Judicial Spanking Week Continues!

Huge and well-deserved victory for our own David O. Markus as Judge Gold drops a bomb on Alex Acosta's office:

The judge reprimanded the two trial prosecutors, saying that along with Drug Enforcement Administration agent Christopher Wells, they “acted vexatiously and in bad faith” in prosecuting Dr. Ali Shaygan. Also reprimanded was assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Gilbert, the narcotics section chief.

Gold called the secret taping of phone calls to Shaygan’s attorney and defense investigator by two informants was “profoundly disturbing.” He raised the specter of the recent dismissal of a conviction against former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, because prosecutors in that case withheld key evidence.

The $601,795 covers court fees and lawyer costs dating from a superseding indictment filed by prosecutors in September.

“The order speaks for itself. We regret that any of this ever happened in the first place but we are grateful that Judge Gold took it seriously and did the right thing,” said Miami criminal defense attorney David O. Markus, the lead counsel for Shaygan. “Thank goodness that the conduct did not distract the jury from finding Dr. Shaygan not guilty of all 141 counts against him.

Miami attorneys Marc Seitles and Robin Kaplan served as co-counsels for the defense.

You can read the order here.

Alex has other not-so-great coverage in the DBR here.

I previously covered Alex's alleged supervision of rogue Christian Bradley Schlozman and his unsolicited intervention in the Ohio election process.

His defense on that -- that I was just informing those poor black voters about their legal rights -- is particularly lame.

I like Alex. He doesn't strike me as aggressively ideological, and his office is filled with many talented attorneys who take their charge as public servants seriously. And of course he is not solely responsible for this Judge Gold order.

But as I say about Frankie boy and 9th Circuit torture judge Jay Bybee, this stuff kinda matters.

It's easy to have integrity and to be highly ethical when you are not particularly pressed by a superior or government to do something possibly dubious or questionable. That's 98 percent of your life.

It's what you do in the other 2 percent that matters.

And that doesn't mean people don't make mistakes sometimes and can't ever do the right thing again. They do and can.

But if you are in denial mode about the original questionable action it is hard to move past it and for others to have confidence in your judgment in the future.

"You Got to Admit, It's Getting Better (It Can't Get Much Worse)."

Hi kiddies, well it's the big day so I'm gonna try to stay positive. For example, I'm not going to mention John Pacenti's solid coverage of this report on Alex Acosta's supervision of "good American" Bradley Schlozman.

First, some fun background on Scholzman:

"Bradley J. Schlozman is systematically attempting to purge all Civil Rights appellate attorneys hired under Democratic administrations," the lawyer wrote, saying that he appeared to be "targeting minority women lawyers" in the section and was replacing them with "white, invariably Christian men." The lawyer also alleged that "Schlozman told one recently hired attorney that it was his intention to drive these attorneys out of the Appellate Section so that he could replace them with 'good Americans.'"

This is from John's article:

Acosta served as assistant attorney general for the civil rights division from August 2003 to June 2005; Schlozman succeeded him on an interim basis for five months and was succeeded by Wan Kim.

“We concluded that Acosta and Kim did not sufficiently supervise Schlozman,” the report states. “In light of indications they had about Schlozman’s conduct and judgment, they failed to ensure that Schlozman’s hiring and personnel decisions were based on proper considerations.”

Acosta declined comment through a spokeswoman.

Schlozman’s attorney, William Jordan of Atlanta-based Alston & Bird, issued a statement saying the report was “inaccurate, incomplete, biased, unsupported by law and contrary to the facts.”

South Florida attorneys contacted for this article were reluctant to talk about the report on the record.

Kendall Coffey, who served as U.S. attorney as a Democratic appointee, defended Acosta, a Republican appointee, saying his record on hiring as U.S. attorney is exemplary.

“It’s not uncommon for agency heads to delegate hiring due to the many other responsibilities they face,” Coffey said. “Look at his real record on hiring and the hiring he has done as U.S. attorney. It has been based on very high standards, and there is no taint of any partisanship.”

Weird -- they were able to reach Kendall Coffey for a comment.

Oh well, good times. But why look back (to paraphrase Dylan) --it's a new day, right?

So whether you'll be watching the inauguration at the Arsht Center, or at Gusman, or Tobacco Road, or in the conference room at your law firm, have a good time, send some good vibes and let's keep our fingers crossed.

As that obscure songwriting duo from Liverpool put it, "you got to admit it's getting better (it can't get much worse)"......