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.

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

NOT SO SILENT, BUT THINNER

DUI/SUPREME COURT UPDATE: The US Supreme Court today heard arguments on whether police are required to get a warrant for a blood draw on a DUI case. According to Lyle Denniston of SCOTUS Blog, the question is no longer IF but HOW to implement the upcoming decision:
Even allowing for the reality that what is said at a Supreme Court hearing does not necessarily dictate the outcome, now and then a case comes along where the Justices join so obviously in a common pursuit of a compromise that little suspense remains.  That happened on Wednesday, in the case of Missouri v. McNeely (docket 11-1425), when it seemed quite predictable that the Court is not going to let police across the nation order — on their own authority — the taking of blood samples from those suspected of drunk driving.   Police, it would appear, are at least going to have to try to get a search warrant, even though they sometimes will be allowed to do without one.

UPDATE: Imagine our surprise when the great Julie Mason on Sirius radio on the POTUS channel mentions us today and discusses our twitter chat (@juliemason) on how to eat lobster without butter. (Julie had called lobster nothing but a "butter delivery system" and we challenged her.) There we were sitting in the office, working on trial prep, listening to Julie Mason on POTUS when we heard her mention how "Horace Rumpole" eats lobster. 

Carlos Martinez, the Dade County Public Defender famous on the pages of this blog for refusing to speak about how he spends the money appropriated by the Florida Legislature (thus the moniker "Silent Charlie") has given an interview to the DBR. Here are the highlights:

He has lost 100 pounds and is running a half marathon. 
The average tenure of an Assistant PD is down from 6 1/2 years to 2 1/2 years. 
The office has video conference/skype with incarcerated clients. 
He is proud of his new Felony Intake Unit. 
Not many liked the institution of an office dress code. 
He is a diet guru and others in the PD's office are following his lead. 
His waist size is now a 38- down from 52. 
His job is not glamourous. 

There you have it, everything you wanted to know about our Public pretender Defender (and a few things you probably didn't need to know.) 

See You In Court. 

Coming soon on the National Enquirer -REGJB Blog: The PD Diet! How you can lose 100 pounds while skyping in your office. 


31 comments:

Anonymous said...

What about the shumie diet?

Anonymous said...

Mr. Rumpy,

Many of us like Carlos Martinez so, why constantly dump on him?

Does he have some duty to respond to you? Think not!

Rumpole said...

I didn't dump on him. I faithfully reported what was in the article about his interview. if I was going to dump on him, I would have done a riff on whether the reduction of 4 years in the time people stayed in the office was a reflection on him, the piss poor morale in the office, and what does he have to say about that? But I didn't do that, did I?

Secret Judge said...

Former Broward Circuit Judge Ana Gardiner caught a break today when the Bar Referee (a Palm Beach County Circuit Judge) released his report recommending only a one year suspension of her license to practice law in Florida. The Bar had sought a permanent suspension. The Referee's report now goes to the Florida Supreme Court for final judgment. On a personal note, I met this former colleague at a Circuit Judges' Educational Conference some years ago and was taken aback by the sheer nastiness of this woman. What goes around...

Anonymous said...

Rumpole twitter stat- January 16 2009

360 Following
397 Followers

Rumpole said...

Not so fast- AG shouldn't be popping the champagne just yet. The Supreme Court has a nasty habit of not following the recommendation and I could easily see that occurring here. The charges against her are quite serious.

Anonymous said...

Carlos is so disrespected and disliked, almost hated , by his own attorneys ,at least in felonies those who actually go to court.

Felony Intake is useless. Intake's Interviews DO NOT EVEN COUNT as Attorney interviews of client's. Intake also MAYBE, crosses the line , almost Tampering with Victims, by sending UNREQUESTED BY THE VICTIM an Investigator with a Nolle Prosse Affidavit for the Victim to sign..

Results do not matter anymore . A waiver of minimum - mandatory sentences , so what, But the number of Interviews and depositions is the be all and end all measurement of productivity . A depo of a cop on in dropsie case is counted the same as a depo of the lead detective in a murder or shooting case.

Attorneys are frustrated and leave the PDO now between 3 or 4 years instead of 6 to 8 years . Right now there are not enough experienced APDs to fill the A spots in felonies.

Pity the PDO, if The Dress Code is Carlos' greatest achievement. No Raises or Cost of Living Allowance, do more with less personnel , THEN Take away the little things that made employees happy, like the casual dress.
Or the slight when management insults the Attorneys , with a sign on Casual Friday saying that even though dressed casual the office always gives great 'CUSTOMER SERVICE".

The Public Defenders' Management team does not understand that Attorneys' have Clients not Customers.

Can you even call them Customers If they don't pay ?

Anonymous said...

Really the only interesting thing about the excerpted portions has to do with the average length of service of an APD.

You don't need to be a sabemetrician to realize this deserves an interview / article of its own.

If attorneys are leaving after 2.5 years, after presumable spending a 1.5 years in Juvie/County, what is the plan for staffing PDs as As, Bs, and Cs?

Will the 5th floor be hiring experienced attorneys to come in as As, Bs, and Cs, when the average attorney leaves one year into being a C? Or can the office maintain enough As from those who remain? Will the office be shortening the time the attorneys spend before they reach felonies? What is the minimum amount of time a new law grad should spend in juvie/county before felonies, according to the 5th floor?

Does the office plan to continue having a Director of training and three felony training attorneys, given the thinning out of attorneys?

Given the number of Cs and Bs leaving, how does the 5th floor plan to redistribute their salaries? By hiring more new lawyers to send to Juvie/county, or by hiring experienced attorneys to start in Felonies, or by increasing salaries for current employees?

Is there an hour-glass curve in the number of attorneys... meaning a high number of new hires and a high number of folks there 10+ years, with the thinnest stretch from 3-10 years? If the average training attorney has been there 7 years and the average senior supervising attorney 12 years, how does the office foresee staffing these positions?

Perhaps you Rumpole can devote a blog post or two to these questions, the answers to which will have an effect on criminal defense throughout the city.

Anonymous said...

Is shumie a sabemetrician? Meanwhile, if you call the shumie after 5pm, is it a shumie? I mean, if a tree falls in the woods......

Anonymous said...

Rumpole,

Perhaps the readers of this blog are unaware that Carlos is legally unable to give raises without legislative authorization in the appropriations act. The legislature has not authorized raises for many years ('06 or '07).

It is beyond doubt that the decrease in years of service is directly related to the lack of raises. What is unclear is what Carlos is supposed to do about it.

I understand killing the messenger and all of that, but as lawyers I would hope that, as frustrating as income stagnation may be, we can at least respect that Carlos has to follow the law (even if it is a bad law).

Fake Ted mastos said...

Lets stop (chomp smack) for a moment (chomp) and see (smack chomp smack) who has skin in this PD game (smack smack) before we (chomp) go any further in discussion. OK? (Chomp smack).

Rumpole said...

I'm right in the middle of this Herbalife fight. Ackerman shorts it on December 19- properly in my opinion. And today Loeb announces that he's long on the stock.
Personally, I think it's a pyramid scheme and Herbalife's retention of Boies Schiller only confirmed my view Herbalife had a lot to be worried about. We shall see.

Tannebaum Tweets* said...

Wise words fake Ted.

Rumpole said...

5:02 PM- I don't think I have ever questioned or criticized Carlos for raises or lack thereof. What I have always wondered about is whether - as is widely rumoured- that he uses due process money for personnel. And on that topic, he will not respond.

DS said...

Say what you will the Video Interviewing system is wonderful time saver and needs to be expanded.

Anonymous said...

Rory, I mean 5:02pm is Correct. Carlos can not do anything about how the office runs well

Anonymous said...

Lots of angst at the PDs with assignment of offices. No One knows why , especially Management.

First the shifting after 20 years of ERU and the para-legals to the Main Office from Jackson Towers. Then Mental Health, ICCU, and DSU goes to the old ERU space at Jackson Towers.

Now a freeze on assignment of offices, after complaints by old lawyers about office assignments. In the past offices were assigned based on seniority in the office. Now Seniority means nothing,brand new C attorneys are getting the big window offices as those that have been in the office years are stuck in windowless 8x8s at the Same $40000 a year after 3 years as that new C .

DS said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
DS said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
DS said...

OK.
I AM NOT A SPOKESMAN FOR THE OFFICE.
I AM NOT CARLOS MARTINEZ'S SPOKESPERSON this is just DS

Give Carlos some recognition. Not only the Video Interview system, BUT, trying to move to paperlessness.

I know its hard to believe but I am on one on the the Public Defener's Committies . We, hope to develop a unified easy to use, Attorney Friendly, system, hopefully on Tablet or Netbook to replace the Paper-Printout calendar in court.
Hopefully, Combining The Calendar, PDFacts , The clients file and CJIS.

Anonymous said...

DS=BS

Just sayin'

Anonymous said...

Gardiner in Broward got a year only. The dude from JAA Blog must be asleep at the wheel because he hasn't posted a thing. Or he is in shock at what he perceives is a light sentence.

Rumpole said...

Gardiner didn't get a year. The referee RECOMMENDED a year. Big difference. The supreme court has to approve the recommendation , which is far from a foregone conclusion. We shall see.

Anonymous said...

Rumpole: you're right. My mistake. I think the Court will approve the recommendation.

Anonymous said...

That is very cool re your mention on lobster issue. Dont know what you tweeted, or what a tweet is, but totaly agree its bullshit that butter is essential to eating lobster. Traveling road show, here you come.

-GB

Anonymous said...



I recommend that ds have his blogging privileges revoked for a year..

he's lame

Anonymous said...

The problem with the PD pay structure is that there is not enough of a raise when you move to felony, then to the B and then to the A. For example, if you got a $5K pay bump from each level, to felony, B and A, then you would not have had the mass exodus you had over the last few years. An A lawyer making $60K would be much easier to swallow than $50K. There goes the incentive to make people stay for 4-6 years instead of 2-3.

I agree with earlier comments, Felony Intake is useless once a case get filed. It may provide some level of comfort to the clients as they wait in limbo, but provides no practical benefit to the pit lawyer.

Anonymous said...

5:02 addresses the why of the matter, while I (4:37) am trying to address the consequences.

As an aside, the office can legally give raises for all kinds of specious reasons. ("Youre on a new taskforce. You helped lead a training." etc). And they have. An employee who still hasnt cleared C&F from 2009 received a raise for his legal research work. So if the 5th floor wants to assign money, they sure as shit can.

But without even dwelling on Tallahassee, or the no-raise laws, it's more interesting to me to address how the office plans to deal with the current reality.

Apparently the middle is falling out. They can hire a truckload of new lawyers -- law schools are pumping out unemployed JDs by the thousands. And they can retain the baby-boomers who make 100k. But it doesnt take complicated analysis to see that the organization needs a steady stream of attorneys who have 5-10 years of experience, BOTH to represent clients accused of serious crimes AND to feed the pipeline into supervisory and management roles.

There seem to be only three solutions: hire outsiders; promote these new JDs rapidly into A-slots and eventually management; or reconfigure the office such that there are far fewer As, supervisors, management.

The unacceptable 4th option is to merely not address the situation and have no plan. 5:02, any ideas?

Eye on Bin Laden said...

ZERO DARK SHUMIE the new movie about the search for the courier who brought Bin laden his cigars.

Anonymous said...

shumie time. Too early? Busting to get out of the office.

Anonymous said...

Same thing happened with Hank Adorno. Referee wanted a light sentence and the Supreme Court wanted a much stiffer one.

Guess who won?