When you see something that is not right, not fair, find a way to get in the way and cause trouble.
Congressman John Lewis
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.
Good Monday morning REGJB! Court is opened Monday and closed Tuesday (11/11). Good luck with jury selection today.
Come Tuesday morning we will have our first cold snap of the fall, when temps start dropping late this evening. By Tuesday morning it will dip to 49! Sweater weather! We love it. And remember to skip that extra large Starbucks coffee order and donate to a local Miami food bank.
On Sunday night, as blog readers were counting their winnings (we gave you Fins over Cheaters, the Jets blowing the first pick by beating the Browns, and Seattle over Arizona) a group of senate Democrats were agreeing to a temporary funding bill that would re-open the government until January. Air travel would return in time for Thanksgiving (unfortunately that includes MIA which we abhor), and SNAP would be fully funded allowing people to use their recently worthless TRUMP cards (Terror Reigning Under Meal Payment cards). In return, the Democrats did NOT get relief for those paying the exponentially higher premiums when renewing their Obama care.
So let's summarize. To punish the democrats for not agreeing to the government funding bills, the republicans made food and health care unaffordable for many working-class Americans. Seems to us like a good election strategy for the midterms: take away food and health insurance. Sure, that works. The only thing left is to raise taxes on those earning less than $60,000.00 a year to incentivize them into working harder and earning more.
What did you miss most about the government shutdown? Visits from pesky USDA inspectors? The FDA regulating new medicines? Air safety?
Don't forget to thank your favourite federal courtroom deputy from showing up and keeping court running smoothly without being paid. Ditto to the federal PDS.
You can make your donations to help feed Floridians using the money saved skipping your Starbucks drink here:
Guten Morgan, we start our day with the Colts and Falcons in the NFL's first ever game in Berlin. The Colts are -6 favourites and you have to ask was last week an aberration or has the whole season been an aberration? We are going to go with last week being just one of those weeks for Indy against a motivated Steeler D. We like Daniel Jones, who is continuing the tradition of failed NY first round QBs having a second chance somewhere else. And no "sauce on side" for us, as Sauce Gardner joins the Colt's secondary fresh off his early release from the NY Jets. So we are JFK'ing this with an Ich Bin Ein Berliner bet and starting our day off with a heavy dose of beer and schnitzel on Indy -6, [PUSH]with a tiny parlay on Jonathan Taylor over 93.5 yds rushing (a little too high but what the heck, it's Germany) and Penix under 232 passing yards. [WIN 15 got us 50].
The rest of the week, including the big power matchup everyone is talking about, a bit later after we finish our Vietnamese Coffee brew (we are obsessed).
First up is the Bills at Miami. Will the Fins keep it close? Who knows? Who cares? The Miami fans have abandoned this team because that is what they do. Take the points as the Bills have KC hangover and there may be a back door cover. Like for five bucks- no more. The fins stink and could lose 38-10.
Giants at Bears (our survivor pick). Chi -4 seems a bit light. Lay the 4 and get the hotdog 🌠with tomato, onions, relish, mustard and a pickle spear on a seeded bun.We love a good Chicago dog.
Arizona at Seattle. The Cardinals have disappointed us. But it's the offense of both teams we like today. A hawk beats a cardinal every time, even with -6.5, and over 45.5.
Okay, here it is, the matchup you have circled since the schedule was released last year.Browns! Jets! It does not get any better than this in the NFL. This is the battle for the first draft pick in 2026. The Browns will be looking to draft their 234th first round QB since 1990 (or as many cabinet members that resigned in the dear leader's first administration). But if there is one thing a die-hard Jets fan can count on is their team to screw it up. They got off the schneid last week, and in their battle for the first pick of the draft next year, the J E T S Jets Jets Jets screw this up by winning a close one at home. Maybe on OT FG in which the entire stadium will be praying for them to miss it. Who knows, other than it will be entertaining.
This friends, is what football is all about. Jets +2 because they screw things up like John Thune presiding over the longest ever shutdown of the government. No Snap payments? Happy Thanksgiving.🦃 * Wanna fly home? Have you considered Uber?
SURVIVOR
Lucy Lew has Carolina on her mind. Rumpole likes Da Bears, and Dan Tibbett, showing why he is the master defense strategist, has taken his bye, giving him a chance to win the whole shebang without risking losing. It is just amazing how many of you bust out without ever using your bye.
* We are going to start the angry-old-guy-rant now. We DO NOT want your insipid email on November 26 wishing us happy thanksgiving. We do not need it. We do not want it. Nobody cares about you wishing them a happy thanksgiving. They do not sit down to eat turkey and ham and say "Wait! Did we get that happy thanksgiving email from that law firm that started spamming us a few years ago?" Let's be real. The email is just you saying "Hey! Look at me! I'm relevant. I'm sincere. I'm sensitive. I'm thinking of you so please think of me!" And it is none of those things. It is just a silly ego inflating exercise that spams our inbox on a day we do not want to think of law, you, or emails. So be a real mensch, and make a donation to people who are missing Snap payments, and do it the right way- anonymously, and you will have good karma. Email us, and bad times will follow.
Make a donation to people who are hungry in America in 2025 here:
or These Florida Restaurants have stepped up with free meals to people with worthless SNAP/Trump cards.
If you know of a Miami restaurant offering free meals to Snap recipients, please let us know and we will give them tons of free JB Blog publicity.
Nvidia is worth 4 trillion; Apple 3T, Microsoft 2+T, and we have hunger in this country. We have people dying without medical care. It just does not make sense to us. It is a shame that a child wakes up hungry after going to bed hungry and we are all spending `11 dollars on some stupid coffee drink. Make your own coffee today and donate ten bucks. Ten freaking dollars! If everyone in the REGJB did that, we could feed thousands of Miamians who need some assistance. If you do not like government taxes to help the disadvantaged, and we do have some philosophical differences with altruism as a forced government philosophy, step up and do it yourself. Pay it forward. Make a difference and you just might feel better about yourself come new year's resolutions time- when all some of you can think about is being tougher on defendants, or charging more for that no action you had nothing to do with. (And they say we are never tough on crim def attys. Sheesh. Read the damn blog will ya?And stop yapping about crap you know nothing about.)
The Republicans are going after federal judges who had the temerity to criticize the nine members of the highest court in the land. Impeachments may follow.
Why did this catch our attention? Because of the renewed grumbling at 1350 NW 12th avenue about your humble blogger.
"Something should be done"; "file a bar complaint"; "have you read what he wrote in the comments about our office?"
The third comment irks us the most. WE DO NOT WRITE THE COMMENTS, GENIUS. Others do. You might want to thank us for letting you know how lowly your office is viewed.
Back to the federal judges, who we now, uncharacteristically find ourselves sympathizing with. Fear not, denizens of courtrooms with ultra-high ceilings, we feel your pain. And we (you members of the judiciary and us- your blogger) are in good company. Forty-six different aliases were used by commentators /authors of the federalist papers. And if Publius was good enough for Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, then Rumpole suits us just fine. There is a long tradition of using pen-names to spark discussions about issues, The practice pre-dates the republic. So to you ASAs grumbling about us: as James Madison would say: stuff it!
And if you would like to learn more about the Supreme Court's shadow docket, then our own modern-day Federalist Judge Milton Hirsch will be giving a CLE zoom lecture about this very topic. His latest constitutional calendar on Milton's Paradise Lost...Guy de Maupassant... Ernie Banks...Mark Twain...Ulysses Grant, had this missive about an upcoming CLE.
On an unrelated note: Although the Supreme Court normally rises on or before the July 4 holiday and doesn't reconvene till the first Monday in October, this past summer saw a torrent of path-breaking opinions (and "shadow docket" orders without opinions). I'm doing a one-hour Zoom CLE on those cases at lunchtime next Thursday, Nov. 13. If you need an hour of CLE, you can get it painlessly from the safety, comfort, and convenience of your own chair and computer. Here's the link: https://mbba.wildapricot.org/event-6409682
So there you have it. A defense of pseudonyms.
A Pennsylvania Farmer
(the pseudonym of federalist John Dickinson - one of our favourite Founding Father).
Wednesday the Supreme Court ("Textualism, textualism, textualism!!!) takes up the challenge to the Dear Leader's willy-nilly imposition on tariffs without congressional approval. "Barbados thinks it can win a trade war with us? Think again tough guy."
The Dear Leader's justification for his careful and well thought out imposition of tariffs? A Jimmy Carter era law: International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”).
The question is simple? Has Congress given the president the authority to impose broad import duties (i.e., tariffs) by invoking an emergency-powers statute that was originally aimed at foreign threats?
The answer is simple to the six conservative justices on the Supreme Court: Of course the President is right. The law gives him the powers do impose tariffs when he wants, for how much he wants. If it's Wednesday, the tariffs on China must be 30%. If it's Friday, the rate is 11%.
And of course, the legal reasoning that the majority will use is textualism. Just rule based on what the law says. People will die- sorry, Textualism does not allow us to intervene. The planet will be destroyed- sorry, Textualism does not allow us to intervene.
Textualism rules the day. So all the majority needs to do is read the IEEPA (which sounds like a bad local pub brew in Cleveland) and simply point out that the law gives the President the right to impose tariffs in an emergency. Should take about three pages- The Dear Leader wins because he always wins (except when prosecuted in NY State Court).
One eeny, weeny, teeny tiny small problem. IEEPA never mentions imposing tariffs or duties, nor creating taxes. Under past precedent, tariffs are legislative‐taxing measures belonging to Congress.
The United States Court of Appeals for the DC Federal Circuit ruled 7-4 via Textualism reasoning, that the Dear Leader exceeded his authority under IEEPA by imposing sweeping tariffs. The majority held that the statute did not clearly authorize tariffs and in fact did not have the word tariffs in the statute.
So now, that truckload of valium in DC being delivered to the Supreme Court will be used by six judges whose two loves in life: their sole desire to please the Dear Leader, and the use of Textualism to accomplish all their personal goals, are in conflict.
What to do? Oh what to do? Will their love of unencumbered presidential power - when they like the president- carry the day? Or will they demonstrate the kind of intellectual honesty that their love affair with textualism requires? They love giving speeches about how textualism often requires them to rule in ways that they personally would not do. (If it hasn't happened in the past, in the future the audience should cough **bs**bs** bullshit** bullshit**).
Call us pessimistic, but we predict the kind of legal yoga that will allow these sycophants to support their Dear Leader.
Something like, "Textualism can be carried a bit too far. It is perfectly reasonable to apply the legal principle to deny starving children food, dying people medicine and medical insurance, but it must yield when a Republican President that we like declares an emergency. Plus, the president says he sees the word tariffs in the statute, and as we have often ruled recently, if the president says it, then it must be true. "
So let's see how intellectually honest these six bootlickers really are.
Your Miami Dolphins fired their GM after Thursday's thrashing my the Ravens. With the Dolphins in free fall, the front running Miami fans can turn their attention to the Heat for the start of the NBA season.
If you didn't watch games 6 and 7, you missed classic October World Series drama. Props to the Dodgers who were fire and won two on the road to come from behind 3-2 in the series. And in case you're worried, Rumpole, sitting on a juicy Blue Jays to win it all bet in May, laid off his action in games 6 &7, placing bets on LA (against our ticket) that paid off and guaranteed us a 50% win on our bet, which was still a nice five figures score and putting us in the black for MLB 2025 after suffering all those losses on the Mets and Red Sox. Pitchers and Catchers report in 100 days. Cannot wait.
Slim pickings this week. Often by November a team's tendencies have been established and it's hard to find lines that are off and give the bettor an advantage.
Detroit -8.5 at home over Minnesota? Pass. Ditto Giants +2.5 at home over San Fran; and most of the other games.
So let's take under 48 Giants/Niners; under 48.5 Vikes/Lions; under 51 Bears/Bengals; under 51 Colts/Steelers.
The game of the week that everyone has been waiting for is Jacksonville/ Raiders Chiefs at Bills. And while we love us a home dog, which the Bills are at +2 we are going to take the points and the Mahommes to win this sucker as the marquee afternoon matchup.
As to the Jags /Raiders clash? An ethics discussion between KFR and a Judge from the 3rd DCA would be more interesting. The Rules of Ethics are a serious two-digit underdog in that matchup.
SURVIVOR
We are down to three. Rumpole (naturally), Daniel Tibbitt, and Lucy Lew.
Rumpole and Tibbitt are rolling with the Rams and Double L has the Chargers. We could crown a 2025 champion in what could be Rumpole's last hurrah.
You know what we did Halloween night? Watched Abbott and Costello v. Frakenstein and Dracula. They don't make movies like that anymore.
FINAL THOUGHT
We have remained silent as the royal contretemps played itself out these last few weeks, ending in the removal of a royal title, eviction from a royal estate, and bandishment to the King's private estate at Sandringham, a cold and dank place on the North Sea.
But this is what we are thinking. If Andrew Montbatten Windsor takes up painting, as Churchill did from time to time... (wait for it)
Will he be known as ...(hang in there until the end)
This world series is turning out to be a classic. The Blue Jays, in last place last year, had the world champ Dodgers down 3 games to 2 heading into last night's game six in Toronto. And then something happened, which showed once again why there is nothing better in sports than October baseball.
But before we get to last night's game, we will briefly talk about a similar play in what we consider to be the greatest world series game ever played: Game Seven, Yankees at Pirates 1960. The Yankees were overwhelming favourites in the series. And as the series played out, it showed. The Yankees won three games 16-4, 10-0, and 6-4. Getting to game 7, the Pirates won 6-4, 3-2, and 5-2. Now Game 7 1960 is famous for the only game 7 bottom of the 9th walk off home run. Bill Mazeroski hit it, and the Pirates shocked the Yankees and became world champs.
But before Maz's famous dinger, there was the bottom of the eighth inning. The game had see-sawed back and forth with the Pirates going up 2-0, and then 4-1 before the Yankees went up 5-4 and then 8-4. In the bottom of the 8th, Bill Virdon came up with a runner on first and no outs. He hit a sharp grounder to Tony Kubek at short. It was an easy double-play ball. But the infield in Forbes Field had small pebbles in the dirt. The sharp grounder hit a pebble that kicked up and hit Kubek in the throat. He collapsed and was subsequently taken to the hospital.
The ball can bounce strangely in October game sevens.
Without the double play, the Pirates had two on, and slugging catcher Hall Smith bashed a three-run homer in what turned out to be a five run Pirate inning. The Yanks tied it back up in the top of the ninth, setting the stage for Maz's clutch immortal home run. But none of that happens if the grounder doesn't hit a pebble that causes a freak injury to Kubek. You can hear Mel Allen on the call mistakenly thinking that the ball hit Kubek in the face.
Which brings us to Game Six in the current Series Friday night. The Jays were down 3-1 in the bottom of the ninth with a man on first. Addison "Bam Bam" Barger came to bat and was the tying run. Barger hammered a fastball from Roki Sasaki to deep left-center, over the head of the outfielders. The runner from first scored, and the Jays were down by one with a man on second. A walk off world series championship hit was in the cards.
Except it was Halloween and the ball bounces funny in World Series games in October.
Barger's ball stuck in the bottom of the fence... what???
We shall repeat it, because we did not believe it. The ball stuck in the bottom of the fence. We have NEVER seen that in a baseball game (of course no one had ever seen a grounder hit a pebble and take out a shortstop either). The umpires called it a ground rule double, the runner that scored was moved back to third- and this being October baseball, the next batter flied out to short center and Barger, thinking the ball was going to drop, was doubled off second- this being the first 7-4 double play to end a world series game.
