IN DEFENSE OF D'ARCE

EQUAL TIME:

Several readers wrote in to defend D’Arce, and one post is re-published below. What we find a little strange is that the furor this has caused has apparently affected some people’s ability to read. We were very careful to always refer to the anti-semitic comments as ALLEGATIONS. For those of you new to the field of law, ALLEGATIONS CAN BE REFUTED.

When ALLEGATIONS were made that Judge Slom conspired, combined, and confederated with the State Attorneys Office during the legislative session, Judge Slom promptly responded, defending his actions and citing to the rules of ethics as to what a Judge is allowed to do.

D’Arce’s supporters, ignoring the posts we published strongly critical of the North of the Border Judges who were blatantly anti-hispanic, have seen fit to just label us anti-hispanic.

We have no idea who “Kevin” is who posted the below response. We invite D’Arce and anyone else who has something to say on his behalf to respond. We also STRONGLY ENCOURAGE Judicial Candidate Gonzalez to respond about whether he knows anything about these allegations regarding D’Arce and how he feels having D’Arce run his campaign.




Kevin said...
I have known Juan D'Arce for a few years now. I am a Jewish-American-Hispanic and not once has race or religion ever been an issue. Any one who knows Juan more personally would know right away that this is just an outright lie (Juan Being a Racist). Juan has been to my house several times to celebrate different Holidays (both Jewish and Gentile), and not once have I felt uncomfortable, intimidated, or even demoralized by him. I thought it would be fairly obvious right now that someone in power is trying to get Juan, Judge Hernandez, and many other people in hot water for their own personal gain, and nothing else. Both Juan D'arce and Judge Hernandez are extremely valuable assets to our community and the entire Judicial System. Now we just need to uncover the mystery of why someone, on the internet, who will not reveal his real name, truely hates D'Arce so much.

Rumpole responds: We don't hate D'Arce. We hate the idea that he believes he can intimidate Judges by running hispanic candidates against them. Ask most judges in the REGJB and they will give you a story about this guy. The alleged anti-semitic remark is shocking and disturbing, but fits right in with a person who makes decisions based on race and heritage and not competence.

Make no mistake about this: we will seek every opportunity to speak out against any person, Judge, lawyer, politican, whomever, who believes that a person's race, sex, or ethnicity, and not their individual qualifications makes them entitled to any job.

In Miami, D'Arce is the poster boy for ethnic politics and we find that disgusting. He can disavow these charges, but his current actions speak louder than any words he could utter. Furthermore, his use of ethnicity to influence elections is not based against the dog catcher, or the school board, or even the Mayor's race, but against the judiciary. An independent judiciary is the cornerstone of freedom in this country. Kevin, you claim to be of Jewish heritage. How would you feel if you were living in Berlin in 1935 and the last hope of protecting individual rights was vested in an independent judiciary that was being targeted because some of them were Jewish?This may not be Berlin 1935, but if you look around, its not much fun to be a Muslim in America these days. And the last thing any of us wants is a judiciary that can be intimidated because of race.

A Fan writes:


I am embarrassed that Rumpole claims to be a Defense Attorney. Since you have so much time writing this gossip column, you must have little to no practice. [Rumpole notes: tis true. careful readers of this blog note our common complaints about how little the phone rings, outside of bill collectors. But why should that bother you?]
It is curious that the defense attorneys you rail against seem to be the one's with the most successful practice. [Rail? Us? nah.] Most blogs largely unsubstantiated rumors. [Umm...missing some verb or noun or subject in this last sentence.]
Here, however, you promote bald-faced lies and character assassination. Get a life. [Unfortunately dear reader, you are reading our sad and sorrid little life.]

Perhaps your growth was stunted in high school and you need to attack others to make you and your supposed clique cool. [We have no clique. 1) we are anonymous. 2) no one likes us. 3) we like to pretend we're rugged individualists.]
Sad, because this kind of a blog could have been constructive instead of a forum of invective and bullshit. [Buck up old chap. Life is too short to be sad over this. You're taking this all a bit too seriously.]

Rumpole responds further: dear Mom, we have asked you several times to not interfere with our blog.



A reader opines:

You cannot condemn D'Arce without condemning his employer, Judge Hernandez.In any event, all of this griping about ethnic politics is a red-herring. The real issue is whether a court employee should recieve remuneration for assisting in the unseating of a judge. This is what D'Arce is doing... he is using his insider status to earn money. Whether the actual "work" is on or off the job is irrelevant. If D'Arce quit as a JA, he could push anyone he wanted and criticise anyone he wanted.Again, his politics and ethnicity are irrelevant. His ethics, or lack thereof, certainly matter.

Rumpole notes that for some strange reason ( or actually because he was very fair in trial) we will be voting for Judge Ivan Hernandez. We believe in competence and outside of his hiring practices, he was a very good and competent judge, and in the end, that matters most to us.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Regarding Judge James Adams who was “foolin around” with an attorney who appeared before him, we were reminded of a quote by a favorite comedian known to us as Alan Konigsberg (known to the less literate among us as Woody Allen) which we paraphrase here:

Regarding the attorney who was sleeping with Judge Adams: “At least she got to do to him at night what he was doing to the rest of the world during the day.”

See You In Court.