ALEMAN DAY II

The trial and tribulations of Cheryl Aleman and her discourteous behavior in court continues today North of The Border. The Broward Blog had several bloggers sitting in the courtroom yesterday posting updates on the exchanges between the judge and lawyers for both sides. We were not present and our view of the proceedings admittedly comes only from reading those postings.

We have two thoughts:

In one exchange Aleman was quoted as saying that she strictly guarded the due process rights of defendants who appeared before her. One wonders how she would have then explained her misguided decision to force defendants to choose between their rights to prepare a defense and their right to a speedy trial? Apparently her policy never came up during cross examination.

In another exchange, Aleman denied hearing that she was considered a prosecution oriented judge. One should remember that she was a prosecutor for the State Wide Prosecutor’s office prior to becoming a Judge. Her response, as reported on the Broward Blog was that she did hear that she was considered a Judge who scrupulously adhered to the rules and the law, and that may have “confused attorneys who did not have to follow the law in other courtrooms.” A Blogger then wondered whether they had heard her correctly testify that the law was not followed in other courtrooms in Broward? This may be an insight into her character and fitness to be a Judge.

The FEDERAL BLOG has some good posts on former Lawyer Louis Robles being sentenced to 15 years although both sides had agreed on ten years. This being Federal Court (motto: “You got rights, now waive them.”) there was an existing Appellate waiver prior to the plea agreement, so this may be one controversy that does not make its way to the 11th Circuit (“Carefully upholding rights you’ve waived since 1972”) .

The Federal Blog also reports on the attempted suicide of one of Padilla’s co-defendants, and the jury deliberations in the Liberty City Seven trial.

Walking on to the stage of a press conference yesterday to the tune of the Britney Spears' hit

OOPS I DID IT AGAIN our President, with a sheepish grin, admitted that once again he had falsely accused a country (this time Iran) of possessing a nuclear weapons program.

If this wasn’t such a serious diminution of whatever is left of respect for our country around the world, it would be funny. The problem is that one day another president will have a real issue that might necessitate the use of force and nobody is going to believe him or her when they say they acted on credible intelligence. The harm this simpleton from Texas has done will take decades to erase.


See You In Court, where tis the season to get good plea offers, except in Federal Court.