First some sad news. Word reached us that retired Circuit Judge Martin Khan passed away on Thanksgiving. Martin Khan was a judge for too few years. He was wise, intelligent, and applied common sense with a good dose of humor, He was a judge during a time when judges did things - as he did- like have lasagne competitions and cookie bake-offs with defense and prosecutors participating. He was a fun person to be around and he loved his job and he loved doing justice. He had no discernible political bent on the bench and his eye was fully on the case and now how his decisions would affect hi ..read more

For everyone within the criminal justice system that aspires to simply do a “proper job”, how is it possible to coincide what we all should be aiming for, with the arbitrary favoritism exemplified by the executive pardon of Hunter Biden…or all the other friends and family of presidents, that get an arbitrary, get-out-of-jail-for-free card?    Hunter Biden's past conduct appears to be that of a degenerate that benefited simply by his last name and the connections that comes with it. As a family  man,  I cannot condone his lifestyle yet, at the same time, I have never seen a ..read more

 As we pass Thanksgiving, like nearly every blogger, we pause a moment to list what we are thankful for:  Judges we are thankful for in 2024__________; Appellate decisions in 2024 we are thankful for:__________; Prosecutors we are thankful for in 2024: ______________. Get the drift? Your Miami Dolphins are thankful for locking in a high draft pick in 2025 and not much else. Playoff teams win road games in Green Bay in November. The Fins lost and looked lost and this season, mostly by virtue of Tua's injury, is lost. Like it or not, when he's playing TT is a top ten QB and the Dolphin ..read more

 As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday we know that the urge to send the  "HAPPY THANKSGIVING ?"  email becomes overwhelming to you, dear reader, and several thousands others who also have our email address.  The result is that on a day we should not be thinking of work, our email inbox becomes flooded with emails from lawyers and law firms we barely remember, parroting all the nice feelings and thoughts about how much we all have to be thankful for.  But let's be real.  The real reason Dewey Chetum and Howe sends that HAPPY THANKSGIVING EMAIL with all the pablu ..read more

Update: Mr. Markus gave us a shoutout and now we return the favor. He has a fascinating post about a debate between inmates and college students about life in prison without parole that took place in a DC Courtroom. His post is here.  (Or you can always Google "law firm on top of a garage" to find him quickly).  Words not frequently spoken in federal court are "the government moves to dismiss the charges". Our unofficial survey concludes that it is 9.8 million times more likely that the government files a superseding indictment than dismisses the case. * However, on Monday Special Co ..read more

 On this pre-thanksgiving football weekend we want to do something completely different.  In 2012 reporter John Branch from the NY Times went to Carroll Academy in Tennessee to talk about their basketball team- the Lady Jaguars who were in the middle of an epic losing streak. The team was made up of girls (just becoming young women) who were sent there by a juvenile court judge. One of them had gotten into trouble stealing her mother's pain medicine- and never revealed that she did it at her father's request so he could sell the pills.  Today- Sunday- is the story from the sam ..read more

 The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Jussie Smollett of filing a false police report. Prior to the successful prosecution that made headlines, the State and Defense had reached an agreement not to prosecute Mr. Smollett. In exchange Mr. Smollett had forfeited a $10,000.00 bond.  Mr. Smollett had made an allegation that he had been attacked by two masked men who poured bleach on him and put a rope around his neck. The accusations had significant racist overtones. The police investigated and ended up believing that Smollett had manufactured the story- made it up. The ..read more

 The Blog is 19 years old. We can vote and fight in a war.  We've actually done both.  Site Feed ..read more

 The facts are pretty much known now. Indeed, Newsweek has picked up the Miami Herald story and run it nationwide.  While sitting on the appellate court in Miami, Judge Bronwyn Miller had on an on-going text correspondence (and perhaps multiple phone calls) with the elected State Attorney about the Corey Smith case where Judge Miller is a witness. She did this while other prosecutors went into court and told circuit court judges that Judge Miller was not speaking with anyone without a subpoena- which was a bold-faced lie to the court.  Judge Miller reviewed the appellate brief o ..read more

Shame has fallen on Miami, the Miami State Attorneys Office, The REGJB, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, and Third DCA Judge Bronwyn Miller. As the Miami Herald is reporting, and all of the REGJB knew on Friday, there are a series of text messages between the State Attorney and Judge Miller.   The Herald Article and the text messages are here. Why is this shameful?  Judge Miller was a prosecutor on the Corey Smith case, and Fernandez-Rundle is the elected prosecutor. And it is not as if this is any case. It is a case that has brought the Miami SAO to the edge of ruin ..read more