VETERANS DAY

 We run this every year. It's important. Here it is again in 2025, when our veterans are called, privately, as dumb for risking their lives for our country. 

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
beneath the crosses row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly;
Scarce heard amid the guns below,
We are dead. 
Short days ago, we lived, felt dawn glow;
Loved and were loved 
and now we lie
In Flanders Fields. 
If Ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 
In Flanders Fields.
John McCrae
WWI Solider who died on the front in France of pneumonia in 1918.




While you're at it click here and read Judge Jon Schlessinger's moving tribute to his Uncle Edward Kielich, who was buried with full honours at Arlington Cemetery. 


They’ve seen things we could never imagine.

They’ve done things people were not meant to do.

They risked their lives so we can live in freedom.

They are our veterans and today we honor them.


107 Years  on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 the guns of the great war fell silent.

Our Boys, The Doughboys, lie at rest in places with names like Flanders, Bony, and Belleau. They died on battlefields named Marne, Somme, and Verdun. Almost 5 Million Americans were in uniform for World War I, and over 100,000 died, and more than half of those deaths were on the battlefield.

It was the first time American boys would be asked to save Europe. It would not be the last.

Our nation has answered the call time and time again. Mostly for the right reasons, but not always. Yet we’ve always answered the call. And the price has always been high. Our young men and now our young women lie in battlefield graveyards all over the world, never to grow older, never to see the results of their sacrifice. Sacrifice given with the full assurance that their country would never let them down and would never forget. Sacrifice that Abraham Lincoln called "The last full measure of devotion."

Today we remember. And at 11 am, stop for a moment and take two minutes and reflect on the good things in your life. Think of your home, or your children, or your parents, or the freedoms you enjoy, and your comforts and remember none of that would have been possible without them.

Thank you. It doesn't seem enough, but Thank You, each and every one of you.

MONDAY 11 10 2025 NEWS AND NOTES

 Good Monday morning REGJB! Court is opened Monday and closed Tuesday (11/11). Good luck with jury selection today. 

Come Tuesday morning we will have our first cold snap of the fall, when temps start dropping late this evening. By Tuesday morning it will dip to 49! Sweater weather! We love it. And remember to skip that extra large Starbucks coffee order and donate to a local Miami food bank. 

On Sunday night, as blog readers were counting their winnings (we gave you Fins over Cheaters, the Jets blowing the first pick by beating the Browns, and Seattle over Arizona) a group of senate Democrats were agreeing to a temporary funding bill that would re-open the government until January.  Air travel would return in time for Thanksgiving (unfortunately that includes MIA which we abhor), and SNAP would be fully funded allowing people to use their recently worthless TRUMP cards (Terror Reigning Under Meal Payment cards). In return, the Democrats did NOT get relief for those paying the exponentially higher premiums when renewing their Obama care. 

So let's summarize. To punish the democrats for not agreeing to the government funding bills, the republicans made food and health care unaffordable for many working-class Americans. Seems to us like a good election strategy for the midterms: take away food and health insurance. Sure, that works. The only thing left is to raise taxes on those earning less than $60,000.00 a year to incentivize them into working harder and earning more. 

What did you miss most about the government shutdown? Visits from pesky USDA inspectors? The FDA regulating new medicines? Air safety? 

Don't forget to thank your favourite federal courtroom deputy from showing up and keeping court running smoothly without being paid. Ditto to the federal PDS. 

You can make your donations to help feed Floridians using the money saved skipping your Starbucks drink here:

Feeding South Florida 

or  These Florida Restaurants have stepped up with free meals to people with worthless SNAP/Trump cards. 

We are down to TWO in the Blog Survivor contest, as Carolina let Lucy Lew down. It's just Rumpole vs. the appellate master of disaster: Dan Tibbett. 

NFL WEEK 10 2025

 Guten Morgan, we start our day with the Colts and Falcons in the NFL's first ever game in Berlin. The Colts are -6 favourites and you have to ask was last week an aberration or has the whole season been an aberration? We are going to go with last week being just one of those weeks for Indy against a motivated Steeler D. We like Daniel Jones, who is continuing the tradition of failed NY first round QBs having a second chance somewhere else. And no "sauce on side" for us, as Sauce Gardner joins the Colt's secondary fresh off his early release from the NY Jets.  So we are JFK'ing this with an Ich Bin Ein Berliner  bet and starting our day off with a heavy dose of beer and schnitzel on Indy -6, [PUSH] with a tiny parlay on Jonathan Taylor over 93.5 yds rushing (a little too high but what the heck, it's Germany) and Penix under 232 passing yards. [WIN 15 got us 50]. 

The rest of the week, including the big power matchup everyone is talking about, a bit later after we finish our Vietnamese Coffee brew (we are obsessed). 

First up is the Bills at Miami. Will the Fins keep it close? Who knows? Who cares? The Miami fans have abandoned this team because that is what they do. Take the points as the Bills have KC hangover and there may be a back door cover.  Like for five bucks- no more. The fins stink and could lose 38-10.

Giants at Bears (our survivor pick). Chi -4 seems a bit light. Lay the 4 and get  the hotdog 🌭 with tomato, onions, relish, mustard and a pickle spear on a seeded bun. We love a good Chicago dog.

Arizona at Seattle. The Cardinals have disappointed us. But it's the offense of both teams we like today. A hawk beats a cardinal every time, even with -6.5, and over 45.5. 

Okay, here it is, the matchup you have circled since the schedule was released last year. Browns! Jets! It does not get any better than this in the NFL.  This is the battle for the first draft pick in 2026. The Browns will be looking to draft their 234th first round QB since 1990 (or as many cabinet members that resigned in the dear leader's first administration).  But if there is one thing a die-hard Jets fan can count on is their team to screw it up. They got off the schneid last week, and in their battle for the first pick of the draft next year, the    J E T S Jets Jets Jets screw this up by winning a close one at home. Maybe on OT FG in which the entire stadium will be praying for them to miss it.  Who knows, other than it will be entertaining. 

This friends, is what football is all about.  Jets +2  because they screw things up like John Thune presiding over the longest ever shutdown of the government. No Snap payments? Happy Thanksgiving.🦃 * Wanna fly home? Have you considered Uber?  

SURVIVOR 

Lucy Lew has Carolina on her mind. Rumpole likes Da Bears, and Dan Tibbett, showing why he is the master defense strategist, has taken his bye, giving him a chance to win the whole shebang without risking losing.  It is just amazing how many of you bust out without ever using your bye. 

*  We are going to start the angry-old-guy-rant now. We DO NOT want your insipid email on November 26 wishing us happy thanksgiving. We do not need it. We do not want it.  Nobody cares about you wishing them a happy thanksgiving. They do not sit down to eat turkey and ham and say "Wait! Did we get that happy thanksgiving email from that law firm that started spamming us a few years ago?"  Let's be real. The email is just you saying "Hey! Look at me! I'm relevant. I'm sincere. I'm sensitive. I'm thinking of you so please think of me!"  And it is none of those things. It is just a silly ego inflating exercise that spams our inbox on a day we do not want to think of law, you, or emails. So be a real mensch, and make a donation to people who are missing Snap payments, and do it the right way- anonymously, and you will have good karma. Email us, and bad times will follow. 

Make a donation to people who are hungry in America in 2025 here:

Feeding South Florida 

or  These Florida Restaurants have stepped up with free meals to people with worthless SNAP/Trump cards. 

If you know of a Miami restaurant offering free meals to Snap recipients, please let us know and we will give them tons of free JB Blog publicity. 

Nvidia is worth 4 trillion; Apple 3T, Microsoft 2+T, and we have hunger in this country. We have people dying without medical care. It just does not make sense to us. It is a shame that a child wakes up hungry after going to bed hungry and we are all spending `11 dollars on some stupid coffee drink. Make your own coffee today and donate ten bucks. Ten freaking dollars! If everyone in the REGJB did that, we could feed thousands of Miamians who need some assistance. If you do not like government taxes to help the disadvantaged, and we do have some philosophical differences with altruism as a forced government philosophy, step up and do it yourself. Pay it forward. Make a difference and you just might feel better about yourself come new year's resolutions time- when all some of you can think about is being tougher on defendants, or charging more for that no action you had nothing to do with. (And they say we are never tough on crim def attys. Sheesh. Read the damn blog will ya? And stop yapping about crap you know nothing about.) 

CHASING SHADOWS

 This NY times article about a senate investigation of federal judges who responded to a NY Times inquiry about the Supreme Court's shadow docket caught our attention. 

The Republicans are going after federal judges who had the temerity to criticize the nine members of the highest court in the land. Impeachments may follow. 

Why did this catch our attention? Because of the renewed grumbling at 1350 NW 12th avenue about your humble blogger. 

"Something should be done"; "file a bar complaint"; "have you read what he wrote in the comments about our office?"

The third comment irks us the most. WE DO NOT WRITE THE COMMENTS, GENIUS. Others do. You might want to thank us for letting you know how lowly your office is viewed. 

Back to the federal judges, who we now, uncharacteristically find ourselves sympathizing with.  Fear not, denizens of courtrooms with ultra-high ceilings, we feel your pain. And we (you members of the judiciary and us- your blogger) are in good company.  Forty-six different aliases were used by commentators /authors of the federalist papers. And if Publius was good enough for Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, then Rumpole suits us just fine. There is a long tradition of using pen-names to spark discussions about issues, The practice pre-dates the republic. So to you ASAs grumbling about us: as James Madison would say: stuff it!

And if you would like to learn more about the Supreme Court's shadow docket, then our own modern-day Federalist Judge Milton Hirsch will be giving a CLE zoom lecture about this very topic. His latest constitutional calendar on Milton's Paradise Lost...Guy de Maupassant... Ernie Banks...Mark Twain...Ulysses Grant, had this missive about an upcoming CLE. 

On an unrelated note: Although the Supreme Court normally rises on or before the July 4 holiday and doesn't reconvene till the first Monday in October, this past summer saw a torrent of path-breaking opinions (and "shadow docket" orders without opinions).  I'm doing a one-hour Zoom CLE on those cases at lunchtime next Thursday, Nov. 13.  If you need an hour of CLE, you can get it painlessly from the safety, comfort, and convenience of your own chair and computer.  Here's the link: https://mbba.wildapricot.org/event-6409682

So there you have it. A defense of pseudonyms. 

A Pennsylvania Farmer 

(the pseudonym of federalist John Dickinson - one of our favourite Founding Father). 

ONE SMALL TINY PROBLEM

Wednesday the Supreme Court ("Textualism, textualism, textualism!!!) takes up the challenge to the Dear Leader's willy-nilly imposition on tariffs without congressional approval.  "Barbados thinks it can win a trade war with us? Think again tough guy."

The Dear Leader's justification for his careful and well thought out imposition of tariffs?  A Jimmy Carter era law: International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”). 

The question is simple?  Has Congress given the president the authority to impose broad import duties (i.e., tariffs) by invoking an emergency-powers statute that was originally aimed at foreign threats? 

The answer is simple to the six conservative justices on the Supreme Court: Of course the President is right. The law gives him the powers do impose tariffs when he wants, for how much he wants. If it's Wednesday, the tariffs on China must be 30%. If it's Friday, the rate is 11%. 

And of course, the legal reasoning that the majority will use is textualism. Just rule based on what the law says.  People will die- sorry, Textualism does not allow us to intervene. The planet will be destroyed- sorry, Textualism does not allow us to intervene. 

Textualism rules the day. So all the majority needs to do is read the IEEPA (which sounds like a bad local pub brew in Cleveland) and simply point out that the law gives the President the right to impose tariffs in an emergency. Should take about three pages- The Dear Leader wins because he always wins (except when prosecuted in NY State Court). 

One eeny, weeny, teeny  tiny small problem. IEEPA never mentions imposing tariffs or duties, nor creating taxes. Under past precedent, tariffs are legislative‐taxing measures belonging to Congress. 

The United States Court of Appeals for the DC Federal Circuit ruled 7-4 via Textualism reasoning, that the Dear Leader exceeded his authority under IEEPA by imposing sweeping tariffs. The majority held that the statute did not clearly authorize tariffs and in fact did not have the word tariffs in the statute. 

So now, that truckload of valium in DC being delivered to the Supreme Court will be used by six judges whose two loves in life: their sole desire to please the Dear Leader, and the use of Textualism to accomplish all their personal goals, are in conflict. 

What to do? Oh what to do? Will their love of unencumbered presidential power - when they like the president- carry the day? Or will they demonstrate the kind of intellectual honesty that their love affair with textualism requires? They love giving speeches about how textualism often requires them to rule in ways that they personally would not do. (If it hasn't happened in the past, in the future the audience should cough **bs**bs** bullshit** bullshit**). 

Call us pessimistic, but we predict the kind of legal yoga that will allow these sycophants to support their Dear Leader. 

Something like, "Textualism can be carried a bit too far. It is perfectly reasonable to apply the legal principle to deny starving children food, dying people medicine and medical insurance, but it must yield when a Republican President that we like declares an emergency. Plus, the president says he sees the word tariffs in the statute, and as we have often ruled recently, if the president says it, then it must be true. "

So let's see how intellectually honest these six bootlickers really are. 

NFL WEEK NINE 2025

 Your Miami Dolphins fired their GM after Thursday's thrashing my the Ravens. With the Dolphins in free fall, the front running Miami fans can turn their attention to the Heat for the start of the NBA season. 

If you didn't watch games 6 and 7, you missed classic October World Series drama. Props to the Dodgers who were fire and won two on the road to come from behind 3-2 in the series. And in case you're worried, Rumpole, sitting on a juicy Blue Jays to win it all bet in May, laid off his action in games 6 &7, placing bets on LA (against our ticket) that paid off and guaranteed us a 50% win on our bet, which was still a nice five figures score and putting us in the black for MLB 2025 after suffering all those losses on the Mets and Red Sox. Pitchers and Catchers report in 100 days.  Cannot wait.  

Slim pickings this week. Often by November a team's tendencies have been established and it's hard to find lines that are off and give the bettor an advantage. 

Detroit -8.5 at home over Minnesota? Pass.  Ditto Giants  +2.5 at home over San Fran; and most of the other games. 

So let's take under 48 Giants/Niners; under 48.5 Vikes/Lions;  under 51 Bears/Bengals; under 51 Colts/Steelers. 

The game of the week that everyone has been waiting for is Jacksonville/ Raiders   Chiefs at Bills.   And while we love us a home dog, which the Bills are at +2 we are going to take the points and the Mahommes to win this sucker as the marquee afternoon matchup. 

As to the Jags /Raiders clash? An ethics discussion between KFR and a Judge from the 3rd DCA would be more interesting. The Rules of Ethics are a serious two-digit underdog in that matchup. 

SURVIVOR

We are down to three. Rumpole (naturally), Daniel Tibbitt, and Lucy Lew. 

Rumpole and Tibbitt are rolling with the Rams and Double L has the Chargers. We could crown a 2025 champion in what could be Rumpole's last hurrah. 

You know what we did Halloween night? Watched Abbott and Costello v. Frakenstein and Dracula. They don't make movies like that anymore. 

FINAL THOUGHT

We have remained silent as the royal contretemps played itself out these last few weeks, ending in the removal of a royal title, eviction from a royal estate, and bandishment to the King's private estate at Sandringham, a cold and dank place on the North Sea. 

But this is what we are thinking. If Andrew Montbatten Windsor takes up painting, as Churchill did from time to time... (wait for it)

Will he be known as ...(hang in there until the end)

The Artist Formally Known as Prince?

LMAO....

THE BALL BOUNCES FUNNY IN OCTOBER

 This world series is turning out to be a classic. The Blue Jays, in last place last year, had the world champ Dodgers down 3 games to 2 heading into last night's game six in Toronto. And then something happened, which showed once again why there is nothing better in sports than October baseball. 

But before we get to last night's game, we will briefly talk about a similar play in what we consider to be the greatest world series game ever played: Game Seven, Yankees at Pirates 1960. The Yankees were overwhelming favourites in the series. And as the series played out, it showed. The Yankees won three games 16-4, 10-0, and 6-4. Getting to game 7, the Pirates won 6-4, 3-2, and 5-2.  Now Game 7 1960 is famous for the only game 7 bottom of the 9th walk off home run. Bill Mazeroski hit it, and the Pirates shocked the Yankees and became world champs. 

But before Maz's famous dinger, there was the bottom of the eighth inning. The game had see-sawed back and forth with the Pirates going up 2-0, and then 4-1 before the Yankees went up 5-4 and then 8-4. In the bottom of the 8th, Bill Virdon came up with a runner on first and no outs. He hit a sharp grounder to Tony Kubek at short. It was an easy double-play ball. But the infield in Forbes Field had small pebbles in the dirt. The sharp grounder hit a pebble that kicked up and hit Kubek in the throat. He collapsed and was subsequently taken to the hospital. 

The ball can bounce strangely in October game sevens.

 Without the double play, the Pirates had two on, and slugging catcher Hall Smith bashed a three-run homer in what turned out to be a five run Pirate inning. The Yanks tied it back up  in the top of the ninth, setting the stage for Maz's clutch immortal home run. But none of that happens if the grounder doesn't hit a pebble that causes a freak injury to Kubek. You can hear Mel Allen on the call mistakenly thinking that the ball hit Kubek in the face. 

Which brings us to Game Six in the current Series Friday night.  The Jays were down 3-1 in the bottom of the ninth with a man on first. Addison "Bam Bam" Barger came to bat and was the tying run. Barger hammered a fastball from Roki Sasaki to deep left-center, over the head of the outfielders. The runner from first scored, and the Jays were down by one with a man on second. A walk off world series championship hit was in the cards. 

Except it was Halloween and the ball bounces funny in World Series games in October. 

Barger's ball stuck in the bottom of the fence... what??? 

  We shall repeat it, because we did not believe it. The ball stuck in the bottom of the fence.  We have NEVER seen that in a baseball game (of course no one had ever seen a grounder hit a pebble and take out a shortstop either). The umpires called it a ground rule double, the runner that scored was moved back to third- and this being October baseball, the next batter flied out to short center and Barger, thinking the ball was going to drop, was doubled off second-  this being the first 7-4 double play to end a world series game. 

GAME SEVEN TONIGHT! 

This is just the best time of the year. 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

 

Happy Halloween! 

Want to be really scared? 

Did you notice how nice and easy the REGIB was this week? 

That was because your favourite Judge most likely was in Orlando swilling gin at a judicial conference. 

So the scary news is ......they're baaaaaackkkkkk! (Cue Poltergeist music). 

CANDY

MMs or Reese's Pieces? 

Three Musketeers or Nestles Crunch? 

Candy Corn or Sour Patch? 

Snickers Bar or Hershey's Bar? 

MMs plain, peanut, pretzel, almond, or other? 

Friday the 13th or Halloween or Poltergeist or The Exorcist? 

For our money, the Exorcist is one of the finest films ever made. 

THE JUDGE BRONWYN MILLER POST YOU'VE BEEN SCREAMING FOR

 Last week came the formal news, not unexpected, that 3rd DCA Judge, and Miami SAO Alumnus Bronwyn Miller was accused of placing bets on the Miami Heat with inside information. 

Wait! No. We got our Miami scandals all mixed up. Miami Heat player something Rozier was accused of tanking to get under prop bets on his performance to payoff. 

Judge Miller was accused by the JQC of something much less egregious- essentially being a prosecutor in robes. Granted by the time robe wearers get to the 3rd, it's much easier for them to simply PCA criminal convictions (Defendant was beaten until he confessed, not read Miranda, and prosecutor urged jury to send a message to the community about crime- PCA duh) - so we don't usually see this level of prosecutorial advocacy with appellate judges (at least not before January 20, 2025). 

You can read the complaint below. Nothing less than a conspiracy to subvert justice between an appellate judge and the elected State Attorney. But they were BFFs donchaknow, and like Snapchat is soooo hard to use when you're over 30, so they had text. 

Make of it what you will. There's no excuse for this conduct. And at least the complaint is semi-vindication for Judge Wolfson, who should win a JFK Profiles In Courage Award for not backing down and speaking truth to power- the kind of Judge everyone but the Governor and President want on the bench.

But we are so done with this court which avoids the hard criminal cases by PCA'ing the convictions, that it is tough to summon the outrage that this conduct deserves. 

Not to mention the money we have lost on the NBA- but give us credit. We walk into a poker room with an NBA coach and see fish jam the turn and rivers on two-outter gutshots and have it pay off more than once a night, and we know there's a mechanic* in the game. 

What all of us didn't know was that there was mechanic* wearing a robe out by FIU dealing from the bottom of the deck to the State. 

Just one more reason that come the end of June we are D O N E done. 

Notice - Formal Charges Redacted (1) by Anonymous PbHV4H

* A mechanic is wise-guy 70's speak for a card player who cheats, especially when they deal. 

NFL WEEK 8 2025 WE FEW WE HAPPY FEW EDITION

UPDATE: Consistent with the Battle of Agincourt, the J E T S Jets Jets Jets have gotten off the schneid and defeated the Cincinnati Bengals, knocking out three players in our Survivor Pool, and leaving four. Also, your Miami Dolphins thrashed the Falcons 38-10. We few, we happy few...

Coming Monday: The Judge was a mechanic. 

Saturday, we posted about the NY Mets 1986 World Series win and the magical game six with Mookie at bat.

October 25 is also St Crispins day

From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d  

and the Battle of Agincourt anniversary where Hank, otherwise known as King Henry V gives his famous speech to his small army on the eve of the battel against France. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...

So we happy few, let's take the Bengals -5 over the winless Jets, and the Bucs, our best bet, -2.5 at New Orleans.

Less confident, but we like Da Bears +2.5 in Baltimore against the Lamar-less Ravens, and the Titans +100 (actually +15) against the only team with one loss in the NFL this year- your Indianapolis Colts.

SURVIVOR POOL 

Until we get the Survivor Pool up, enjoy this speech.

WEEK 8 by Anonymous PbHV4H 

ENJOY  

GAME SIX

 It's game two of the World Series Saturday night. FYI we have the Jays at 20-1 to win the World Series- we placed the bet in the Spring. 

But October 25 is the anniversary of the greatest world series game we have ever seen. 1986. Mets v. Red Sox in Shea Stadium New York. The Sox were up 5-3 going into the bottom of the tenth inning. If the Sox win, they are world champs. 

There were runners at the corners, the Sox were up 5-4 and there were two outs when Mookie Wilson stepped to the plate. The Red Sox were one out from being world champs. But this is why we love October baseball. 

The first event during Mookie's at bat was a wild pitch that moved Ray Knight from first to second. Kevin Mitchell, who was on third, scored the tying run on the wild pitch. 

Vince Scully, the greatest baseball announcer, was on the call. 

Pay attention to how Scully calls the famous error. Starting with a normal call of a little roller towards first, his voice rises as the ball goes between Buckner's legs. Then after declaring that the Mets won, he and partner Tim McCarver remain silent as the Mets and all of Shea celebrates. 

Fun fact: earlier in the game a Mets fan parachuted into the stadium during the game. The player at bat when the parachutists landed? The ill-fated Bill Buckner who had ignominy waiting for him a few innings away. 

Enjoy this great call of perhaps the best at bat in World Series history. 

Go Blue Jays!

WALK TALL AND HAVE AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER STRIKE GROUP

USS Gerald Ford On Way To Kick Some Ass In The Caribbean 

We will be sleeping better tonight. 

The most advanced Carrier in the US Fleet: The Gerald Ford has been sent to the Caribbean.  Whew! Thank goodness. 

Let's see Antigua act up now. They talked big when there was no carrier in the Caribbean. 

And Bimini? Won't hear nothing from them no more. Just who did they think they were messing with? 

Now what tough guys?  

These Caribbean islands may have been laughing at Biden and walking all over him and America, but no more we are telling you- No More.  MTCFOAA (Make the Caribbean Frightened of America Again). 

Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan Hill, the invasion of Grenada, and now the Ford Strike Group. Do not mess with us in the Caribbean!

Item: The US has sent the USS Gerald Ford Strike Group into the Caribbean. 

(NB: This post has not been approved by the dear leader and reading it may result in deportation by Ice)

FED PDS HAVE A DAY

With apologies to Mr. Markus for intruding on his milieu, whose blog has the sappier/mushy side of yesterdays events here, several alert blog irregulars have forwarded an FACDL email (we must just pause to state that not getting 20 emails a day asking "does anyone have a recommendation for a paralegal that speaks Spanish?" has made life, not to mention our email in box, immeasurably more pleasurable): 

CONGRATS to AFPDs Ashley Kay, MaeAnn Dunker, Victor Van Dyke, and Ian McDonald. These two trial teams BOTH got NGs yesterday in federal court.

 Ashley and Mae’s client was found not guilty of two counts of assault on a federal officer in front of Judge Ruiz.

And Victor and Ian’s client was found not guilty of conspiring to export and controlled substance and attempted to export a controlled substance in front of Judge Williams.

Query: Is anyone sensing a backlash against prosecutors in general and AUSAs in particular?  What with the feds knocking down the white house  (time to go- the sales for the 1600 Penn Ave condos are through the roof, and each one comes with an exact replica of the oval office) and outlawing vaccines except for horse antibiotics, and prohibiting the production of art. books, songs, and other literature not approved by the Dear Leader, maybe citizens are a bit more skeptical these days of the benevolence and truthfulness  of the feds. 

Of course the not guilty verdicts may be the result of the US attorneys office firing most of the experienced prosecutors and using the sight-impaired food service staff (who do a wonderful job BTW) as substitute prosecutors in the short term until they can hire more lawyers than they can fire, which at the moment is a Sisyphean task. 

Coming tomorrow: The Dear Leader announces plans to develop the Washinton Mall and knock down the Washington and Lincoln Memorials. As to the Mall, he said, "its prime undeveloped space", and as to the memorials he said "One is a giant pencil and it's ugly, and the other celebrates a war mongering president who got rid of slavery and slavery was not all bad you know."  No word yet on the proposed designs of the Stalin and Putin memorials set to take their place. 

THE ONE WE LEFT OUT

 

Attorney Al Krieger- who became part of our local bar later in his career, commanded every courtroom he walked into. His cross examinations were conducted with a surgeon’s scalpel and delivered with a bulldog growl.  

He was born in Manhattan in 1923, attended New York University on a football scholarship, graduating in 1945. After a brief Army stint, he earned his LL.B. from NYU School of Law in 1949. And from there, he went on to have a sixty-year career in the law.

He started by defending OC figures in NYC including Joe Bonanno in the 1960s, and famously John Gotti in 1992. His cross examination of the turncoat/rat in that case was legendary.  

But to us, Al Krieger became the GOAT when he- pro bono- defended approximately 150 defendants of the American Indian Movement after they occupied Wounded Knee in 1973. He obtained dismissals or acquittals for nearly all defendants. This was an achievement that ranks as the very best in the history of American Criminal defense. From this point on Al Krieger was a superstar.

Al Krieger was a founding member and president (1979–1980) of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and also helped to establish the National Criminal Defense College in Macon, Georgia, in 1985, training generations of defense attorneys.

Al Krieger received the NACDL Lifetime Achievement Award and Robert C. Heeney Memorial Award, as well as the ABA Charles R. English Award.

Albert J. Krieger’s name remains synonymous with courage, integrity, and excellence in criminal defense—a “lawyer’s lawyer” whose advocacy helped elevate the defense bar to a position of national respect and influence.

So where do we put him?

He was every bit the trial lawyer of Lee Bailey(3)  and Roy Black (2). It’s like asking where do you put DiMaggio in an outfield of Mays, Aaron and Clemente?

So we leave you with this – the top three criminal defense attorneys of the last 50 years were Spence, Krieger, Bailey and Black. You figure it out.

NUMBER 1 AND 1A

 The top criminal defense attorney in the United States over the last fifty years can only be one person" GERRY SPENCE. 

1. Gerry Spence

The Wyoming philosopher-cowboy who never lost a criminal jury trial. He wore buckskins, spoke plain, and made jurors cry while the prosecutor clutched their exhibits like rosary beads. His closing in the Karen Silkwood case and his defense of Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge still teach us the gospel of story over statute. 

What Spence understood was that every case and every client is a story- and he was better at telling that story than anyone else. He understood that a story a juror could relate to was more powerful than any prosecution witness testifying that his client did something and the law prohibited it. Spence had the kind of talent and genius that could not be taught. He never lost a case, and he must be number one. 

BUT, then we realized we had a BIG problem. A massive bulldog of a problem because there is one obvious name left off this list. 

A criminal defense attorney who had broad shoulders and deep courtroom growl. A lawyer who never walked away from a fight for his client, and won most of them. He had a towering intellect, and despite his gruff appearance and demeanor, he was a true gentleman in every sense of the word. 

No, not Sy Gaer, who just missed our list at 11. And not Alex Michaels, who makes any top ten list of best criminal defense attorneys in Florida. And not the guy who works on top of a garage, because as talented and dedicated as he is, his story is far from over. 

So the attorney we have to somehow squeeze on to the top ten without removing anyone...

Will be revealed tomorrow. 

TOP TEN CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS 5-2

  Now we get to the superstars, the best of the best. And other than number one, the rest are really interchangeable based of the charge and the location. For example Lee Bailey would be our pick for a murder defense over every other lawyer except #1, while our own Roy Black would be our #1 choice for a federal drug conspiracy, and you'd be a fool to walk into a court in Texas without Dick DeGuerin if you could get him.  And that brings us to #5 ...

5. Dick DeGuerin

Texas born, steel-eyed. Walked Robert Durst out of a Galveston murder charge on self-defense. Faced down the Waco inferno and the Tom DeLay circus. His genius: an unshakable calm when the whole courtroom was losing its mind, and he is fearless while defending his clients before Texas judges, who let's just say, would prefer that he come in second. You got a case in the lone star state? Dick DeGuerin is your man. 

 4. Roy Black

Miami’s own. The professor of cross-examination. The man who turned “reasonable doubt” into a living, breathing presence in every courtroom he entered. William Kennedy Smith, Rush Limbaugh, Justin Bieber—Roy made the impossible look casual. The GOAT of South Florida trial law. And one thing we learned from Roy was the power of humor. He had a wry sense of humor that he used as a scalpel during cross and closing- and when the jury was laughing, the prosecution was losing. The other thing about Roy was that he was a master of his craft because he mastered his craft- ordering transcripts of famous cases when he was just starting out, so that he could study the masters, and listening to speeches of great orators so he could incorporate their style into his own. His contribution to this blog about his successful defense of Officer Luis Alvarez in the case that made Miami burn can he found here. 

Now we are getting to the very rarified air of true legends. These are the GOATS of our profession. 

3. F. Lee Bailey

The original showman, the bridge between eras. Sam Sheppard’s savior, O.J.’s bulldog. Bailey believed the courtroom was theater and he was Olivier with a bar card. Nobody ever did a cross quite like him—equal parts charm and destruction. His book The Defense Never Rests is one of the reasons we became a criminal defense attorney. He had a brilliant legal mind and no one, and we mean that NO ONE prepared better for a trial than Lee Bailey. 

2. Edward Bennett Williams

If our #1 was cowboy wearing a bolo tie and boots, Williams was cufflinks and a limo. The D.C. legend who represented CIA directors and mob bosses in the same week. His preparation was so obsessive he probably knew what time the jurors brushed their teeth. He made power lawyering look elegant. He cut his teeth in the same type of criminal court in DC that is like the REGJB, and he rose to be the premier criminal defense attorney (along with Lee Bailey) of his generation. If there are two books every criminal defense attorney should read, they are Bailey's The Defense Never Rests, and The Man To See, the phenomenal biography of Williams. His clients included Jimmy Hoffa, Mobster Frank Costello, Senator Joe McCarthy, and Secretary of the Treasury John Connally. The list goes on and on, because for decades, if you had a criminal case, EBW was THE MAN to see. 

Attorney General Bobby Kennedy's Justice Department brought the case against Hoffa. Kennedy, who was a friend of EBW said he would "jump off the capital dome" if he didn't get a conviction of Hoffa. After the acquittal, EBW offered to buy Bobby a parachute, ending their friendship. 

What we love and admire about EBW is that he started small, representing burglars and defending misdemeanor and felony theft cases, and ended up defending some of the highest profile cases in the country. He knew how to defend a case, throw an elbow when required, how to outmaneuver the prosecution, and how to take a witness apart on the stand. He was a brilliant trial lawyer and our #2 greatest of the last generation of criminal defense attorneys. 

Combing tomorrow: The Greatest Trial Lawyer of the 20th Century. 

NFL WEEK 7 2025

 Good Sunday morning. We are going to take the day off today, as we were in Washington for the Kings Rally. Yes, you read that right. We are a group of people seeking to overturn the Declaration of Independence and bring  America back under the benevolent rule of England. 

That would mean fealty to King Charles. Let's consider that. He's a nice guy with a social conscience who believes in global warming. We could do worse- and we have. 

To be transparent, out Survivor pick was the Bengals...just kidding. We are rolling with the KC Chiefs, and our man Mahomes who has QB'd our Fantasy team from the bottom to second place, and he's just getting started. We will post the other picks by this evening. 

We like KC -162 (-12) over the Raiders [WIN].  Da Bears -4 at home over New Alwalins [WIN] , and the suddenly best team in the AFC East- the Cheaters -7 over Tennessee. [WIN] 

Enjoy your Sunday, and brush up on God Save The King. 

WEEK 7 by Anonymous PbHV4H

REQUIEUM FOR THE DOLPHINS     

Your Miami Dolphins are done. They have quit on each other. It's over Johnny. Put a fork in them. The team is in total disarray, and the coach has lost the locker-room.  They didn't just lose to the hapless Cleveland Browns, who since 1990 have had more quarterbacks than the president has read books- which actually isn't hard to do, but the point is the Browns are awful and the Dolphins are worse. 

And so now the question is -- they have a Qb with an ill-advised contract that pays him 50 million a year until 2090(or something like that). 

So what do your Fins do? Eat the contract (ala Denver and Russell Wilson) and clean house and start over, or just fire the coaching staff? Pretty much the only quality players they have are Achane, the two WRs and a TE, and maybe Mika in the secondary.  

What we do know for sure is that seats on the 50-yard line on the shady side of the stadium  will go for the price of a Big Mac for the rest of the year because if there is one thing this front-running-jump-on-the-bandwagon-town does not do is support a Miami team through thick and thin. When the Dolphins become competitive in 2032 the stadium will fill up with fans who will high-five each other and pretend to have come to all the games when the Dolphins stunk, but you- as blog readers- will know better. 

Miami has the Dolphins 

A lousy football team

they always go 3 and out

first downs are rarely seen 

Tua throws picks

The defense gives up TDs 

And when you're talking Miami ...

Well, you're not talking Miami because when your team is not competitive you drop them quicker than a MAGA supporter drops a book on the constitution. 

TOP TEN CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS

UPDATE: A protest is planned tomorrow at the Torch of Friendship in downtown Miami from 10am to 1pm 

Protest what? Something good we are sure. So if you want to fight the power, put on your tie-dyed shirt, take a gummie, and go march for social justice, in support of immigrants, preserving the Last Carrot in Coconut grove (being sold to a condo developer 😠) unfair parlay lines on the Hard Rock betting app, the Dolphins in general ( Hey hey Cluck Cluck don't you know the dolphins suck?) , the Supreme Court's secret "We Are For Trump" docket, or any other cause that seems appropriate. 

We live in an age of  plea bargains, Zoom Hearings,  and prosecutors who call a 36-month offer a “gift.” But once upon a time—and still, on the rare good day—there walked among us trial lawyers. Real ones. The kind who smelled of sweat, stale coffee, courtroom adrenaline, and Paco Raban. The kind who could talk a jury into seeing light where the government swore there was only darkness. 

They walk into a courtroom alone, carrying a battered brief case filled with legal pads that had undecipherable notes and proceed to destroy the prosecution’s case. When needy clients called, they growled “before they get to you they have to get through me” and then hung up the phone.

 Here, for your arguments and comments section brawls, are the ten greatest criminal trial defense attorneys of the past half-century—men and women who owned the well of the courtroom. Starting with numbers 10-6

 10. Johnnie Cochran

The poet of the  Dream Team  “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” should be engraved on the wall of every law school—and maybe tattooed on the arm of every defense lawyer who forgets the power of rhythm and rhyme in a closing. Cochran turned persuasion into performance art. He had the trial of the century, and he won it- enough said. But he was no one trick Pony. He made his bones suing the LAPD for brutality and became the lawyer they feared most.

 9. Judy Clarke 

While the men were chasing cameras, Clarke was saving lives.  Unabomber, Eric Rudolph, Jared Loughner. Boston Marathon bomber. Her genius wasn’t in “not guilty,” it was in "life-not death". A master of mitigation who could find humanity where others only saw evil. 

 8. Jerry Shargel 

The killer from Brooklyn. Defended mobsters, politicians, and moguls with surgical precision. His opening statements were symphonies; his crosses, scalpel work. When Shargel stood, prosecutors felt a sudden chill and jurors paid close attention.

 7. Benjamin Brafman 

The New York street fighter who could argue a mob case before breakfast and a celebrity scandal before lunch. He convinced a Manhattan jury that Sean Combs wasn’t packing heat in that club and made the DSK case evaporate. Swagger,  intellect, and  timing—he has it all.

 6.  Thomas Mesereau 

This is our guy. The silver-haired California samurai  who cross-examined Michael Jackson’s accusers into oblivion in 2005. A man who could charm a jury while slicing witnesses like sushi. Always the outsider, never the showboat, yet the show inevitably belonged to him. He became the center of attention in every courtroom he walked into- and he knew what to do with that attention.

We lived through the golden age of criminal defense attorneys. A time we fear is gone with harsher penalties and the trial tax that prosecutors and judges swear does not exist, but the rest of us know it does.  "Take five or risk thirty" is proving to be the death of the Sixth Amendment which is dying a slow-one plea at a time- death. 

 And now, even the best of us are no longer lone wolfs, showing up alone in some out-of-town courthouse in Missouri, New Mexico, or Delaware. Now we are accompanied by a team of twenty-somethings setting up our laptops to access the thousands of files on the terabytes of discovery turned over. 

One of the lawyers in our top five showed up in a Miami Courtroom in the 70's, unknown to the local feds, defending a client, and had a celebrity sitting in the front row- driving prosecutors to complain, and causing the judge to chuckle at their discomfort. Then he proceeded to smash their case like a boat crashing into a jetty.  Those days are gone, and we are the worse for it. 

NFL WEEK 6 2025

 We enter week 6 with a healthy bankroll thanks to the Indiana Hoosiers going on the road Saturday and beating #3 Oregon.  We had the money line +225 and it wasn't even close.  Then we spent our winning at Sunny's Steakhouse. 

The week opens with yet another 9 am game in London. The hapless 0-5 J E T S jets jets jets are looking for their first win against the Broncos. "Not bloody likely mate" as they saw in the Eastend.  If you need the action, lay the 7 and take Denver. Otherwise the over 43.5 is doable, but that half point is bothering us. Tease is down with a cupa tea and a scone.  Off topic, but does anyone really like a scone? It's like eating sawdust. 

We do not like a lot of the spreads today. 

Maybe the Fins at home +4.5 over the up and down Chargers. 

Over 46 Arizona (which has been our biggest disappointment) at Indy.

Under 48.5 Cowboys at Carolina. 

Under 42 Tennessee at Vegas, and take da Raiders -4. 

Under 44.5 the sinking Bungles at Green Bay. Flacco, who recently qualified for social security, but could not get the money because the government is shutdown and Dodge closed all the offices except the one in Ogunquit, Maine,  is not the answer. 

As our friend and now podcaster Mike Francesca said on his pod Friday, if you're a football fan, you love the Lions at KC Sunday night game.   We're going ride or die with KC and taking them as a home dog +2.5. 

And finally the Bills -4 at Atlanta for the first of two MNF games looks a bit low. We are taking now as that number is going to drop. 

And call us crazy, but ds Bears are a bit better than people are giving them credit for, and the commies a bit worse, so Chicago +4.5 at DC. 

Did someone say a MNF parlay Bills -4 + Bears +4.5? Yup! We did. 

SURVIVOR 

We told you last week it was tough pickings. The field was decimated with seven players going down, all of whom didn't use their bye and a few had an extra bye. You can outsmart yourself in Survivor very easily, as the results of last week show. This week it's all Packers and Steelers, two home favourites. 

week 6 by Anonymous PbHV4H

As always, Fake Alex Michaels has appealed his loss, which he does every year, to no avail. But we admire his pluck, as would Alex, rest in peace. 

REMARKABLE JUDGE FARUQUI

 There is a remarkable Magistrate Judge sitting in DC.  His name is Zia M. Faruqui , and his actions must be astounding to the Desantis drones we have here in Florida. 

In recent weeks, Judge Faruqui has called out federal prosecutors for making an end run around a federal grand jury. When a federal grand jury refused to indict a defendant on a gun case, the prosecutors ran to a DC jury and got the indictment. The NY Times article is here. 

“I am not a rubber stamp, as frustrating as that may be to the government,” he said

We can hear the drones gasping. "Wait! Prosecutors charged someone and the judge didn't accept the charges??? Can he do that? And wouldn't that perhaps stop him from getting an appointment to the district court? Why in the world would a judge publicly help a defendant and hurt himself in the process?" 

Judge Zia Faruqui is pretty much our new favourite federal judge. 

But wait! There's more! 

Here's a remarkable order in which Judge Faruqui questions the truthfulness, reasonableness, and downright intelligence of  law enforcement officers who stopped and searched a man of color, who was well dressed and in an upscale mall, for....wait for it...adjusting his backpack!!!

From the order (the link to the order is here) 

This was an illegal search.

 Before the first opportunity to have its case pressure tested, the government folded. The U.S. Attorney admitted to “mov[ing] to dismiss the charges once she was shown body camera footage of the arrest on Friday. 

...

Riley was wearing a backpack. Officers found that suspicious because it looked as if something heavy was inside of it. See Compl. ¶ 3. Isn’t that the point of backpacks: to carry heavy things, like laptops, books, etc.? The body worn camera from the officer shows how mundane the backpack appears...

 Adjusting a backpack is neither a crime, nor does it give rise to reasonable suspicion of one. Elementary-school experience and the caselaw support that. 

OMG! we can hear the drones exclaiming. A judge that has issued a ruling against the prosecution and police with the type of common sense he says one acquires in elementary school. He is surely sunk. He will never get elevated with opinions like that.

So there you have it. A judge who most certainly isn't a drone simply calling balls and strikes where every call favors the prosecution. And in 2025 to boot! Imagine that.