Monday, April 11, 2022

NO MIDDLE GROUND

 There was Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. DOM, Star Wars Nerd (SWN) could tell you that and more. We puzzled over what to name this post, the last two movie titles being most apropos. Instead we went with another pun on the SDFL Judge who is rapidly becoming our favourite. 

When we last left Judge Middlebrooks, minding his own business in WPB, doing what federal judges do, he had been assigned the political hot potato of Trump v. Clinton.  As he geared up for the case management orders that we hear flood in on civil cases, he was asked to recuse himself because be was appointed during the presidency of William Jefferson Clinton.  Bill Clinton is  married to Hillary Clinton, defendant herein, therefore any non-vaccinated person storming the capitol could connect the dots. 

But in stepped Judge M, with a well-reasoned order DENYING the motion to recuse, and in the most judicial way possible, calling the plaintiff in the case a moron. We are hard on judges, rightfully so.  But when a judge does something we could never do, like write an order like this, we throw up our hands in surrender. We are bested. We could never have written this. 

Our favourite part? There are so many. There is this slap to the head footnote: 

3 I note that Plaintiff filed this lawsuit in the Fort Pierce division of this District, where only one federal judge sits: Judge Aileen Cannon, who Plaintiff appointed in 2020. Despite the odds, this case landed with me instead. And when Plaintiff is a litigant before a judge that he himself appointed, he does not tend to advance these same sorts of bias concerns. See, e.g., Donald J. Trump v. Wisc. Elections Comm’n, No. 20-cv-1785 (E.D. Wis. 2020) (Judge Brett Ludwig); Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., et al., v. Sec. of Commonwealth of Pa., No. 20-cv-3371 (3d Cir. 2020) (Judge Stephanos Bibas); Comm. on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives v. U.S. Dep’t of the Treasury, No. 19-cv-01974 (D.D.C. 2019) (Judge Trevor McFadden). 

There was this judicious footnote that one of the four cases cited in the motion to recuse actually supports the conclusion that Judge M should not recuse himself: 

4 In the first case he cites, Hamm v. Members of Bd. of Regents of Fla., the Eleventh Circuit held that a district court judge did not exhibit bias sufficient to warrant recusal based on certain statements he made at trial. See 709 F.2d 647, 651 (11th Cir. 1983) (“This is not a case in which the judge openly exhibited ‘a partisan zeal’ for the defendants or ‘stepped down from the bench to assume the role of advocate’ on the defendants’ behalf.”); see also Davis v. Bd. of Sch. Com’rs of Mobile Cnty, 517 F.2d 1044, 1051 (11th Cir. 1975) (same). Neither case discussed whether judicial appointment by a party, without more, would cause a reasonable person to suspect bias on the part of the presiding judge. And Bivens Gardens emphasized that, to establish bias justifying disqualification, a party must demonstrate “such pervasive bias and prejudice that it constitutes bias against a party”—a showing that certainly has not been made here. 140 F.3d 898, 914 (11th Cir. 1998).

Quite frankly we would have written: "Hey! Idiot- try reading cases before you cite them in a motion." But then again, we do not possess the judicial wisdom and temperament of Judge M. 

And there was this concluding peroration:

When I became a federal judge, I took an oath to “faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all duties . . . under the Constitution and laws of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 453. I have done so for the last twenty-five years, and this case will be no different. 

Wow! Well Done Judge Middlebrooks! Well Done Indeed!. 

The full order 



Clinton by Anonymous PbHV4H on Scribd

21 comments:

  1. Judge Middlebrooks is now and always has been an outstanding judge. He had a very profitable legal career ahead of him when he decided to become a federal judge. That sacrifice has benefitted our district and our court system. It is a shame that we cannot clone him. It is also a shame that President Trump cannot find lawyers who aim before they fire.

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  2. Only fools, hacks, and clowns would file this case.

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  3. January 6 Insurrection News


    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cawthorn-candidacy-hearing-expedited-insurrectionist-ban-constitutiuon_n_6251efe0e4b0be72bfe9c1fd

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  4. Middlebrook is an average judge who seems like a giant in this community

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  5. Middlebrooks is a great judge and has distinguished himself every day of his 25 years on the bench.

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  6. Middlebrooks is boring.

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  7. Tried a case before him. Lost. Argued reasonable doubt. Sentencing time, gov asked for stiff guidelines sentence. He said that other defendants who pled got less, my client didn’t lie or do anything than go to trial. Gave her sentence in line with others who had pled on the case. Fair trial, fair sentence. You cannot ask for more than that from any judge. He is great and absolutely will be fair to trump.

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  8. Very 'on brand' for Trump and his acolytes 🤮 😡

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    Replies
    1. Do any of you trump haters care about the contents on hunter's lap top ? Joe is a mooch! Trump is an island boy.

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  9. Nobody cares about Hunter's anything. Hunter did not stand for election and holds no government office. If Hunter is a con, that's private business as long as his dad doesn't give him a government job.

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    Replies
    1. The lap top emails indicate joe shared in the money.

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  10. 8:03 It is unfortunate, but the country has moved beyond right o wrong. It is just who you support. Hopefully, we will all survive this.

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  11. Middlebrooks is a "Blue Key Gator'. Of course he is great.

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  12. The phrase is "Blue Key Weasel," and it is amazing that the man has any integrity at all if he crawled out of that cesspool.

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  13. Do any of you trump lovers care about the money paid to Trumps kids? You worry about what might be on Hunter's lap top, when the Trump family rakes in the millions! Come on! You don't give a shit about corruption when the Republicans are corrupt, which means you don't give a shit about corruption. The words you say have no meaning.

    Knock off the bullshit. If you cared about corruption, you'd care about Jarad's corruption. You'd care about TFG stealing gifts. You Trump lovers are really the worst people in the world. Simply deplorable.

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    1. Hunter and Biden appear to have been sharing money from China and Russia and Ukraine. It does not look good. I'm not a trump lover. Get ahold of your emotions. Btw I know Jared and he is a great guy. He raised money to put the money to risk. He's a real estate guy. Hunter is a crackhead looser and he fucked his dead brothers wife. Actually, his conduct is deplorable. Anyway, Im gonna go on my boat now which is in my back yard. Have a nice day.

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  14. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman dumped $2 billion into Jared Kushner’s new private equity firm shortly after Kushner left the White House, even after its screening committee raised serious reservations. The committee’s objections included “the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management,” an asset management fee that “seems excessive,” and firm operations that due diligence had found to be “unsatisfactory in all aspects.” But the full board overruled the panel, investing twice as much with Kushner’s firm as it gave to former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s new fund at around the same time. It’s hard to imagine a more obvious way for MBS to telegraph that he’s less interested in making money than in rewarding Kushner for the Trump administration’s lenient stance on murdering Washington Post journalists, and offering a bribe for other corrupt favors that Donald Trump could and would deliver if he returns to power.

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  15. 8:03 AM - No - Much more interested in Saudi Arabia’s wealth fund panel that invested $2 billion dollars with Jared Kushner. Reports suggest that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince made the decision to invest at all in Kushner’s company. The sovereign wealth fund’s decision-making panel didn't agree. The panel cited numerous reasons for being against the investment, including “the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management,” the fact that Saudi Arabia would be making “the bulk of the investment and risk,” “unsatisfactory” due diligence, and “public relations risks” that could arise as a result of the investment. That dissent wasn’t enough to stop the Crown Prince from overruling the panel’s decision and pushing the investment forward. https://marketrealist.com/p/saudi-arabia-invests-jared-kushner-company/

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  16. Molly Jong-Fast @MollyJongFast
    "I’m sure the Saudi‘s had their reasons to give Jared Kushner two billion dollars. I would just like to know what they were."

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  17. I agree with his ruling in this particular instance, but – overall – Judge Middlebrooks seems a hothead who strays from the law when he deems it expedient. For example: What about this gem in which the Eleventh reversed Middlebrooks for ignoring the clear mandate of a prior appellate decision?

    “Needless to say (or maybe not), a district court cannot amend, alter, or refuse to apply an appellate court's mandate simply because an attorney persuades the court that the decision giving rise to the mandate is wrong, misguided, or unjust. A district court can, of course, wax eloquent about how wrong the appellate court is, but after the waxing wanes the mandate must be followed. …. The mandate in our earlier decision in this case involving the Florida stores did not leave room for confusion or genuine doubt. It was not vague or ambiguous. …. There is no imprecision in those instructions, no room for evasive interpretation, in short, there is no legitimate basis for applying what we said only to a subset of the 41 Florida stores. We don't know what else we could have said other than, perhaps, ‘and we really mean it.’ Well, we really did mean it. And we still do.”

    Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. v. Dolgencorp, LLC, 881 F.3d 835, 844 (11th Cir. 2018).

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  18. The Winn-Dixie Stores case was an aberration by the Eleventh. Read the case and Judge Middlebrooks order below. I was not involved in the case

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