Vote, You Plebes!

 For Melanie Damian to always appear on the front page of the DBR!

What a glorious way to start the morning.

She's going to be a very tough receiver -- she already hired a locksmith to open a safety deposit box and found lots of valuable rare coins, but unfortunately no whole wheat pasta bolognese.

GAME ON!

Oh yeah, there are also judicial elections.

I suppose we should probably take a peek, especially given how much money we've donated this cycle.

In general I echo Rump's recommendations, as follows:

 In no particular order, we like Judge Wolfson, Judge Don Cohn, Kathy Fernandez-Rundle, Robert Copel, Alex Jimenz-Labora, Mauricio Padilla, Michelle Alvarez, Judge Teretha Lundy-Thomas. Best of luck to all.

Except I voted for Judge David Miller, as well as Teresa Pooler, Judge Marino-Pedraza, Judge Lobree, Ivonne Cuesta, and the great Tanya Brinkley.

And yes the pit bull law is stupid and needs to be repealed.

Your Monday Morning Digital Dump!

Hi there, what a nice dreary way to start the work week (for those of you still here).

Let's take a quick peek around town:

1.  The Herald wades into the swamp of judicial election campaigns.

This is an interesting article because it alludes to but does not identify outright the key factors associated with winning a judicial election.  Here are the indicators:

hire a judicial consultant early
raise lots of money
have the right last name (hyphenated is even better!)
get the right endorsements
pick the right low-hanging fruit opponent
stuff the low-turnout ballot box

 2.  Gregg Fields on how all the lawyers are on vacation and one lawyer put her cell phone in a box!  (no worries, there's always an iPad backup).

3.  Turns out all the foreclosure mill investigations have gone nowhere:

With no closure and no one held accountable, there is no justice, anti-foreclosure activists say.

“I’m incredulous at this point that two years later nothing has happened,” said West Palm Beach foreclosure defense attorney Melva Rozier. “I didn’t think it would take so long. It seemed as though a lot of conduct and actions were pretty obvious on their face.”

Some have now turned their ire on the Florida Bar, which says it has power only to investigate individual attorneys, not law firms.

Despite hundreds of foreclosure-related complaints against attorneys, not a single Florida lawyer who represents banks in foreclosure cases has been disciplined for foreclosure fraud by the Florida Bar.

And all of the major players, including leaders of the Law Offices of David J. Stern and Boca Raton-based Shapiro & Fishman, remain members in good standing with the Bar.

“In my opinion, (the Bar’s) inaction — especially on Stern — counts as one of the most egregious derelictions of responsibility in legal ethics history,” said Michael Olenick, a West Palm Beach-based housing analyst with the finance research firm Nastiaco. “It leads to the question of whether the Florida Bar is protecting the people and business of Florida, or the lawyers of Florida. Their inaction strongly suggests the latter.”

What, I can't hear you -- my cell phone is in a box and the reception isn't all that great here in North Carolina.

A Brilliant Mistake.

Wow this seems like pure unadulterated horse hockey:

A new pro-Bondi political committee has fired back, with a website accusing Gelber of down-playing his past as a criminal defense lawyer ``defending convicted drug dealers, con men and scam artists.'' The site is www.TheRealDanGelber.com .

Gelber said his work as a defense lawyer was mostly serving on a legal team at two law firms and filling in for an absent colleague in a court hearing.

Gelber does criminal defense work?

That's not an even remotely fair description.

And even if he did, why is that a bad thing?

Has Pam ever heard of the criminal justice system and the jurisprudential reasons why accused suspects are entitled to competent counsel?

Boy I'm in a fatalistic mood but I don't think this election could get any worse.

Apparently they are even after the Robed Ones up in Tally, according to this email I received from "Citizens for an Independent Judiciary":

This general election, several Florida Supreme Court Justices are on the ballot for “merit retention,” and we urge you to vote to keep them on the bench. All Florida Supreme Court Justices must appear on the ballot every six years—a process that gives the people an opportunity to vote against justices who have acted unethically.

This year, however, the justices on the ballot are being targeted for their legal opinion concerning a SINGLE issue. This is one precedent that should not be established and will lead us down a dangerous road. Don’t allow these esteemed justices to be ousted because of a single legal opinion. The simple truth is removing these justices from the bench would be a gross abuse of the merit-retention process, which is designed to oust members of the judiciary who have proven themselves unfit for office; it is never intended to be a political referendum based on a single opinion.

 Ok, I agree with all that.  There are important institutional purposes behind retaining appointed judges, even the axiomatic ones.

The email continues:

All of these justices are people of great experience, education and integrity, and they have done their best to render justice based on facts and law applicable to each case—not the popular political climate at the moment.

"Great experience, education and integrity"?

Well let's not go overboard.

Still, they are our Robed Ones and certainly deserved to be retained, particularly in the face of an ugly under the radar, highly partisan smear campaign.

You can learn about efforts to protect the independence of our judiciary from these unfair political attacks here.

Samantha Ruiz Cohen and Monica Gordo Receive Rousing Anti-Gay Anti-Endorsement!

I think it was ole Honest Abe who once said "[p]oliteness costs so little."

With that in mind, a tipster passed along this exceedingly polite anti-endorsement for judicial candidates Samantha Ruiz Cohen and Monica Gordo, apparently by the editor of something called El Nuevo PATRIA:

Voter Alert: UNQUALIFIED MIAMI-DADE JUDICIAL CANDIDATES

TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC OF MIAMI-DADE COUNTY:

Samantha Ruiz Cohen and Monica Gordo, both candidates for judge in Miami-Dade County, sought and received the endorsement of the extremist homosexualist hate group, "SAVE-Dade."

This is the same anti-Life, anti-Family, anti-God homosexualist group that vehemently opposed the Florida
Marriage Protection Amendment defining civil marriage as the union of one man and one women, and that continues to fanatically attack Florida's Adoption Law that protects abandoned and orphaned children from falling into the hands of admitted homosexuals via adoption.

Both Samantha Ruiz Cohen and Monica Gordo know perfectly well that the homosexualist group in question is an admitted extremist, Liberal hate group and yet they met with them and gladly ACCEPTED their endorsement, i.e., their kiss of death! This speaks volumes about their lack of integrity and judicial temperament!

Furthermore, ANY group calling itself "Conservative" and asking the public to support a homosexualist candidate is perpetrating a FRAUD and SCAM on the public. Do not be misled or deceived!

El Nuevo PATRIA, the oldest Cuban Exile anticommunist and anti-Liberal newspaper in Florida, wants you to know and make an informed decision when you vote next Tuesday, August 24th.

Orphans "falling into the hands of admitted homosexuals" -- I like the imagery!

Also "admitted extremist, Liberal hate group" -- really, is there any other kind?

Vote, Plebes!

I understand there is some kind of election today.

Make your mom proud and go vote, ok?

In other news, the intrepid one reports that the three foreclosure firms targeted by Bill McCollum's office is fighting back, filing motions to quash the subpoenas served upon them.

One of the firms is represented by WPB attorney Gerry Richman:

The subpoena has had a chilling effect on clients and has led to defense lawyers citing the investigation in motions to have the Shapiro firm disqualified from cases. One judge, according to the petition, has said in open court he will deny all summary judgment motions filed by the law firms named by the attorney general based solely on the existence of the investigation.

In an interview, attorney Gerald Richman, who is representing the Shapiro firm, said he did not know who the judge is. He denied the Shapiro firm falsified any documents.

“One of our concerns is the broad brush,” he said. “We are not in the category with David Stern, we are not in the category with any other law firm. Hopefully we will not lose clients. We’re doing whatever we can to fight back.” 

Question -- when doing a media interview regarding that type of allegation, wouldn't it be helpful to have the name of the judge on your desk somewhere in case you are asked about it?

Or maybe my pal Gerry knows but doesn't want to say who it is?

Judicial Election Follies.

Michael Kinsley famously wrote that "a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth."

Hector Lombana may have inadvertently committed a "Kinsley gaffe" when he penned an unusually candid op-ed for the DBR in which he asserted:

The key to maintaining order in Miami-Dade judicial elections has been the informal partnership between the Cuban American Bar Association, the Florida Association for Women Lawyers, the Dade County Bar Association and other minority bar associations. This has resulted in informal mechanisms of peer pressure, fundraising, campaign practices supervision and political activism that have historically succeeded in dissuading and defeating unworthy candidates for judicial office.

This "informal partnership," however, may be fracturing.

First, Miami-Dade chapter President of FAWL, Kristy M. Johnson, writes in to clarify that it is not FAWL who may have such an informal partnership, just FAWL members who act purely as individuals in conjunction with other individuals acting purely as individual CABA members:

I have discussed this issue with Mr. Lombana and understand that his sincere intention was to highlight FAWL’s candidate-neutral activism and the actions of FAWL’s individual members, in conjunction with the individual members of other voluntary bar associations, in the judicial election process.

Next, the local black bar association -- as an organization -- made some non-Hispanic endorsements, leading to a public denunciation by.....you guessed it:

Former CABA president Hector Lombana of Gamba & Lombana in Coral Gables slammed the black bar for supporting a candidate he called “unworthy and unqualified.”

“This raises the question as to what the motivation was for the endorsement, especially since the person who was endorsed happens to be black,” he said. “This also raises questions about the credibility of their endorsements. Maybe they should just stop endorsing candidates.”

Both CABA leaders, Garcia-Linares and Lombana, said they were speaking only for themselves and not the organization.

Lombana said he was most offended because CABA has worked to protect qualified black and non-Hispanic judges from being targeted by Hispanic judicial hopefuls.

He noted that although CABA does not endorse specific candidates, the organization strongly denounces challenges it perceives as race-based. In the past, leaders of CABA have individually rallied around candidates considered qualified, siding with black or white candidates even when they’ve been opposed by Hispanic lawyers.

So, to summarize:

Hector says there is an informal partnership among local minority bar associations.

Then the local FAWL Prez writes in to walk that back, saying we are talking only about individuals, not organizations.

Then the black bar as an organization endorses certain non-Hispanic candidates, leading to a denunciation by Hector, speaking individually but who reportedly said that "CABA [the organization?] has worked to protect qualified black and non-Hispanic judges from being targeted by Hispanic judicial hopefuls."

Good thing we're nothing like Broward.

How Judicial Elections Are Run.

Did you all see this column by my friend Hector Lombana on the ridiculous judicial elections farce that is ongoing in Broward?

He contrasts the free-for-all up there with the more informally regulated atmosphere here in Miami-Dade County.

Specifically, here's how Hector describes how things work down here:

The key to maintaining order in Miami-Dade judicial elections has been the informal partnership between the Cuban American Bar Association, the Florida Association for Women Lawyers, the Dade County Bar Association and other minority bar associations. This has resulted in informal mechanisms of peer pressure, fundraising, campaign practices supervision and political activism that have historically succeeded in dissuading and defeating unworthy candidates for judicial office.

What do you think of that?

That's the first time I've seen this formulation -- often discussed obviously among lawyers and judges, usually in far cruder terms -- articulated and laid out in print for the rubes (I mean, the public) to see.

A Ticket Attorney, A Furniture Attorney, And A Traffic Hearing Examiner Go Into A Bar......

And one of them comes out a Palm Beach circuit court judge:

Lemoine fired the first salvo by touting records that show he has handled 684 cases in Palm Beach County courts, compared to Daire's 143, Small's 118 and Goodman's 18. The records, he says, prove who has the needed experience.

Goodman counters that Lemoine is mainly a ticket doctor, which lends itself to high volume. Lemoine said traffic cases represent about 20 percent of his practice. Lemoine, in turn, writes off Daire's high numbers, saying many of the cases are to collect money from customers who stiffed the furniture stores.

Oy, good thing something like this could never happen here in Miami-Dade.

In other news, blind pig......Glenn Garvin.

Finally, Miami is in the running to land the BP Oil Spill litigation:

A federal judicial panel is meeting Thursday in Boise, Idaho, to consider whether to consolidate some or all of the lawsuits for pretrial decisions before a single judge, a development that most observers say is a foregone conclusion. BP and the other companies favor federal court in Houston — near their major U.S. operations — while a majority of plaintiffs' attorneys have suggested New Orleans, closer to the broken well and to many of the hardest-hit victims. Courts in Florida, Mississippi and Alabama also are being suggested as venues.

Bring home the bacon -- this could do more for the local economy than 15 Super Bowls.