THE ROYAL WE COMES TO SDFL

 Since the inception of this humble, yet widely read blog, we have entered the lexicon of South Florida Legal chat. "North of the Border" for example, is a phrase we invented and popularized; just last week on a zoom hearing a lawyer logged in from outside the Broweird courthouse and the judge said "oh I see you're north of the border...". While we did not invent Broweird, we expanded its use. "Robed Readers" is another phrase we brought into existence. And even our very existence has become a ubiquitous phrase, as in " you read the blog today?"  "The Blog" means this blog in South Florida legal-speak, something we are rightfully proud of. 

But nothing stands out as much as our use of the "royal we" in how we write. See our very first post here in which we discuss our use of the "royal we".  It is unique in blogging. One might say it is a singular identifying characteristic that, in other unpleasant circumstances would allow the use of our writing style to be admitted at trial as 404(b) evidence, commonly known in Florida as "Williams Rule" evidence, against us. 

It thus surprised us to read this wonderful order by US District Judge Roy Altman, blistering the government for, and there is no other conclusion after reading the order, of conspiring with federal agents to manufacture reports to save the case from being dismissed. Kudos to Judge Altman for calling out the evil empire for getting their fingers caught in the Maritime Enforcement Cookie Jar (another unique feature of this award-winning blog is that no one mixes metaphors as adroitly as we do). 

Read On Macbeth, and let us know about what you think of the strange phraseology of the good Judge's order. Has he been....dare we say...."blog influenced?"

Order USA v. Asprilla, Et. Al. by Anonymous PbHV4H on Scribd

EXPLETIVE NOT DELETED

Here's one take away from the Mueller report: The President is not a liar. When, in reaction to the news that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had requested the appointment of a special counsel, Trump truthfully said "I'm fucked." 

Yup.

We also learned that the President requested other members of the Justice Department lie for him, requesting that they write false memos, and in one instance, offering one of them an Ambassadorship to Singapore.  Sign us up for that one.

We also learned that the President doesn't like lawyers who take notes and we also loved this exchange: 
POTUS: "Lawyers don't take notes. I've had a lot of great lawyers who didn't take notes. Roy Cohn didn't take notes." 
White House Counsel Don McGhan: "I'm a real lawyer."

We take notes. 
Query: Do you take notes? 

DOM says on his blog that the Feds are threating defendants who do not take pleas. He also has recently learned that Truman beat Dewey.

The behavior of the US Attorneys Office against Lori Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli is disgraceful. They are punishing two people who have exhibited  the audacity through their counsel to not immediately roll-over and beg for leniency.  The superseding indictment for money laundering is outrageous as is the bandying about of forty plus years in prison- more than many defendants get for murder.  The case once again brings into stark light the outrageous penalties for while-collar crimes. 
Assume for a moment that Ms. Loughlin and her husband Mr. Giannulli are guilty of subverting the college admissions process and essentially using money to cheat the system to get their air-head daughter into college. How much prison time is enough? It's not like they will ever do this again. So how much is enough? A year? Two years? 
The media spreads the perception that defendants who receive a year or two in prison spend their time laughing about their sentence. Nothing could be further from the truth. Any prison sentence significantly if not permanently disrupts a person's life, from bringing them to the edge of bankruptcy, to affecting their ability to drive, work, obtain housing and credit, and all the things most people need to live in a civilized society. And this bunk about discouraging others is just that-bunk. Most people we have met in our practice do not come to us saying "We were reading the opinions out of the Eleventh Circuit one day and saw a few five year sentences for stock fraud and decided that the penalty was light enough to encourage us to take a chance and commit a crime."  
The fact is that sentences do not discourage other would-be criminals. No one likes prison for one day, and not one of the these parent-defendants ever thought that a light prison sentence was worth getting their child into USC. And when did USC become such a great school anyway? Its not Stanford. 

What these parents did was disgraceful in many ways, not the least of which is that there are parents of modest means and some of their children who didn't get into a college they were qualified for now feel they never had a fair chance. This damages our educational system and our society. But it does not mean that any of the defendants should be sentenced to decades in prison. Any sentence over 18 months for the parents is excessive. 

When the story broke, most of those parents probably had the same thought as our president when he learned about the appointment of the special counsel. And they both deserve to end up in the same place, and 18 months sounds about right.