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.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

THE NOOSE TIGHTENS

You don't spend more than half a lifetime in this business without being able now and then to put together seemingly unconnected events to reach a conclusion. Lets try:

Item: The Governor tells the JNC to speed up interviewing candidates for the Regional Counsel office. The Governor further announced that the nominees shall travel to Tallahassee the following Monday where one will be selected.

Item: The current RC fires the two lead people in their death penalty defense unit.

Item: Miami Facdl Presidentrix Betty Llorente sends out this email today:


Dear Members:

If you are a Death Qualified Attorney, please send me your information as soon as you receive this as I need to forward this information to the Court by next Wednesday.

Thank you.

Rumpole says: Even a City Of Miami detective would reach the conclusion that something is in the works betwixt the court and the FACDL against the Regional Counsel's office. Can the court be preparing to use its inherent and statutory authority to strip RC of its death penalty cases? Who would hold such a hearing? Would it be open to the public/bloggers? Who speaks on behalf of RC now that only the janitor and an elderly security guard are apparently the only full time employees left? Is this the first crack in the *damn of the RC system? Will the Dolphins fire Tony Sporano before the end of the month?

These questions and others will all be answered in due course as the RC turns.

Stay tuned.

See You in Court.


*"damn" is probably more appropriate than "dam" in describing that damned office.


15 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't think so ... They are only looking for death qualified lawyers for conflicts and multiple defendant cases as there aren't many of them left. No coup here Oliver Stone.

Anonymous said...

Joe, read in the herald this morning that domino's is hiring drivers at all 300 south Florida locations. Keep that in mind...

Anonymous said...

I sent Mr. George an email asking if he needed temporary coverage and he didn't even respond.

Kissimmee Kid said...

Do not become death qualified. Do not take death cases. If there were no death qualified lawyers there would be no executions.

I know not what course others may take, but as for me, I shall not tinker with the machinery of evil.

CAPTAIN JUSTICE said...

The Captain Reports:

Rumpole,you ignorant slut. Nothing could be further from the truth. FACDL is in no way attempting an end run around the OCCCCCCRC over who gets the Death Penalty Court Appointments.

That honor goes to Terrence Lenamon, and, David S. Marcus and their "Florida Capital Resource Center". They are "concerned" about the fact that Regional Council attorneys that are currently working on death cases may not be qualified todo so under the Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure. Of course, if that is so, and RC does not have the necessary amount of qualified attorneys to handle the current caseload of death cases, then guess who would be the beneficiary of that?

What is it that they say, Horace, "follow the money".

The answer to the question, by the way, is not only Terry and David but all of the other attorneys that are death qualified. And, as long as our Governor and the Legislature continues to see fit that the death penalty lives in Florida , the the Judges must appoint only qualified attorneys to handle these cases.

Cap Out .....

Anonymous said...

who is the man who can lead the counsels office like no one else can, Shaft, can you dig it, right on. On behalf of all the brothers and sisters out there we need some minorities at the counsel's office. right on, can you dig it, my brudda?

Fake betty l said...

Presidentrix- pretty cool

Scam alert said...

Florida Capital Resource Center is the biggest scam since One Hour Martininzing. FCRC is Soylent Green and Soylent Green are PEOPLE THEY ARE PEOPLE.

Fake joe george said...

Rumpole, by thhe power vested in me as temporary governor and regional counsel for the 9th arrondisment,3rd region, 9th battilion, I hereby Fire your sorry ass.

You have two minutes to vacate the blog or my counsel, a MR JACK THOMPSON- perhaps you've heard of him? Shall institute proceedings.

Kindly act accordingly.

Yours, etc.,

mr joseph parabola george Iv

Its all in the name said...

the joe p george family tree is a fascinating study. There are in fact 14 sibkings named joseph p george, the p in each name differentiating the sibling, including 5 sisters.

In no particular order, the p stands for poindexter, portia, potensia, peter, paul, parabola, plutarch, pestillence, pistaschio, pendulum, perpindicular, pastor, pisher - the baby of the family, and the infamous posterior.

Wow1

abe laeser said...

On the other hand -- I am not a death qualified lawyer; since the rule requies cases tried for the defense. Neither is Al Kreiger, Jack Denaro, Roy Black, or a host of persons who I would love to be able to hire [if I ever had that kind of money] if the need ever arose.

The minimal "standard" has a great value in preventing the truly poor quality lawyer from being involved in capital litigation.

Unfortunately, there are those who have been "third chair" for the defense at cases in which I prosecuted. They were there to get "capital credit", but - frankly - some of them would make me cry in open court if the Judge assigned them to represent me.

The "standard", therefore, only prevents complete ineptitude. It would be nice if truly skilled lawyers [ones who occasionally won a tough case] were willing to be appointed for these most vital of cases.

Anonymous said...

If that is the real abe laesar I wonder if it is proper for him to bolster his application for regional counsel on this public cite which is known to be frequented by judges and likely come to the attention of the jqc. by criticizing the lack of experience of others he skillfully draws attention to all applicants who have not tried murder cases. his reference to people like denaro and black is a plea to those who know of their reputations to say that they should be consulted about abe's abilities and if he could run a criminal defense office after 35 years of seeking death and life imprisonment on most cases, of course their are codefendants who don't get life and some places fall apart with witness problems or bad police work, etc. but you did usually seek life incarceration and now you want to supervise and train young lawyers to aggressively find loopholes and technicalities so someone does 3 years instead of 13, 4 months instead of 9. by speaking publicly on the death penalty you one week after a fellow applicant with death experience was fired you remind sophisticated readers who are following the selection of a new regional counsel of the events of last week when one of your competitors for the job was fired. was it trivial or a misdemeanor? remember your colleague Hogan and the suits case? so abe, you brilliantly bolster your own application and denigrate zenobi in one seemingly innoucous blog on a friday night one week before the interviews by the jqc! things that make you go hmmmmm! this all presupposes that abe laeser, applicant for regional counsel posted the blog. and as a career prosecutor who the herald wrote articles about when he retired, who almost never made a mistake, would know that his post complied with any canons of ethics regarding seeking appointment by the governor and what one can say and not say during the application process.your comments about the death penalty when the jqc moved up the interview date 3 weeks because the current holder of the office fired death penalty lawyers, which the jqc will question george and zenobi about, casts them in a bad light and bolsters your application in a public forum! hmmmmmmm!!! good luck abe, this is probably exactly what gets one the job.

Phil R said...

A fair reading of Abe's statement is that he neither boosted his application nor denigrated Gene in the least. I think that each of them has a high regard for the other. My personal opinion is that either of them would serve the office of regional counsel very well.

Anonymous said...

Cheap attack on Abe
DS

David S Markus said...

To 11:10 AM (nameless, of course):

Abe doesn't need to bolster his candidacy by blogging; he is unquestionably qualified to be Regional Counsel. Experience as a prosecutor is the best training a defense attorney can get.
I also was unable to discern any disrespect for Gene Zenobi in his comment. The criminal justice community would be lucky to have either of these stellar lawyers serve as Regional Counsel.

Abe simply pointed out a deficiency in Rule 3.112. The Rule needs to be amended. The "two trial" requirement should include trials handled as a prosecutor.

Although not "death qualified", Abe or an attorney with his credentials, may still represent a capital defendant if the Court finds "exceptional circumstances". See subsection (k) of the Rule:

(k) Exceptional Circumstances. In the event that the trial court determines that exceptional circumstances require appointment of counsel not meeting the requirements of this rule, the trial court shall enter an order specifying, in writing, the exceptional circumstances requiring deviation from the rule and the court’s explicit determination that counsel chosen will provide competent representation in accord with the policy concerns of the rule.

No case has discussed what "exceptional circumstances" in a Rule 3.112 context are, but I imagine if a defendant wanted to hire Abe or an attorney of his caliber, a judge would be hard-pressed to refuse the defendant his choice of counsel.