CRANCH AND MORE

 Happy July 1! We are still around (for now). More on this in the coming days. 

July First is, as everybody knows, Bobby Bonilla day! The NY Mets signed Bonilla to a five-million-dollar contract in 1999 and Bonilla agreed to defer his money until starting in 2011 at which point the Mets have for every year paid Bobby B 1.93 million dollars. The deferment payments continue until 2035.  Not a bad deal.

Here's our take on the 14 Amendment Birthright Citizenship decision. 

First, a ton of history. CJ John Roberts starts with a lengthy exposition on England, the colonies, and who was a citizen and how they became one. Both the majority and dissenting opinions quote a lot from decisions in the Cranch legal reporter, as well as every justice who wrote an opinion quoted Fredrick Douglass, both his books and speeches to support their own reasoning. Recall that the 14th Amendment was enacted to confirm citizenship to Black Americans who had been slaves. Douglass's words about the amendment confirming not conferring citizenship on former slaves are very persuasive. 

Which is why we think the dissents of Justice Thomas and Alito carry the day. Their reasoning that the 14 Amendment provided citizenship to a group of people born in the United States who were domiciled in this country and owed no allegiance to foreign powers simply makes more sense in both the historical and current context.  

When you read all the opinions, much is made of what does and does not constitute the establishment of a domicile- the kind of late-night arguments we envision occurring in the comfy wood-paneled law offices of legal sharpies who work on top of a garage.  So read the opinions for everything you wanted to know about the law of establishing a domicile, and more. 

Now the more reactive and less learned of our readers will react with outrage of our support for the dissents. "How could you say (fill in the blank) is not a citizen?"  They were born here and blah blah blah." 

The more educated readers will understand that our opinion is not an expression of anti-immigration sentiment. We are firmly of the belief that we are a country of immigrants (other than Native Americans) and that we are stronger because of it. 

But on the legal question of whether the 14th Amendment confers citizenship on someone who simply happens to be born here- like in the case of birth tourism- Thomas and Alito got it right (as much as it pains us to say it). Roberts got it wrong, and Kavanaugh punted with his narrow concurrence on a 1940's statute being the reason the executive order was wrong and the reason to uphold the New Hampshire District Court's decision. 

The Supreme Court Term is over, and like them, we are planning our summer sojourns to far flung areas of the planet. Whether we return for the first Monday in October is an entirely different discussion. 

BREAKING NEWS ... JUDGE EMAS (via the ACLU of Florida) sues Governor DeSantis .....

THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:

"Apparently, in Tallahassee, constitutional deadlines are treated more like New Year's resolutions than legal obligations."

JUDGE KEVIN EMAS (by the ACLU of Florida) SUES GOVERNOR DESANTIS .....

On March 31, 2026, Judge Kevin Emas retired from the Third District Court of Appeal.

Following the announcement of his retirement back in December, Governor DeSantis requested that the Third DCA Judicial Nominating Commission begin the process of identifying his replacement.

The JNC did exactly what the Florida Constitution required it to do. It accepted applications, conducted interviews, deliberated, and on March 17, 2026, Chairman Paul Huck, Jr. transmitted the certified list of nominees to the Governor.

And with that transmission, the constitutional clock began to run.

Article V, Section 11(c) of the Florida Constitution is not complicated. It is not ambiguous. It does not contain exceptions, loopholes, or escape hatches.

It provides:

"The governor shall make the appointment within sixty days after the nominations have been certified to the governor."

"Shall" is not advisory language.

"Within sixty days" is not a suggestion.

Day 60 came and went on May 16, 2026.

The Governor did not make an appointment.

On May 20, 2026, your own CAPTAIN JUSTICE sent an email to Governor DeSantis' General Counsel, David Axelman, whose office oversees the judicial appointment process. Assistant General Counsel Taylor Gustafson, the Director of Judicial Appointments, was copied on the correspondence.

There was no response.

On May 26, 2026, Captain Justice followed up.

Still no response.

Telephone calls were placed.

Voice messages were left.

Still no response.

Throughout the month of June, additional emails and messages were sent to Mr. Axelman and Ms. Gustafson asking two simple questions:

Why has the Governor failed to appoint a replacement for Judge Emas?

And when can the citizens of Florida expect the appointment to be made?

The answer to both questions, apparently, was silence.

On May 29, 2026, Captain Justice contacted the ACLU of Florida. In prior instances involving missed constitutional deadlines for judicial appointments, the ACLU has sought relief from the Florida Supreme Court to compel compliance with the Constitution.

Nicholas Warren, an attorney with the ACLU of Florida, advised that the organization would consider pursuing such relief in this matter.

Today, June 30, 2026, the ACLU of Florida did exactly that.

The following Petition for Writ of Mandamus was filed in the Supreme Court of Florida:

KEVIN EMAS, Petitioner,

v.

RON DESANTIS, as Governor of Florida, Respondent.

The petition was filed by Nicholas Warren on behalf of Judge Emas.

A copy of the petition can be found here.

The ACLU of Florida issued a Press Release accompanying the Petition. From their Press Release:

“A deadline is a deadline,” said Nicholas Warren, senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Florida. “Governor DeSantis doesn’t just get to ignore our Constitution if he feels like it. His repeated refusal to follow such a simple law is both troubling and illegal.”

A copy of the Press Release issued by the ACLU of Florida can be found here.

Meanwhile, six highly qualified nominees continue waiting for action from the Governor's Office:

Jeffrey DeSousa
Judge Javier Enriquez
Judge Spencer Multack
Judge Joseph Perkins
Judge Thomas Rebull
Judge Robert Watson

One of these six individuals will almost certainly be named to the Third DCA in the near future.

The question is why Florida had to get here first.

It should not require intervention by CAPTAIN JUSTICE, the ACLU, and litigation in the Supreme Court of Florida to compel compliance with one of the clearest provisions in the Florida Constitution.

Governor DeSantis, General Counsel David Axelman, and Director of Judicial Appointments Taylor Gustafson have each taken an oath to support, protect, and defend that Constitution.

Citizens are expected to follow the law.

Lawyers are expected to follow the law.

Judges are expected to follow the law.

Surely the same standard applies to those charged with enforcing it.

CAPTAIN OUT ......
Captain4Justice@gmail.com

THE END IS NEAR AND FOR SOME HERE

The end is near for the current Supreme Court term   (what did you think we were referring to ?) and the final decisions will be released at ten AM. Then as is custom, all the justices will leave the Court under heavy security and splash and frolic in the now green Lincoln memorial reflecting pool, showing the public the congeniality of the court despite the deep splits in the decisions. Social media and prediction markets are abuzz wondering and betting if Sotomayor will dunk Alito into the pool's beautiful green waters?  Then they will scatter for the summer recess. 

The end is here for Germany, the Netherlands, and most heartbreakingly the Japanese soccer team on the world cup pitch.  If you're keeping score of Rumpole's world cup bets, yesterday we were a solid 0 for 3, losing all our bets, and canceling our order of wagyu beef patties for the Fourth of July burger we have planned.  Back to Publix's good ol' 80-20 mix of ground beef for us unless we can rebound with a big USA bet on Wednesday.  Thank goodness for Applied Materials rocket-like run lately. At least we can now pay the mortgage on our vacation home. 

With the 14th Amendment viability up for grabs, we will do our best to update the blog, pending the efficiency of some of Miami's best criminal court judges this morning. 

Where's the best watch parties for the USA match Wednesday? 

And are we playing Bosnia AND Herzegovina   or Bosnia/Herzegovina? 

So is it 2 against 1 or 1v 1? 

MOONLIGHT GRAHAM

UPDATES: 

SECOND UPDATE: Fed board member Cook wins, President loses. The Supreme Court has ruled (5-4) that the President cannot fire Cook just because she's black, female (two big strikes in this administration) and he didn't appoint her. Justice Alito's one word dissent COWARDS will become legend. * Justice Kavanaugh (just have a beer and chill dude) was the swing vote, joining CJ Roberts, who wrote the opinion, and the three normal justices -Sotomayor, Kagan, and Brown Jackson. Note that the majority agreed that if the administration ordered some hapless AUSA to indict Cook on trumped up (pun intended) mortgage fraud charges, the status of Cook could be re-addressed. 

Apropos of nothing, but wouldn't it be so cool if we had a supreme court justice named Jackson Brown?  Then we could really opine that the Court is running on empty. 

FIRST UPDATE: This will be a busy week for nerdy Supreme Court watchers (like federal bloggers who work on top of a garage for example) as several important decisions remain to be announced before the Court flees hot, muggy DC. Today the Court declined to hear the appeal by the person accused of sexually abusing the writer jean Carrol. The five-million-dollar judgement stands against her convicted abuser (blog policy usually stops us from identifying people involved in sexual assault cases. In this instances, Ms. Carrol has often, repeatedly, and publicly identified her MAGA assailant). Wonder if the White House will cover the spectacle of the check being cut and mailed? 

In other pending cases the Court will decide if the President can fire a member of the Fed for reasons he made up; if the President can order the deportation of people born in the United States to foreign parents just because and that the fourteenth amendment is mostly BS anyway and everyone knows it;    and, finally,  if the President is in fact bound by the law or Constitution in anything he does. In that last case, the oral argument exclamation from Justice Alito still has legs on social media: "He's a republican president for gosh sakes. it's not like he's Obama. He can do what he wants...jeeze, enough already with the lawsuits."  *

Todays Post: 

No one better to explain Moonlight Graham than the author of the Constitutional Calendar. 

As originally drafted, Art. II provided that the presidential candidate who got the most electoral-college votes would become president, and the candidate who got the second-most votes would become vice-president.  That didn’t work.  The Twelfth Amendment changed the system to more or less what we have now: a presidential candidate chooses his vice-presidential candidate, typically based on some perceived electoral advantage that the vice-presidential candidate offers.  

In the 1932 election Franklin Roosevelt felt obliged to choose as his running mate John Nance Garner, a congressman from Texas and Speaker of the House.  To the very limited extent that Garner is remembered today, it is for his comment that the vice-presidency wasn’t “worth a bucket of warm piss.”  (The newspapers that reprinted that remark engaged in a little Comstockery, rendering it as “warm spit.”  Apparently “warm spit” was more appropriate for printing in mass-circulation newspapers.)

In anticipation of the 1936 election, F.D.R. was toying with the idea of switching running mates.  Without telling much of anybody, he telephoned Frank Porter Graham, president of the University of North Carolina, and offered the vice-presidential candidacy to him.  Graham was flabbergasted and of course flattered, but he turned the president down.  He just didn’t think he was qualified for the job.  In the end, Roosevelt endured another term with Garner.

But Frank Porter Graham didn’t stay out of political life forever.  In 1949 the governor of North Carolina appointed him to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate as a consequence of the death of one of North Carolina’s senators.  Graham did so, but wasn’t re-elected; his views on civil rights were considered too liberal for the times.  

An educator, briefly a senator, an early champion of civil rights – undoubtedly Frank Porter Graham contributed something that America could be proud to remember.  But his contribution was as nothing compared to that of his older brother Archibald.

Archie went to medical school, making a few dollars and having some fun along the way by playing baseball.  Whether he was a medical student who moonlighted as a ballplayer or a baseball player who moonlighted as a medical student, he was stuck with the nickname “Moonlight” Graham.  He bounced around the minor leagues for . . . oh, six or eight years or so.

But in June of 1905 he was called up to the New York Giants.  And on Thursday, June 29, he played two innings in right field.  He handled no chances, and the game ended before he came to bat.  One game, no plate appearances, no hits.  A baseball career easily forgotten.

And so it was – until the movie Field of Dreams reproduced Moonlight Graham’s story with surprising accuracy.  (There are some discrepancies, but they don’t spoil the narrative.)  He finished his medical degree and ended up spending his life as a small-town doctor in Chisholm, Minnesota.  He gave of himself to care for his patients, and they loved him.  And he had no regrets.  No, he really didn’t.

Don’t believe me?  Then watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCNp_jl5m6c

Happy Moonlight Graham Day, June 29.

* Some of our reporting on the Supreme Court is parody and satire and we leave it to the careful and discerning reader to figure it our. 

CAPE VERDE

 We are all in on Cape Verde's soccer team in the World Cup. Think 69 Miracle Mets. 

Cape Verde's population? About 500,000. GO CV's ! (What's the appropriate cheer here? ) 

Colombia plays Saturday at the Hard Rock Stadium where ticket prices are exceeding those for Knicks tix at MSG during the finals. 

Our second fav team- Scotland, is still not out (we are told). We cannot name you a player on the team. But their fans drank Boston bars dry, and they march around in kilts with bagpipes and that's enough for us. 

Au Revior to our Haitian brothers and sisters.  The County that has this: 

has sent you home to a nightmare. We should all be deeply ashamed. 

Are you going to a World Cup game? 

And how about Japan's team who left their locker room after a match looking like this: 

And their fans bring garbage bags to the matches and clean up afterwards 

Pretty much what Miami fans do after a Dolphins game, NOT. 

 Enjoy your pre-holiday weekend weekend. 

FYI we are well aware of the stupid, insipid impeachment crapola. We have our reasons for sitting on this for now. Bear with us por favor.  

PINO ACQUITTED

 In a closely watched (not by us), hard fought, opinion generating case, Jorge Pino was acquitted after a two hour deliberation on Monday of the boating manslaughter he was charged with. 

Not every accident is a crime, even when tragic, as this one was, where a beautiful, bright, and promising young woman lost her life. 

But the tragic episode was an accident, not a crime, and that is what a jury found. 

One word of caution- we will NOT post nasty, character attacks on anyone. So if you want to waste your time writing such missives, have at it. No one will read it. 

Thoughtful comments will be posted. 

HR

JUNETEENTH 2026

 Pino closings Monday. Maybe we will watch. Maybe not. 

Our 2021 Juneteenth post admitted our ignorance. We knew little or nothing about the day and its meaning.  We become stronger when we own our failings. 

We did not know and do not know what it means to be the descendants of slaves.  What it means to be immediately judged when you walk into a room because of the color of your skin instead of the content of your character. 

But we learned about what people who would become our brothers and sisters others felt and experienced. 

And you know what we decided? That diversity, equity, and inclusion is a good idea, not a bad one. That when President Lincoln formed a cabinet of a "team of rivals" he was endorsing the idea that accepting and respecting our differences makes us stronger.  Listening to others and honoring their lives is a good thing, not a bad thing. 

That when President John Kennedy said during his commencement address to the American University in Washington DC in 1963 that "Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we all are mortal" he was eloquently explaining that our humanness envelopes our petty differences. 

There are many holidays we do not partake in. Christmas. Ramadan. St. Crispins Day. The list goes on and on. But we respect those who do celebrate those days. We have been to midnight mass, invited by friends. We have broken bread on El ad-Fitr with our Muslim brothers and sisters, and of course we read Henry V on October 25 for the poetic summary of the closeness of those sharing an ideal worth dying for. 

So to our brothers and sisters who celebrate June 19 with friends and family and gather to remember, and to enjoy traditional dishes, we thank you for including us in your celebrations and allowing our journey from ignorance to understanding to continue. 

And (being Rumpole) we could not resist in leaving you with these words spoken before the Battle of Agincourt: 

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day. 

DAY SEVEN PINO TRIAL

 On Day Seven of the Pino trial no one rested (biblical pun...think about it). The State rested on day six and the defense moved for a judgment of acquittal. 

The trial began today with Judge Tinkler-Mendez "respectfully" denying the motions for judgment of acquittal. 

Why the adjective "respectfully?"   We all make motions all the time. Some better than others. Some a closer call than others. Respectfully means nothing. A careful consideration (which we are not implying did not occur here) is what we are after. 

Anyway, the trial moves on. The defense is calling an investigator as their first witness. We are writing a brief and went to find a fav game show and stumbled upon the broadcast of the trial, so we will watch it for a bit. 

Current testimony appears to be something about how time and tide wait for no man. 

Coming Next: What happens at the intersection of the NY Times Florida correspondent and the REGJB? An article about .....(three guesses....hint- he authors a constitutional calendar and enjoys a legal  quip in iambic pentameter)