A Daily Business Review article highlights the upcoming Trial Court Budget Commission (Motto: "Yes we actually exist") meeting this week:
From the article:
The courts won’t know exactly what effect the budget cuts will have on each circuit until after a meeting of the Trial Court Budget Commission and chief judges next week in Tampa. In an e-mail, Miami-Dade Chief Circuit Judge Joseph P. Farina Jr. estimated his circuit will lose nearly 30 employees. Palm Beach Chief Judge Kroll does not have a figure but estimates it will be less than in Miami-Dade.
The article is here.
NO MONEY
All Rumpole can say is thank goodness we managed to deal with the worst emergency and re-do the inside of the elevators of the REGJB. We mean, imagine riding in an elevator with substandard paneling? Why, that is down right unconstitutional isn't it? Better to have sharp looking elevator interiors, than to waste money on stupid stuff like clerks, judicial staff, interpreters, Drug Court and salaries for PD's and ASA's.
Former Judge says:
ReplyDeletePhil R. just did an amazing job on a case that i referred to him. He really goes the extra yard for his clients. I am thrilled to see a lawyer that has his compassion, dedication to seeing justice served and who cares more about his client's welfare than fees. I admire him so much...and what beautiful kids he makes!
If you run into one of our Republican legsilative "friends" let him or her know what they have done to the courthouse.
ReplyDeleteRemind them that we are building hospitals in Iraq but, judges don't have copier paper right now.
Thanks you cheap bastards.
From: Fake Jake Thompson, Gadfly & Esq.
ReplyDeleteTo: Judge "Country" Joe Farina & Company.
RE: Budget Crisis.
Dear Judge Farina:
Can I call you Joe? Anyway, I have ready with gowing concern the budget crisis that you and your hardy band of rag tag Judges and staff are facing. Much like Washington's army in the winter of 1775, things seem desperate.
May I propose one money saving solution? DO AWAY WITH JUDGE DAVA TUNIS.
SHE WON'T GIVE ME A HAEARING. SHE WON'T RESPOND TO MY MOTIONS. SHE WON'T DO ANYTHING I ASK HER.
She recently asked the Supreme Court for more time to review the transcipt of the trial I had before her. HA.
And HA again. She apparently has nothing more to do than sit around her chambers and think of ways to disbar me. ME! Think of it. The conscience of our community. The lone man standing between you and the evil insidious video game industry. Why if it wasn't for me, you'd have PacMen running wild, and a video gamer running for president. Have you seen the "Go Diego Go" Video Game? Horrible. Destructive. And to make matters worse, Diego has some weird incestuous relationship with his cousin Dora the Explorer. And what does Dora do? She promotes beastiality by running around with some monkey. The whole thing is enough to make you sick.
Anyway, you can save a few bucks by shutting Dava down.
Just an idea.
Your pal.
Fake Jake Thompson, Gadfly & Esq.
There's very few things that make a Republican's mouth water more than the idea of bankrupting government, but bankrupting the judicial branch first is one of them.
ReplyDeleteThe inevitable result of the curse of Reagan is upon us. Which hack republican (a redundancy, generally) will be the first to propose privatizing the courts?
Fact that a seasoned and respected ASA like David had to cover his ass just goes to show how political the State Attorney's Office has become. shame on Ms. Rundle.............
ReplyDeleteImagine what the courthouse will be like after the budget cuts? You will walk through the halls every afternoon after 3 and it will be a ghost town. Hey wait a minute, the cuts must have been instituted 20 years ago. That is the way things are anyway.
ReplyDeletecan we pick the 30 to fire? Let's start with the 9th floor
ReplyDeleteWhile I have banned Mr. Thompson from the blog, and are thus not publishing his repeated "news releases" I will say this: His use of minors to purchase GTAIV must assuredly be sending the game's sales through the roof.
ReplyDeleteRumpole - please - whatever happens don't let Country Joe Farina fire that Spinner Clerk in County Court, now assigned to JOA Joe. My reason for living and coming to work will end if I didn't have the possibility of seeing that breath of fresh air every day.
ReplyDeleteFREE GTAIV video game to the best video youtube parody of JT.
ReplyDeleteRumpolium, the budget cuts have hit the judiciary hard as well. The espresso machine in chambers was not heating the milk up properly a few months ago and it took like forever for them to send someone to look at it, and then, if you can imagine, they wanted to give me a REFURBISHED machine. As If. As if I would drink espresso from a machine someone else was using. Yuck. SO now things get slowed down because the bailiff now has to run to starbucks every morning at 11.
ReplyDeleteAnd for the judicial conference this June- they will not give me a suite on a conceierge floor, and had the NERVE to tell me to use MY MILES to get an upgrade. Yeah. Right.
So things are tough everywhere. I don't see defense attorneys going without espresso or staying on the regular floors of the Hotel, why should I? The State has a constitutional obligation to fund courts and I DONT"T CARE HOW MANY HOSPITALS THEY HAVE TO CLOSE. Food and pharmacy programs for the elderly? They should have saved more when they were working. I NEED MY ESPRESSO MACHINE AND I WILL NOT STAY WITH REGULAR PEOPLE AT HOTELS. It is beneath the dignity of my office. Raise taxes. Do something. But don't tell me about budget cuts.
Rump, I have a problem and after many weeks, it is now clear you need to get involved to solve this.
ReplyDeleteMany know my differences with Fake Jake Thompson. Our public disputes over the RFB plagerism controversy on the Tallahassee and Panama City Blogs is by now well known. What is not well known is that Fake Jake, being the idiot that he is, refuses to acknowledge that FANTASTIC 4 RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER is one of the great american movies in the last decade. This mope and I have traded probably 200 emails in the last few weeks on this subject alone, and he will just not admit what everyone knows- the F4 Rise of the Silver Surfer is as good as it gets when it comes to cinema.
Please set this dope straight and tell him I am right. Thanks.
The legislature has NOTHING to do with the paneling of the REG elevators. The county owns, operates and maintains the buildings. The state is responsible for JAs, Judges and AOC staff.
ReplyDeleteRumpole's comment about wasting money on paneling is an excellent example of how clueless he and others are about the funding of the court system. Of course, given how much time Rumpole gave to the subject - WHEN THE LEGISLATURE WAS IN SESSION - I should hardly be surprised.
Talk about fiddling when Rome burns. Lets see Sam I am. Under your reasoning, if a child needs an operation to live, and goes to a State Run Hospital, and the Hospital happens to be in a very wealthy county, but the state has no money for the operation- you'd let the child die rather than have the county pay for it.
ReplyDeleteSo in our REGJB, lets fire some JA's and bailiffs, and clerks, because the money we as taxpayers have paid, happens to be in the wrong account- and the account that does haved that money is going to use it for painting a nice mural in a building that is no longer open because one government entity has money for a mural, but another entity cannot pay the electric bill. What's wrong with that picture?
Don't tell me there is a budget crisis and we will have to fire people who need that job for health insurance and to pay a mortgage, and then say but another governmental entity has a surplus and is spending it on some nice new toilet paper. Get the f'ing money to the people who need it so they don't lose their job.
Rumpole give it a rest. Do you really think the State will let this happen? The legislator is not stupid. The people will flock to the polls and replace the a-hole's that thought cutting judicial staff was a bright idea!
ReplyDeleteNow in Miami do we really need all the branch courts? North and South Dade Justice Center, The Coral Gables Court the Hialeah Court, The Sweet Water Clerk Office. C'mon lets sell some of that land.
Why not save 1" at the bottom of all Court orders for advertisement?
If we ban JT from filing anymore cases we will save at least $200-K per year.
If you shut down this blog imagine the work that Court personal will do saving bundles.
Re: the budget crisis
ReplyDeleteI would like to know the following:
1. the number of criminal cases filed in the past 10 years. Has it gone up, down, or stayed the same;
2. Does the budget of the SAO and PD correlate to the number of cases filed?
3. How many more judges and clerk personnel are there now than were there 10 years ago and done the number of employees again correlate to the number of cases the system handles.
After all, the need for judges is directly related to the number of cases they must handle. So if there are 10% fewer cases filed now than 10 years ago, cutting the number of judges and personnel the same amount makes sense. If this were a private business, say selling hot dogs, and there was a decline in demand for hot dogs, the natural response would be to pare back the number of people you hire to do the task. Put another way, let's say you are a DUI attorney and hire three paralegals to handle your case load. This year, your cases decline by 15% over last year. Is it wrong to lay off one of your employees because there is now less work to go around? Of course not. But why is it when government needs to cut back, it becomes a moral crisis?
7:54, the difference is that those that feed off government do not want to have to think of not feeding off government and working in the private sector.
ReplyDeletequestion, when government employees bitch about having to contribute more to their health insurance, why don't they think about getting a job in the private sector where they will make more money and maybe health insurance won't seem as expensive?
Here is the way to look at the judiciary budget. Take the total number of cases filed and divide it by the budget for the justice building (clerk, judges, sao and pd). You should have a rough approximation of what it cost to process each case. There should be a record of how many total cases were filed in each year for the past ten years. We also know the budget for each of those years. Ditto for civil cases. So if the same number of court personnel are handling a smaller number of cases than they did five years ago, a reduction in the budget is justified. Here is another anomaly: the sao has more attorneys now than it did in 1989. But the crime rate was much higher than. Why isn't the sao budget proportionate to that which it is constitutionally required to do: prosecute cases?
ReplyDeleteRump- you have helped other people before, now me please. In one sentence, give me the full range of your knowledge on diets.
ReplyDeleteSimple. This is from the Omnivoire's Dilemma:
ReplyDeleteEAT REAL FOOD. PREFERABLY PLANTS. LESS OF IT.
That's all you need to do.
And exercise an hour a day.
Glad I could help.
Rumpole: Fake Jake Thompson is dead wrong on "The Fantastic Four:Rise of the Silver Surfer" AND HE KNOWS IT.
ReplyDeleteHe's also wrong on RFB and the plagerism issue.
PRESS RELEASE
ReplyDeleteFOR IMMEDIATE NATIONAL AND INTERNATION DISTRIBUTION
TODAY FAKE JAKE THOMPSON USED THE SERVICES OF A 15 YEAR OLD FETCHING WOMAN TO PURCHASE (steady now) PETROLEUM JELLY FROM FOUR CVS DRUG STORES.
AS YOU WELL KNOW, PETROLEUM JELLY CAN BE USED TO FACILITATE ANAL INTERCOURSE.
FAKE JAKE THOMPSON IS PREPARING AFFIDAVITS NOW. A LAWSUIT AGAINST CVS IS BEING CONSIDERED.
Fake Jake Thompson, Esq& Gadfly.
2:16
ReplyDeleteYour facts are wrong. In the past ten years, criminal filings have actually increased. So have civil, probate, family, and juvenile. In the past two years, misdemeanors in particular have dramatically increased (as they do everytime there is a downturn in the economy). Judicial resources have increased as well, but not at the same level as the demand (i.e. the number of cases).
Fake Jack Thompson has to be the same guy who wrote the Captain Pro Se Dum Da Dum bits.
ReplyDeleteThe writing is the same and funny as hellll!
http://www.health-hack.com/archives/2008/05/07/12/54/michael-pollan-speaks-in-defense-of-food/
ReplyDelete2:16pm, did you say crime rate or number of cases? With respect to the issue of how many SAO employees are needed.
ReplyDeleteBecause if your crime rate is say like 10% within a population of say like 1,000,000 then that would be what, 100,000 cases?
But if your crime rate is 8% within a population of 5,000,000, then that would be, 400,000 cases.
Lower crime rate (dropped by 2%), but more cases! Therefore, you'd need 4 times as many people to prosecute from the time period when you had 100,000 cases.
These are not actual real life numbers, just giving an example of how crime rate can be misleading if you're trying to say how many people are needed.
SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian man has described how he escaped from the jaws of a great white shark by poking it in the eye as it dragged him under water.
ReplyDeleteJason Cull, 37, told reporters from his hospital bed that he saw a dark shape approaching as he swam about 80 metres (yards) off the popular Middleton beach in Western Australia on Saturday.
At first he thought it was one of the dolphins he had been swimming with, but realised it was a shark as the four-metre (12-foot) monster closed in, local media reported Monday.
"It banged straight into me... and it grabbed me by the leg and dragged me under the water," said Cull, a schoolteacher and father of two.
"I just remember being dragged backwards underwater. I felt along it, I found its eye and I poked it in the eye, and that's when it let go."
Jason Cull has now signed an exclusive agreement with an anti- lawyer company that gives seminars to tell people how to avoid being sued. "I poked the biggest shark in the world in the eye and lived to tell about it. I'm sure I can fight off a group of wimpy lawyers and I'll teach you my secrets."
Dear Saturday, May 10, 2008 5:11:00 PM,
ReplyDeleteI think you have your facts wrong. The State of Florida is not building hospitals in Iraq.
If you think that there is not fat to be cut in the state court budget; look around for a "case manager."
It will be too bad if some of these paperwork generators have to find real jobs. However, we, as a socity, will save millions in attorney fees not responding to their useless scheduling order. Now we can leave elevating form over substance to the Federal Court.
Hey Rump- have you ever checked out the cook county court (Chicago) blog http://cookcountypd.org/blog/2008/05/09/appellate-court-reverses-tro/#comments
ReplyDeleteIt is hilarious that they have the same problems with all the name calling and flaming inaccuracies posted by members. Just so you know you are not alone and that jerks are everywhere! Good work keeping the blog a great place to read!
THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:
ReplyDeleteAs a very unscientific way of checking the facts, I looked on the website for criminal cases in Circuit Court:
In 1998, they went up to 43,600
In 2007, they went up to 45,600
That is 2,000 more felony arrests or about 5%.
CAPTAIN OUT ............
Come on, Rump! The Aventura Police Department should be roasted for their false arrest of that young college student because he was wearing sunglasses and was carrying a floppy hat, thereby looking "similar" to the composite drawing of the Boca Town Center killer. Why haven't you discussed their ham-handed measures?
ReplyDeleteTO: Kathy Fernandez Rundle
ReplyDeleteFROM: ANTI-FAKE JAKE THOMPSON
RE: VIOLATION OF LAW
Dear Ms. Rundle:
It has come to my attention that some ham handed Gadfly has been using his 15-16 year old son to violate federal and state obscenity laws by purchasing materials that are specifically not to be sold to minors. Someone needs to stop this lunatic and that someone is YOU. How long will our State Attorney look the otherway as this nut uses children to further his own political agenda.
THROW THE BOOK AT HIM, AND START YOUR WIND-UP NOW.
This should be fun.
I hereby swear that all I hold holy that the facts contained in this miisive are true and correct.
ANTI-FAKE JAKE THOMPSON
Not a Gadfly.
Roaring with laughter. It just gets better and better.
ReplyDeleteAn increase of 5% just means the felony screening dolts are getting lazier..filing more cases rather than looking at exculpatory evidence defense lawyers try to get them to see.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few good ones who will take the time to listen and use the pre-filing work we give them.
Most just want to punch that clock and file it. Just less work for them.
Then the "c" prosecutors have to eat the crap that trickles down to them and judges have to manage 3 hour calendar calls just to handle 3rd degree felonies that should never have been filed, or should have been BDCC.
I can't take it anymore. It's been a rough Monday. It's Shumie time. I'm outta here.
ReplyDeleteBefore the felony screening unit was established, prosecutors had pre-filing weeks when they had to prefile their own cases, which they would have to prosecute and try themselves. Needless to say, that system worked very well to weed out the crappy cases that FSU prosecutors file nowadays because they know they won't see them ever after the information is filed.
ReplyDeleteOh Rumpole.
ReplyDeleteLet's play your game. Where is the outrage at the County? I hear.... crickets.
BREAKING NEWS
ReplyDeleteAla el capitan:
Your favourite banned blogger served Judge Dava Tunis with a new Miami lawsuit, accompanied with a 32oz. jar of CVS petroleum jelly and a CD of 'Women gone wild on a pole, in the Wild West'. Check it out on 60 Minutes soon.
Call for confirmation at the 666 number you know so well.
oh, forgot to say Captain Out
ReplyDelete8:28 & 8:29, I'm flattered.
ReplyDelete3:40 PM ... to be fair to the FSU, the numbers I printed were felony arrests not felony filings; I do not have any idea what the number of actual Informations filed vs. No Actions was.
CAPTAIN OUT ....
THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:
ReplyDeleteand to follow up on the earlier "breaking news"...
2008-22556-CA-01
PN 01 THOMPSON, JOHN B
DN 01 FLORIDA BAR (THE)
DN 02 FARINA, JOSEPH P (JR)
DN 03 TUNIS, DAVA J
DN 04 ANGONES, FRANCISCO R
DN 05 HALL, THOMAS D
This is a Civil Complaint filed on April 24, 2008. Judge Miller drew the case.
and ......
2008-23065-CA-01
PN 01 THOMPSON, JOHN B
DN 01 TUNIS, DAVA J
Civil Complaint filed on April 28, 2008. Judge Hubbart drew the case.
CAPTAIN OUT .....
With those two lawsuits, Thompson became eligible for status as a "vexatious litigant." I wonder if his wife, a partner at Carlton Fields, will start signing his pleadings and papers?
ReplyDelete