JUST FOR THE RECORD

How about a hand for El Capitan? A good and informative post last week, providing necessary information for the modern criminal practitioner.  

We are thinking of cancelling the Captain's blog status. 

On to legal and non-legal lexicography.

Here are some words and phrases that we can either do without, or which aren't being used enough. 

10. Allocution. In many jurisdictions, the defendant allocates. It is a formal statement a defendant makes in which s/he accepts responsibility and offers mitigation before sentencing. In over thirty years, we have never heard the term used in any federal or state court in Florida. 

9.  BFF.  What does this mean? 

8. Meme. See #9. 

7.  Guidelines (state court). What a misleading term this has turned into. Under the original guidelines a crime was given a low end and a high end. Courts had discretion to go lower or higher. Then some yahoo legislator heard about a judge giving someone a day less than the guidelines required, and the law was amended and amended and amended until "guidelines" became a code word for "maximum sentence." Guidelines supersede statutory maximums. Guidelines remove judicial discretion. Guidelines, like the orders from generals in totalitarian states "must be obeyed" regardless of the human consequences. 
Here's an idea: let's enact the "truth in justice" act and require terms to mean what they say. "Guidelines" would be changed to "absolute maximum sentence to be given in all cases with removal from office of any judicial officer who does otherwise." In Florida's Orwellian justice-system-speak we can call this the "Fair-Sentence-Calculation." 
Judge: "Ms. Prosecutor, what's the Fair-Sentence-Calculation?"
ASA: Judge, the FSC for a first time attempted burglary of a tricycle is ….hmmm....add the tire enhancement, wheel enhancement, quality of life enhancement, bell on handlebars enhancement, minus one day for first offense under the First Offenders Prison Reduction Act (FOPRA- "all first offenders shall have their sentence reduced by one day in recognition that this is their first offense") ....it's seventeen years, seven months, 29 days  judge. But this offer is open only at arraignment. Under Florida's "Don't Waste My Time Act" defendants who are guilty and do not accept a reasonable offer at arraignment are subject to a multiplier for every thing they do to delay the case, like taking depos or filing motions. For a third degree felony there is a  .21 multiplier for taking depositions and a .45 multiplier for filing frivolous motions like motions to suppress or dismiss."

6. Craft Beer. Please. Spare us. Pop the tab on a cold Bud and STFU. 

5. What, pray tell, is a "Kardashian" and why does/do they/it/whatever matter so much? 

4. A "continuance"  in Miami, is an adjournment in New York. Pre-trial diversion in NYC is an "ACD" (adjourned in contemplation of dismissal). Everyone in Miami is from New York. Everyone in NYC wants to move to Miami. Why can't we all get along and learn to speak the same language? 

3.  Constitutional Crisis.  The last time a Constitutional Crisis was in vogue was the Saturday Night Massacre when President Nixon couldn't find anyone at the DOJ to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox until solicitor general Robert Bork Bork'd Cox. Now all the cable new outlets are babbling about a constitutional crisis. We don't have a constitutional crisis. The Constitution is working just fine. We have a Presidential Crisis. A narcissistic idiot is president and the office is in crisis. If it walks like a duck; and quacks like a duck; and it's not a platypus, then it's a presidential crisis. 

2. Dude.  From the 1870's to the 1950's "Dude" denoted a well coiffured dandy. It was also a word western "country folk" used to identify a conspicuous "city slicker"  visiting rural America.  
When did a word used primarily in Montana and Oklahoma become a popular and accepted form of address? We have heard lawyers "dude" each other in the hallways. We have heard witnesses describe the "dude that robbed the store". 
Dude, Stop using Dude. We formally will honor with recognition and favor any Judge who prohibits the use of the term "Dude" in their court. 

1. "Just for the record"   How many times in any given court proceeding do you hear a lawyer say "just for the record judge." 
The term is meaningless. As one of our favourite Judges, The Honorable Federico Moreno has been given to say in the past, "everything is for the record". Everything said in open court is on the record. Saying something is for the record, while you are on the record, is meaningless and redundant.  It's a waste of time. It's legal pomposity, uttered by hapless litigators who just want to hear themselves speak for no other reason than hearing themselves speak. 

So stop it. For the record, we are demanding that lawyers stop saying "for the record" while in court, on the record.