BROWARD TO THE RESCUE

 Just writing the headline caused us severe nausea and the need to step outside, take a few deep breaths, pop a Tums and return to the work at hand. 

As the civil war neared conclusion in April, 1865, General Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia desperately sought to escape the encirclement of his forces by the Army of the Potomac. General Grant, head of the Army of the Potomac sent Lee a letter requesting his surrender, noting that any additional loss of life would be Lee's responsibility. Lee asked for terms of peace and Grant replied that he was only authorized to accept Lee's surrender. With his army surrounded, Lee accepted the inevitable, dressing in his best uniform for his meeting with Grant, as he expected to be taken prisoner. 

Lee was not taken prisoner. The terms of the surrender included paroling all soldiers from the Army of Northern Virginia so long as they did not again take up arms against the United States. While his army was required to surrender their arms, Lee requested that his men in the cavalry and artillery be allowed to keep their horses and mules, which they had provided from their own stock. Grant agreed, writing a separate order to that effect. 

While forced to surrender unconditionally, Lee was afforded escape from the ignominy of taking succor from his enemies. 

Not so the Court system of Miami-Dade County. In the immediate aftermath of the closing of the Civil Courthouse,  none other than the Chief Judge of the Evil Empire  known as Broward County contacted Judge Sayfie and offered her and our courtroom-less Miami Civil Judges the use of their courtrooms (but not the Death Star). 

This, dear readers is what is known as the  Ignominy of accepting charity from your enemies. 

We would rather try a case under the burning hot sun in Lot 26 than travel north of the boarder. We would rather fight locusts from the Miami River while cross-examining a flip then accepting  charity from Darth Vader.    

Will the "Broward Rules" of court  apply to Miami-Dade case?  Taken from actual events we have been subjected to or witnessed, will the following occur?

1) The courtroom door being locked at 9am and no one else let in;

2) Clients acquitted in a criminal case being taken into custody for "a records check"; 

3) Being told by BSO officers who had their hands on handcuffs that we "could not talk to our client during the trial, subject to being arrested for violating this order"; 

4) Having our 8:30 am case called last after all the 11:30 am cases were called; 

5)  Having our client's bond sua sponte revoked at arraignment because "we do things different here in Broward than in Mi-Am-Uh"; 

6) Being told by the judge that unless we could cite a specific rule or case law, we would need to ask permission to cross examine every witness called by the prosecution, AND THEN clear each issue we wished to address on cross-examination with the judge, in open court, before being allowed to conduct cross examination- we'd love to see how civil lawyers respond to that gem; 

7) Being told  (threatened) that arguing for an acquittal may result in a Bar Complaint if our client was convicted because "lawyers are not allowed to argue frivolous issues"; 

Yes, these are the joys we have experienced heading North of the Boarder to represent clients. Will these rules apply to the civil cases Broward wants to host? 

Our advice to our civil brethren: avoid Broward. It has bad Juju. Nothing good ever happens there in court. Ever. Settle. Take the money or offer the money and wait for another case on another day in another place in the Universe. 

Anywhere but Broward. That's our motto.