The Juvenile division, in the exceptionally capable hands of Judge Orlando Prescott, has gone back to remote hearings, Judge Prescott knowing what our Governor does not: Covid/Delta is killing children:
The previous in-person hearings will be conducted remotely:
- Juvenile Delinquency Detentions and Soundings
- Juvenile Delinquency Quash Pick
- Juvenile Dependency Shelter Hearings
- Juvenile Marchman Hearings
- Weekend Juvenile Detention and Dependency Hearing
Juvenile Detention and Dependency Hearings via Zoom (Monday-Friday)
Meeting ID: 938 0652 9690
No password required
Weekend Juvenile Detention and Dependency Hearings via Zoom (Saturday, Sunday, and Court Holidays)
Meeting ID: 996 0478 5521
No password required
OPTICS is the term we use to describe how something looks. Currently we have a petulant judge in the domestic violence division, who in the face of the Delta variant, has spent the last two weeks railing against Zoom hearings when she is not bemoaning the fact that she has a child care issue and cannot start at 9am. Both of her honor's rantings are examples of bad optics and show an incredibly deaf ear to the delta variant and that most of the litigants not to mention many of the lawyers who some how manage to appear in front of her on time also have child care issues that they have managed to resolve. But this judge is so self absorbed in her own suffering- not unlike POTUS45, that she cannot understand the criticism leveled at her by this blog. Don't we know she has child care responsibilities? Yeah, we know. And we do not care.
Add to the bad optics the unfortunate Assistant Public Defender who took to email to promote an upcoming CLE seminar on jury selection when he wrote this (we are not making this up):
As we return to more jury trials, it seems like a good time to brush up on our jury selection skills.
Um, do you read your own emails? 144 assistant state attorneys a day are coming down with Covid requiring you to forward 144 emails from the SAO announcing yet another state attorney employee who has (shockingly) fallen ill with Covid.
Just who will be on the other side picking those juries since the entire state attorney's office is sick with Covid?
And where will we be picking these juries, with courtrooms closed?
And who will be on our panel, with Covid/Delta scaring people into staying home?
Would you risk Covid/Delta by coming to jury duty to sit on a resisting arrest with violence case because the state is offering 55 years?
Bad optics.
And finally, and this is just a rumor, but there erupted a contretemps of Rumpolian proportions earlier in the week when a head County Court Judge wandered into a courtroom, saw some assistant PDs in the courtroom- they were there because some clients had gotten in person court notices, and chewed them out good, resulting in emails up and down the PD chain of command eventually telling the judge if s/he wanted to close the courtroom and ban to the PDs to write an order and they would take her/him up.
Optics. Bad Optics.
4 comments:
Bad optics: Blaming the assistant public defenders who are in the trenches risking their lives to represent the indigent of Miami Dade county to DARE host a training on jury selection in the midst of one of the weirdest most challenging atmospheres for jury selection in human history.
If you want to point the finger at someone for submitting the citizens and attorneys of Miami Dade county to a deadly disease, may I suggest turning your ire to Justice Canady and the rest of our Supreme Court?
They are still hosting oral arguments on Zoom, gutting the rights of criminal defendants and throwing the concept of precedent in the garbage, while ordering the rest of us to risk death to keep up appearances.
Or how about our governor, who's setting records for infection rates while selling merchandise of him burning a mask?
No. Instead let's get angry about the public defender daring to try to equip their new lawyers with the skills to navigate the insanity thrust upon us by the bloodless ghouls in power.
Talk about punching down. I thought this blog was run by a criminal defense attorney. You know, the people who challenge authority.
What possible gratification could you get from piling on the men and women of the public defenders office who are risking their lives to try cases in this immensely dangerous atmosphere?
Try harder. Do better.
So when I see a problem, an issue, stuffy hypocrisy, instead of writing about it I should pause...wait...is this person/organization someone/something that I believe in and if so, then NOT write about it. Give them a pass. Play partisan politics?
You my friend are reading the wrong blog. There is Fox news for you. The very best thing I can do is call out the PDs office -an office I strongly believe in and want them to succeed- ditto btw for the SAO- and point out problems in the hope they fix them.
That is the way I roll.
As for you, keep playing those partisan politics. It has worked out so well for the country as a whole so far.
Is said judge in DV court who is railing against zoom hearings running for reelection by chance? What exactly is said judge's problem with zoom hearings?
Rumpole- 9:59 did NOT to not criticize institutions we believe it. Rather, they said the criticism was misguided, and you are blaming the wrong party. Which is true. It is not partisan to say that the governor is doing a horrible job, because it is an objective truth- just look at the numbers. It is not partisan to blame the Florida Supreme Court- just look at how they keep THEMSELVES safe with zoom. It is not partisan to remind others that the public defender continues to represent clients astonishingly well through a global pandemic, which includes knowing HOW to pick a jury when a judge forces you to do so.
This disagreement isn't about partisanship. It is about facts.
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