We have our own developing hot corner in the REGJB at the end of the second floor, with the two courtrooms facing each other manned by Judges Hirsch and Hersch.
And Tuesday we have action, with Judge Hersch handling a robbery case (Phil Maniatty for the state) and Judge Hirsch presiding over a trafficking in cocaine case (Mike Walsh for the defense).
Here's a great example of the hot corner. 1978 world series. Yankees-Dodgers. Game Three. The Gator-Ron Guidry on the mound. Watch Yankee Third baseman Gregg Nettles save two runs. Bases loaded. Two out and a line drive to the hot corner.
Curious about all you defense attorney Mueller-ites.
ReplyDeleteAre you copacetic that in his much lauded indictment of Evil Russians he both indicted a company that did not even exist in the time period covered, as well as indicted a defendant against whom he was not ready to make a case? And when the defendant pled not guilty and asked the case to be set, Mueller's office balked?
That's how you want to win political points? With a prosecutor charging imaginary defendants and real defendants against whom he is unable or unwilling to make a case?
And youre a defense attorney? Or just a partisan hack willing to overlook prosecutorial bad behavior because, you know, Trump?
Mueller needs to be fired. We wouldnt accept this from a first year ASA in Juvie, much less someone with his power. If there is a case against the president, let someone who follows the law bring it, and bring it now.
Turns out Mueller and FBI "colluded" with a Russian oligarch...LOL! These suspicious ties are troubling, we need a special counsel to investigate, because getting to the bottom of this is just too important for our democracy. I suggest the new special counsel be james comey.
DeleteHoly crap.
ReplyDeleteBig Phil Maniatty fan. I watched him play in 1990 when he ran for Judge. A real gentleman and champion. What a great public servant to still be prosecuting. Bravo Phil.
The defending national champions, the FLORIDA GATORS are currently ranked 31 in baseball.
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ReplyDelete12:45 PM:
If the SP follows the law*, then he won't charge the President with any crimes. He will, at some point, file his Report and let Congress deal with it. It would be up to Congress whether to hold hearings and whether to issue Articles of Impeachment and so on.
*The prevailing view among legal scholars is that a sitting president cannot be indicted.
The Constitution says impeachable offenses include "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors," but Congress alone has the authority to interpret that standard.
All it takes for a president to be impeached is a majority vote by the House of Representatives, which essentially serves as an indictment of the president. A president could be removed from office if two-thirds of the Senate agree to "convict" the president.
Based on today's headlines, I have identified cap as Rudy guiliani.
DeleteAs to stand your ground, what do you think of the conflicting decisions coming out recently? In Love v. State, on May 11, 2018, the 3rd DCA held that the 2017 legislative burden shift to the state attorney in stand your ground immunity hearings is constitutional. But the 3rd DCA also held that the statutory amendment cannot be applied retroactively to cases which occurred before the 2017 legislative amendment became effective, which was June 9, 2017. In so holding, the 3rd DCA certified conflict with the 2nd DCA’s decision in Martin v. State (1st attachment).
ReplyDeleteThis is quite an interesting issue and I think it’s worhty of a separate post with some honest and intellectual input from the lawyers who read this blog. Thoughts?
I support Vivianne Del Rio for Judge. 27 years as a top rated prosecutor. What a nice person too. Let’s all get out and vote for her. I remember when she just started as an ASA back in 1990! Time flies.
ReplyDeleteAre Hirsch and Hersch in the corner of the floor so that defendants that mistakenly go to the wrong judge only have to cross the hall?
ReplyDeleteHere are investigations into the executive branch that have taken much longer than one year:
ReplyDeleteWatergate
Iran/Contra
Whitewater/Monica Lewinsky
Outing of Valerie Plame
Benghazi
As the prosecutor said of the Plame case, when the executive throws sand in the face of the investigator/umpire, it takes longer to see who did what.
The umpire in this case, Mueller, has clearly seen and done a lot in a short time. I don't know which of his 19 indictments 12:45 is criticizing. I haven't seen Mueller balk at anything. It would be the rare prosecutor ready for trial upon filing an indictment. If 12:45 is a federal prosecutor who is always ready to try his case upon indictment, he should say so. There will be more, perhaps many more indictments, to come. When subjects, targets and witnesses lie to investigators, it can take a bit longer. What every federal investigative agency has said is that the Russians interfered in the 2016 elections to help Trump. Since his election, Trump has been conciliatory towards Putin in a way that would raise eyebrows even if we didn't know about the Russians' interference. There were numerous contacts between Trump's campaign and Russians with ties to its intelligence agencies and Putin. These were unusual contacts under anyone's definition. And those involved lied about/took other measures to conceal the contacts. If 12:45 wants details, I'm happy to provide them. In the meantime, try to derive some reassurance from the fact that the chief investigators are all lifelong Republicans. Had the Benghazi investigation been conducted by Democrats, it would have taken fewer years to reach the same result.
This is not the kind of situation that can reasonably be ignored by Americans. That is so because the Russian government has interfered in other nations' elections with the goal of weakening Western alliances and defenses, and installing right-wing nationalist leaders. Has America interfered in other nations' elections with the goal of installing leaders it likes? Of course we have. And that's reprehensible too. There's a view of these events by some Americans that being weakened by Russia is reasonable payback resulting in a better global balance of powers. If that is where 12:45 is coming from, I get that. But if 12:45 conscientiously believes there's nothing to see here, everyone move along, witch-hunt, fake news, lying leakers (which is oxymoronic), I don't get that. It strikes me as crazy.
Captain, a GOP congress can arrange that Mueller's report, if there is one, never be made available to the public. These things happen all the time.
935
DeleteI'm not sure that the Lewinsky investigation took years means this one should also. The better view is all those investigations took entirely too long.
Remember the Russians wanted to sow havoc in our democracy and undermine faith in our system. The continued investigation serves that purpose. It also serves the political goals of Democrats to have continuous fodder to suggest trump stole the election. Given the $10 million and the dream team of talent from DOJ, who have spent considerable time indicting Russian Facebook trolls (entirely for show as none are in the USA), I think expecting this to be resolved soon is entirely reasonable.
The longer it goes the more the investigation appears to be a gift to the Democrats, with no apparent substance, consistent with Comey's refusal to confirm trump was not personally under investigation (while previously agreeing to refer to the HRC investigation as a "matter").
I'm confused 4:08, what poll are you reading?
ReplyDeleteComposite 1
Baseball america 1
Collegiate baseball 2
D1 Baseball 1
NCBWA 2
USA Today Coaches 1
Giuliani has now stated that “collusion “ with the Russians is not illegal. Everybody does it. Shit! Why didn’t you say that in the first place? We could’ve saved the huge amount of time arguing no collusion witch hunt on this blog comments section. I’ll start bitching and complaining in line with the new theme as soon as I wrap my head around it. Damn!
ReplyDeletePeople have been pointing out collusion is no crime since the beginning.
DeleteI can't understand why people are so upset don jr agreed to simply receive dirt from a Russian lawyer on HRC. People cry treason. Really? Receiving negative or possibly incriminating information from a foreigner is illegal? Hardly. HRC sent a British spy to Russia to receive supposed dirt on trump directly from Russians, and even paid them for it. That's not treason either.
If there was evidence don jr or anyone paid Russians or promised them something in exchange for ***illegally*** getting dirt (like illegal email hacking) that would be criminal.
People also talk about trump's comment for Russians to release HRCs deleted emails, if they had them. This is silly. Remember HRC deleted Gov emails from her private server and bleached it afterwards. They weren't hers to delete, and the only reason the server wasn't immediately seized to allow the Gov to claw back its own property was political favoritism. Only in the context of FBI allowing HRC to delete gov emails while they were under subpoena does one have to hope the Russians could help us discover which gov emails HRC deleted then bleached beyond recovery. The expression of desperation in the face of obvious abdication by the FBI is, well, understandable.
To the Magi:
ReplyDeleteDid you complain in these comments -- or anywhere else -- about the time and money spent investigating the Bengazi incident?
If you were out of short pants then, did you complain to anyone about the time and money spent investigating Whitewater?
Now, just one year into an investigation into whether the beneficiary of Russian interference in our elections knew of/facilitated that attack on our democracy, given piles of evidence of suspicious Russian contacts with the beneficiary's agents, and evidence of obstruction into investigation of those contacts, you're bored and fiscally prudent?
What are you afraid of? Have you ever invoked your client's right to be free from perjury traps?
You are afraid that Trump did what it reasonably appears he might have done. You are afraid that, in the course of the investigation, Trump will be exposed to have committed other crimes or immoral acts. He's your guy. I get that. When we vote for someone, we've made an investment in something we believe in. And those who voted for Trump may have taken a lot of abuse from their families and friends. So you're dug in. I get that. But it's crazy to believe let alone promote the belief that Republican-led highly-conservative law enforcement agencies like the FBI, CIA and DOJ are colluding in a coup against Trump. I am stunned you could believe that's a more reasonable hypothesis than Trump's having colluded with Russia, or having obstructed investigation of that hypothesis.
Trump will not be impeached for lying about a blow job. Or for lying about hush money to strippers.
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DeleteI largely agree with everything you say. Yes Benghazi was total witch hunt, and many of those investigations were way too broad.
Trump is not my guy, but YES it does worry me in the course of this Russia investigation "Trump will be exposed to have committed other crimes." Not because I want to shelter the guy, but it's just not the way business like this should be conducted. I don't want a new norm where we find a reason for an investigation of every sitting president, then just go fishing for any crime, even if there is one to find. I don't like the precedent it creates, assuming it wasn't already created. I think a determined prosecutor could find a crime to charge on the vast majority of billionaire businessmen. So when Mueller was looking solely at Russia, so be it. But now they are doing (or referring) search warrants on trump's atty over a non-reported in-kind porn star payoff? Yes I think that's a super bad sign and totally lame.I never said anything about a coup by Mueller, but there are signs they are looking for any crime they can to "get him," or those close to him. Just like Benghazi was an effort to "get HRC" until they stumbled onto her private emails.
"Trump will not be impeached for lying about a blow job. Or for lying about hush money to strippers."
If the Democrats take the house, I'm not so sure, give the strong beliefs of their base.
Since you are in favor of longstanding investigations and the bs position that innocent people shouldn't be worried about prosecutors rifling through their life, are you saying you had no problem with Benghazi, whitewater, etc.? That's a good universe to live in? If so, congratulations to you mr consistency.
Mr. Magi
Mr. Magi,
ReplyDeleteI understand and share your opinion that new administrations should not routinely be investigated by congressional committees led by opposition party members. That would be grotesque. My problem with Benghazi was not so much its length, but that I couldn't really understand the allegations being investigated: that Susan Rice lied/was premature in the immediate aftermath in saying an anti-muslim video inspired the attack? That Clinton didn't respond quickly enough to defend the embassy? That she didn't secure it sufficiently in advance of the attack? The opposition-led committees took all the time they wanted, but I don't understand what they found. Was the State Department negligent? Was it gross or culpable negligence? Were there recommendations for avoiding such negligence in the future? Sanctions on those who, personally, failed to do what they should have done? Was Do you?
I do understand the crime alleged in the present investigation. No reasonable person can doubt that Russia, a foreign adversary, interfered in the election to help Trump. See Clapper, Comey, Rogers, Pompeo. Any American who solicited/knowingly received that help committed a crime. There is evidence to support that crime, though I don't know how much, how strong, or how persuasive. A lot of Trump associates had unusual contacts with Russians during/after the campaign and lied about the contacts. And Trump has made/continues to make unusual concessions to Putin, over the objections of his hand-picked State/Defense/NSA chairs as well as GOP congressional leaders. I do understand why investigating that crime could take a lot of time, particularly in the face of obstruction, of which there is also evidence. And in terms of your main point, I think there is a big difference between investigations led by political adversaries in Congress and investigations led by a prosecutor hand-selected by an administration-selected acting DOJ has head. With respect to the seizure of Cohen's stuff, I haven't seen the warrants. If Cohen is being investigated because of his involvement in Russian election interference -- there is evidence of this; and if the warrant relates to that aspect of the investigation; seems fine to me. I agree that paying hush money to strippers close to an election is pretty small beer, even if it violates campaign finance laws, which is likely. On the other hand, if that's all it is, but was stumbled upon in the course of investigating Russian election interference, what's a special prosecutor to do? Just what Mueller did -- refer it to a different office to investigate, if it wants to. And that office, SDNY, is led by an AG hand-picked by Trump, who fired his predecessor.
The allegations on which the investigation is based are unprecedently serious. This is not some remote land deal that turned out to be perfectly innocent. This is knowing subversion of the most fundamental aspect of a democracy.
So while the Mueller investigation may be annoying and distracting for a new administration, it's clearly not partisan or politically-motivated, and appears to be of great importance to protecting this country from future attacks.
Mr. Consistency
"This is not some remote land deal that turned out to be perfectly Innocent."
DeleteWow you are totally looney tunes my friend...
how 'looney tunes my friend'? Are you saying that Whitewater land deal was not perfectly innocent? Who was prosecuted, for what crime? What do you think happened? What alleged crimes did the Clinton's commit? 'looney tunes' is cute but not informative
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