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, April 04, 2019

WEEKEND BOND HEARINGS MOVED

In this first time in recent memory, and may be since the early 1960's when the REGJB was brand-spankin-new, weekend bond hearings WILL NOT BE IN THE REGJB. 

Who among us doesn't love the late Friday night phone call that a client has been arrested and will be on the Saturday morning bond hearing calendar. 

We show up only to see Judge [ insert name here] who has spent the last thirty years in Probate Court on page 4 of a 35 page misdemeanor calendar with the felony bond hearings nowhere in sight. 

Corrections: Judge standard bond on disorderly conduct is five hundred dollars."
Judge: Defense ?
PD: That's too high. 
Judge:  Hmmm...do you have case law on this? Can you brief it if I take a short break?

And the sinking feeling that you will not be getting out of weekend bond hearings until well after the sun has set. 

Now comes news that due to "technical upgrades" to our courthouse  (they are using electrical tape on one of the power outlets on the second floor  that is a bit wonky) the whole shebang will be moved. 
See below, and good luck and god-speed John Glenn. 

This weekend’s bond hearings will be heard at the Children’s Courthouse, courtroom 2-1, due to the information below:

As part of the overall upgrade of the Richard E. Gerstein Building (REG), ITD is installing a UPS (uninterrupted power supply) to feed each of the telecom closets on the East and West sides of the building.
The installation requires we install a 300 AMP circuit breaker into the main panel that feeds electricity to the 9th floor computer room.  This installation will require that we power down the computer room and all the equipment in that room.
This event is currently scheduled for April 5th, 2019 at about 7pm to allow for the weekend to test and assure that all the equipment starts up properly after the shutdown.
This will affect all telephone and computer access at REG as well as those buildings that feed from the fiber at REG.  The Jail, SAO, PDO, Medical Examiners, and Bond Court  should plan for the outage with the possibility that connectivity could be down for the entire weekend.
A formal list of sites affected will be presented at the ITD Hardware Software Meeting when we submit the scheduled outage.

Please feel free to forward this information

And indeed the email was forwarded to us... multiple times. 

9 comments:

Anonymous said...


"IT'S A BAD TIME TO BE A VICTIM IN FLORIDA" - A Response

I usually go to this Blog to read an entertaining, or thoughtful, or learned post from you Sir Horace. The post on Tuesday was none of those.

First, as one of your few mistakes you make annually, NO, the FACDL Awards Banquet is NOT this weekend. That event is scheduled in May.

Second, your diatribe that fails to mention the name of the ASA; (we all knew exactly who it was as soon as you posted it - and if you didn’t know - all you needed to do was Google the LOP Face Book page to view the invitation to the event) - is ridiculous. If you are going to call someone out and criticize them for what they have done - then at least have the courage of naming them. What’s your point with criticizing them, and then avoiding identifying them by name? Were you attempting to be noble or fair? Your post was a harsh and direct criticism of someone who you have no love loss for, you have a history with, and you disdain.

Third, as for your history with that individual. You have a “conflict of interest” that should be identified, but we can’t do so, without identifying the ASA, and, You. But anyone who has been in the GJB and knows what goes on daily, knows of the conflict I write about. That conflict alone, should disqualify you from penning an objective narrative of what was said at the LOP banquet this past weekend. (Having said that, I am well aware of this person’s history with the Bar, and it is not a pretty one, and personally, I have never cared too much for the person either).

Fourth, you write:

“Every single case handled by this current State Attorneys Office is based on the plea offer the victim wants, whether or not it's grounded in reality. Prosecutors have abandoned their constitutional mandate to do justice, deferring to the irrational demands of victims who are admittedly traumatized and entitled to be angry and seek vengeance. But ours is a justice system, not a vengeance system, although the current State Attorneys Office doesn't act like it. “

WRONG. I recently represented the family of a victim who was killed by a drunk driver. A father died and the child wanted justice. They wanted the punishment to be as harsh as it could possibly be. But, the ASA would not have it. The ASA pointed out the legal issues they were faced with and ended up providing a sweetheart of a deal to the defendant. The victim’s child was not happy. The defendant took a plea just in the past couple of weeks after that case had been continued a total of eight times - all defense continuances.

So, when you write that “it is not the defense attorney’s fault” that the case took years to proceed to trial/plea you are wrong. It is much worse to be the victim in this case than it was to be the defendant. The defendant has a future. They will get out of prison in a much too short a period of time. The child, on the other hand, has lost their father for the rest of their life. Trust me, “in the scheme of things” (your words), it is much, much worse being the victim.

Anonymous said...

This seems like something DOM and Rumpole should be covering: https://www.discourse.net/2019/04/weve-found-some-racially-unbiased-judges/

Anonymous said...

Tick Tock.

Anonymous said...

Sorry 8:12 but the SAO charges people without sufficient proof “because the victim’s family wants it.” I was shocked to be called on the carpet by the #3 person in the office at the time who made it clear to me that they were overcharging the defendant “because the family wants it” and I have handled cases where charges were added without new evidence (or even any evidence) because the victim wanted it. Janet Reno must be spinning in her grave.

Rumpole said...

12 PM I hope your hangover is not too bad. If you email me, I'll remove your ill conceived and embarrassing comment.
You don't know me. You have no idea if I have an issue with that ASA- although granted, he has pissed off most of the defense bar which he was a long time ago an alleged member of, so granted just throwing darts at all defense attorneys, you're likely to land on someone his conduct has offended. And we can contrast that by legions of ASAs who were more successful, and more respected. David Gilbert. Gary Winston. Howard Rosen. Reid Ruben. Laura Adams. David Waksman. Abe Laeser.

And finally, this is something you did not consider in your alcoholic rage (hopefully it was alcohol and you are not just normally that dull)

This blog which we created from our own mind and talent alone, is widely read. Do any google search related to our courthouse and it's in the top few results. Which means when we include the name of ANYONE in a post, that post-good or bad- immediately becomes one of the top three or four results when you search that name.
So over the years, when lawyers/prosecutors have made the news by doing something stupid in their personal life like getting arrested the blog post becomes a higher result than even the Miami Herald article. And over the years lawyers who have had personal troubles and then gone through re-hab and recovered and tried to get on with their life have emailed us and asked us to remove the post because it was interfering with their attempt to reestablish their life. And we have done so.

So we are very hesitant to include the name of an individual when we have a personal comment about them. Of course anyone familiar with the LOP can Google the event and find out who the prosecutor was. But that will fade and our post which is our personal opinion will not come up months and years from now when someone Googles his name.

You attack us for not mentioning his name.
No good deed goes unpunished.

So if you want, send us your name, fully cognizant of the ramifications of doing so, and request we add your name and comment to the post and we will do so. And of course when this ill-fated plan backfires months and years later and you come crawling begging us to remove your name, we will do so.

We don't punish stupidity.
We do speak out against prosecutors who advance repugnant views that damage the justice system and therein lies the difference you cannot discern.
Take two Tylenol and comment in the morning.

Gary said...

Thank you for the compliment, Rumpole. You including my name with the other talented prosecutors I consider an honor. I left the SAO not because of my age, but because of a disturbing, internal change in focus. Nonetheless, I believe in KFR, who joined with me to develop a Continuing Justice Project unit focused on wrongful convictions. Others, however, said "no", so I left.

After all, real prosecutors work for True Justice/Continuing Justice, not merely convictions, even after convictions. Often times, putting the wrong defendants in jail is easier than getting the right inmates out.

Gary

Anonymous said...

was at the dcba, saw a guy who's not even taken the bench yet describe himself as the royal "we." good luck.

Anonymous said...

Esformes____" Get me JACK DENARO."

Anonymous said...

9:08 pm., you cannot take Tylenol for a hangover. It can cause liver failure and death. Acetaminophen is extremely toxic to the liver and is broken down by the same enzyme that breaks down alcohol, When the enzyme is depleted from breaking down excessive drinking from the night before, there will be not enough enzyme to break down the acetaminophen and your liver will fail and you will possibly die.