

David Ovalle ‏
To explain why his phone pinged in area of estranged wife's disappearance, Maqueira claimed that he gave it to her as an impromptu gift. 

This is one of those rare, but not unheard of cases of a murder prosecution without a body. The arthur hearing didn't conclude on Monday.

See You In Court.