QUESTIONS FOR A FEDERAL JUDGE

 Under the hypothetical scenario that one or more federal judges would appear on some sort of legal panel/CLE event and deigned to take questions from the audience, what questions would you want to ask our life-appointed jurist? 

Here are a few that occur to us:

1) Your honor- President Trump may well have been the worst president ever to serve. His actions directly led to the insurrection of January 6 and the attack on the US Congress. To this day he has refused to acknowledge that he lost the election leading many (ignorant) Americans to believe the election was truly stolen. Recently the Washington Post has reported that Trump knew he had tested positive for covid a week before it was disclosed and during that time he attended many events mask-less, including the introduction of Justice Coney Barret in which dozens of people were infected, and attended the first debate with Joe Biden, imperiling Biden's health. Trump diminishes science, ridiculed the use of a mask, appealed to white supremacists and diminished their responsibility for the racial attacks in Charlottesville, Virginia,  doesn't believe in global warming, and basically has the intellect and moral compass of a coconut. Do you think any of your colleagues who were appointed during the last administration had a moral imperative to decline their nomination to the bench, as accepting a nomination legitimized his presidency which has caused disastrous damage to our country?

2) Your honor- we all know the federal sentencing guidelines were enacted in 1987 when most Americans did not have a personal computer, did not use email, and did not have a cell phone. Is the current application of the sophisticated means enhancement just a negation of the acceptance of responsibility reduction because nearly every case now qualifies for the enhancement, reducing the acceptance to a mere one-point reduction (3-2=1). How do you feel about the criticism of the sophisticated means enhancement by one of your colleagues who wrote that the use of the enhancement these days is akin to fining someone for speeding and then enhancing the fine for the use of an automobile? 

3) Your Honor- unlike many districts around the country, the Miami probation office has the reputation of merely accepting the government's version of the facts when preparing a PSI/PSR (and as a side question, which do you prefer? PSI or PSR?). In fact, in the last dozen sentencings I have participated in, NOT ONE WORD of the defense version of the facts appeared in the PSI/PSR's version of the facts. Do you think the system is broken as it applies to our district's probation office's preparation of PSI/PSRs?

4) Boxers or briefs? No, just kidding. Your Honor- it is unconstitutional to sentence a defendant more severely just because they exercised their right to trial. And yet every single defense attorney in this country that tries cases, except for Jerry Spence who never lost a trial- will tell you that every client they ever represented who lost a trial was punished for going to trial. Isn't it time to just admit there is a trial tax? At least let's be honest about what everyone knows is occurring. 

Of course we do not get invited to judicial functions where judges answer questions. Wonder why.