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Thursday, September 16, 2021

THREE NEW JUDGES IN MIAMI-DADE COUNTY .......

THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:

AND YOUR THREE NEWEST JUDGES IN MIAMI-DADE COUNTY .......


CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE ARIANA FARJARDO ORSHAN

Judge Fajardo-Orshan has been a member of The Florida Bar for the past 25 years. She was appointed to the bench in 2012 by Governor Rick Scott and served as a Circuit Court Judge from 2012 until 2016 . She was appointed by President Trump as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and served from 2018 until 2021. From 1996-2002 she served as an ASA in Miami-Dade County, her first job out of law school. Judge Farjardo-Orshan replaced Judge Rosa Figarola who resigned in July.


CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE DIANA VIZCAINO

Judge Vizcaino has been a member of  The Florida Bar for the past 20 years. She previously served as an Assistant City Attorney for the City of Miami from 2008 until 2015. She began her career as an ASA in Miami-Dade County from 2000-2005. In 2015 she was appointed to the County Court bench by Governor Rick Scott. She won election uncontested in 2016. Judge Vizcaino replaces Judge Martin Zilber who resigned in July.


COUNTY COURT JUDGE LAURA GONZALEZ

Ms. Gonzalez has been a member of The Florida Bar for 11 years. She is currently Of Counsel to the Law Firm of Kobre & Kim. She has been with that firm for the past five years. She previously was an associate at Holland & Knight. She focuses her practice on advising institutional and individual clients in cross-border white-collar criminal defense and internal investigations, regulatory enforcement matters and parallel complex civil disputes. Ms. Gonzalez replaces Judge Miguel Mirabal who resigned in July.

POST-SCRIPT:

The three appointees were informed of the news by Governor DeSantis on Monday, September 13. They were asked to keep the news to themselves until today because Governor DeSantis wanted to hold a Press Conference in Tallahassee today announcing the appointment of 20 new Circuit & County Court judges in five Circuits and ten County Courts: 4th, 9th, 11th, 15th, and 18th Circuits, and Citrus, Hillsborough, Lee, Miami-Dade, Monroe, Orange, Palm Beach, Pasco, Polk, and St. Johns Counties. Governor DeSantis' reasoning for holding the press conference on the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur, was because he wanted to make the announcement on the day before Constitutional Day, which takes place tomorrow.

============================

Are expected to be named today by Governor DeSantis from the following finalists:

Replacing Judge Rosa Figarola & Judge Martin Zilber: (both having resigned from the bench in July)

(two names from the list below)

Christine Bandin
Karl Brown
Miesha Darrough
Javier Enriquez
Ariana Fajardo Orshan
Scott Janowitz
Jeffrey Kolokoff
Natalie Moore
Luis Perez-Medina
Christopher Pracitto
Stephanie Silver
Diana Vizcaino

Replacing Judge Miguel Mirabal: (resigned from the bench in July)

(one name from the list below)

Heloiza Correa
Javier Enriquez
Laura Gonzalez
Christopher Green 
Marcia Giordano Hansen 
Kevin Hellman 


CAPTAIN OUT .......
Captain4Justice@gmail.com

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cap: have these been formally announced, or is this just word on the street?

CAPTAIN JUSTICE said...

These are now officially formally announced.

Cap Out …..

Anonymous said...

SDFLA blog beat you to it.

Anonymous said...

Looks like good choices.

He appointed Mike Snure, a very good criminal defense attorney to the circuit court in Orlando, so there's hope for Hellman in the future.

Anonymous said...

Mike Snure was also President of FACDL. There are four full time criminal defense lawyers on this list. Definitely a good varied group.

the trialmaster said...

Very sad when a former US Attorney for the SDFL cannot obtain a high paying job with a law firm and has to resort to being appointed by MoRon Duhsantis to hear lawyers arguing over motions to compel answers to Rogs.

Anonymous said...

what an absolute joke this town is

Anonymous said...

Looking at the list of appointees from all over the state, it is clear that there is a bias for former prosecutors.

Anonymous said...

All female judges appointed. hmmmmmm

Theodore Mastos said...

Two men resigned as circuit court judges and returned as circuit judges. They were Ed Cowart and Joe Farina. Both were tremndous judges and outstanding men of integrity.

Anonymous said...

Remember all the crazy libs on here who used to push the trump Russia nonsense? What conspiracy theory are they on now? My favorite was the guy who used to call McConnell as "moscow mitch." Are mitch and trump no longer putins puppets?

Can we pull up some of the old comments from 2017? Wow id love to see those people read what they actually wrote and ask them if they were still believers.

Anyone care to plead temporary insanity?

the trialmaster said...

I recall the great late Judge COWART resigning to teach at the new judge college in Neveda. He returned briefly as a ASA. But do not recall him assuming the bench again.

Anonymous said...

Ed Cowart - As Rump has often said, the gold standard of judges. I loved that man !!

Anonymous said...

So sad. Miami hurricanes football consist of watching dropped passes, missed tackles, and penalties.

Anonymous said...

Too afraid to publish the Farina reponse? You always are.

Theodore Mastos said...

Ed Cowart resigned to become the assistant dean of the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada. When he returned to Florida he was counsel to I believe Governor Lawton Chiles or
Bob Graham. Thereafter he was reappointed to the circuit bench and served until he died of a massive heart attack on August 1, 1987.

Joe Farina and I had the privilege of attending that college for 3 weeks.

Just a bit of trivia stored in an old brain.

Anonymous said...

Edward Cowart may have been some kind of legal doyen in his time. Too bad that he'll be most remembered for his last remarks to Ted Bundy. Imagine how the victims and victims' families sit through such a trial and then hear the judge pronounce that the concluding atrocity of the defendant's actions is that he wasted his potential to be another mediocre white male attorney.

Anonymous said...

Did Joe Farina ever grant a motion in criminal court or rule for the defense on an appeal? Ever?

Nice guy but, no great defender of liberty there.

Anonymous said...

I'm a bit unhappy with Joe Farina although he was always courteous and kind.

I had a DUI client who happen to be the manager of the drive legal program. Bad timing for him. He just got a raise too.

He worked for Joe Farina when Joe was chief judge. Joe fired him without even talking to him or giving him a chance. At the same time, another judge got a DUI and was not even reprimanded.

Then, I appealed the license suspension and Joe was on the panel and ruled against his own employee he just fired. When we made a motion to recuse him, it was granted by him saying he did not even know that was his employee. The guy had a very, very, very, very unique name too.

Love ya Joe but, you had no respect for those accused of a crime.

the trialmaster said...

Ted, the Great Late Judge Cowart returned to become an ASA, mainly as an advisor to young attorneys. I understand that the "Abed" one was pissed that ED usurped his role.

the trialmaster said...

5:42AM----- Quite obviously you never had the pleasure of appearing before the late, great Judge Ed Cowart was absolutely the best judge we ever had. I knew Ed Cowart, Ed Cowart was a friend of mine. You are not close to a Ed Cowart. You sir, are a fool.

Anonymous said...

2;21. Dipshit. Moscow Mitch got his name for his efforts attempting to block laws preventing Russian influence on American elections. The name was well-deserved then, and nothing’s changed.

Anonymous said...

5:42 a.m. Fuck you. Really. Fuck you.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Ted for setting it straight about Judge Cowart’s return to the bench until he passed in 1987. I can remember to this day arriving at the MJB (as it was called back then), seeing the flag at half mast, and learning that Judge Cowart was no longer with us.

5:42, I know it’s been a long, painful 18 months w/COVID, etc., but respectfully, your comment about Judge Cowart’s words to Bundy reflects a total lack of perspective about what he brought to Miami’s judicial system. Trust me when I say that he is remembered for far more than those comments. And that’s the feeling from both sides of the bar, right folks?

Anonymous said...

"Quite obviously you never had the pleasure of appearing before the late, great Judge Ed Cowart was absolutely the best judge we ever had."

Most people who did have the "pleasure of appearing before the late, great Judge Ed Cowart" are either retired, dead, or over their professional hills. Anyway, whatever pleasantries or tutelage given to lawyers who appeared in his court don't wash away what he said to Bundy.

"your comment about Judge Cowart’s words to Bundy reflects a total lack of perspective about what he brought to Miami’s judicial system. Trust me when I say that he is remembered for far more than those comments"

Irving Kaufman may have been a good intelligent federal judge who wrote relevant decisions, and maybe people who knew him personally thought he was salt of the earth, but he's most remembered for sentencing the Rosenbergs to death. Abe Fortas may have been a brilliant jurist and Supreme Court justice, but he's most remembered for having to resign in disgrace. I don't know how good or bad a US Attorney Alexander Acosta was, but he'll be most remembered for giving Epstein the sweetheart deal. For better or worse, Cowart will be remembered most for those remarks. Indeed, that's what the NY Times made the focus of his obituary.

https://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/04/obituaries/edward-d-cowart-62-judge-in-florida-trial-of-ted-bundy.html

I didn't deny that Cowart may have done positive things during his professional tenure. The fact the he may be fondly remembered by some elder attorneys in Miami doesn't refute the point I made about what he will be "most remembered" for. Most people in the country and the world are not Miami-Dade lawyers or judges who knew Cowart personally. And what fraction of Miami lawyers and judges are old enough to have practiced while Cowart was alive? Whatever great things he did for Miami's judicial system and legal community are a parochial matter recalled by a shrinking generation. Lots more people will always know about Ted Bundy than know about Ed Cowart's fine qualities. For the vast majority of people, they will only know about Ed Cowart only for his involvement in the Ted Bundy trial. The memory of Cowart's good achievements will probably die with the people who knew him personally. His words at the Ted Bundy trial have been recorded and transcribed for posterity, and will be read in books and played in videos for the ages.

And now that the Ted Bundy case is being reevaluated, Cowart's words are the target of new ire:

Judge Edward Cowart, who first sentenced Bundy to death in 1979, even appeared to be seduced by Bundy’s charismatic spell. Cowart, who described Bundy’s crimes as “extremely wicked, shockingly evil and vile,” which became the title for Berlinger’s film, also told the serial killer he was a “bright young man.”

“You’d have made a good lawyer and I would have loved to have you practice in front of me, but you went another way, partner,” Cowart stated after handing Bundy the death penalty.

“Take care of yourself. I don’t feel any animosity toward you. I want you to know that. Once again, take care of yourself."

The way Bundy paraded around the courtroom, and the overconfidence he exuded, shocks people watching footage from the trial today.

“[Bundy] was just allowed to walk around the courtroom winking, saying nonsensical things and then at his sentencing the judge [said he] would have loved to practice with you — are you kidding me?” said Ashley Alese Edwards, a New York-based journalist, who has written about gender and race relations in relation to Bundy’s legacy.

“The judge was like palling around with him, that was shocking to me,”

https://www.oxygen.com/martinis-murder/white-privilege-ted-bundy-shockingly-evil