SFL Friday -- The Weather in My Head!

They may fix
The weather in the world
Just like Mr. Gore said
But tell me what's to be done
Lord - 'bout the weather in my head

Well it's that time of the week, let's see what is rattling around in the ole' noggin:

1.  The Rule of Law -- it's a bi$%h:

Tsarnaev is facing the death penalty. That is the circumstance in which procedural fairness matters the most. Yes, we have to protect ourselves from terrorism. But not by breaking with our traditional respect for the rule of law.

Or is that view old-fashioned?

2.   Florida's anti-Sharia foreign law bill is almost a parody of a bad law:

With the bill defeated in prior legislative sessions, its sponsors recharacterized it presumably to blunt criticism by attempting to distance it from the original language that overtly targeted sharia, which to Muslims is what Halakha is to Jews and canon is to Catholics The current version makes no such direct reference and instead targets "foreign law." The corresponding staff analysis warns legislators it may be fundamentally flawed nonetheless.

At the most rudimentary level, our law is derived largely from English common law. If SB 58 were to become law in Florida, the resulting confusion would likely precipitate a flood of litigation, Florida lawyers being the principal beneficiaries.

For instance, "this could prohibit Florida courts from recognizing divorces of Jews under Israeli law," advised David Barkey, with the Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913 "to stop the defamation of the Jewish people."

Barkey; Carlos Osorio, with the International Law Section of The Florida Bar; and Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, also observed in a column they co-authored for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that the bill "threatens to derail Florida's role as an international trade hub by complicating and destabilizing the personal and commercial lives of foreign nationals sent here from such important partners as Israel, Latin America and elsewhere."
The potential impact upon trade and economic development should not be underestimated.

 3.   I happened to be re-reading Jack London's autobiography and his love/hate relationship with alcohol, John Barleycorn, and came across this wonderful 1913(!) account of trying to explain to someone what it's like to smoke hashish:

Take Hasheesh Land, for instance, the land of enormous extensions of time and space. In past years I have made two memorable journeys into that far land. My adventures there are seared in sharpest detail on my brain. Yet I have tried vainly, with endless words, to describe any tiny particular phase to persons who have not travelled there.  “I use all the hyperbole of metaphor, and tell what centuries of time and profounds of unthinkable agony and horror can obtain in each interval of all the intervals between the notes of a quick jig played quickly on the piano. I talk for an hour, elaborating that one phase of Hasheesh Land, and at the end I have told them nothing. And when I cannot tell them this one thing of all the vastness of terrible and wonderful things.”

I "grok" you, dude.

4.  Congrats to Judge Tanya Brinkley, investiture today!

Have a great weekend!

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/25/3364667/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-and-the-rule.html#storylink=cpy

Shhh -- Don't Tell Our Legislature But the Florida Supreme Court Just Applied Foreign Law!

Anyone remember that ridiculous anti-Islam Sharia foreign law bill that was introduced last year in the Florida Senate?

Well it's back:

After it failed last year, lawmakers on Thursday revived a bill that would ban Shariah, or Islamic, law and other foreign laws from Florida courts.

Republican Sen. Alan Hays, who sponsored the bill, said his measure was a "preemptive gesture." There are no reported cases in which a Florida court applied foreign law. 

Not so fast!

The Florida Supreme Court earlier today applied dreaded foreign law -- in favor of Don King of all people!

The law in question -- the venerable English doctrine of "statute of frauds":

The statute appears to have been enacted in response to developments in the common law arising out of the advent of the writ of assumpsit, which changed the general rule precluding enforcement of oral promises in the King’s courts. Thereafter, perjury and the subornation of perjury became a widespread and serious problem. Furthermore, because juries at that time decided cases on their own personal knowledge of the facts, rather than on the evidence introduced at trial, a requirement, in specified transactions, of “some memorandum or note . . . in writing, and signed by the party to be charged” placed a limitation on the uncontrolled discretion of the jury. Although the British Parliament repealed most provisions of the statute . . . in 1954[,] the statute nonetheless remains the law virtually everywhere in the United States.

Good lord -- next thing someone will say the Magna Carta somehow informs our jurisprudence.

Posh that!

Please God, No.

This is so mind-numbingly stupid it pains me to excerpt it:

A measure to ban the use of foreign laws in domestic courtrooms is progressing in Florida's statehouse, one of dozens of similar efforts across the country that critics call an unwarranted campaign driven by fear of Muslims.
Forty such bills are being pursued in 24 states, according to a tally by the National Conference of State Legislatures, a movement opponents call a response to a made-up threat of Shariah law, the Islamic legal code that covers many areas of life. Backers of the bills say they fill a glaring hole in legal protections for Americans.

"There have been all sorts of wild accusations about what this bill does," said Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, who sponsored the Senate bill in Florida. "This is very clear, very simple: In American courts we need American laws and no other."

The Florida measure passed the House on Thursday 92-24. It awaits a full vote in the Senate.

If passed, Florida would join three other states — Louisiana, Arizona and Tennessee — in approving legislation curtailing the use of foreign laws.

 "American laws"?

Yeah, like the Magna Carta, or better yet -- the Bible (wasn't Charlton Heston a Real American when he brought down those ten laws?).

I think the basic problem is that the "Sharia law" controversy doesn't really exist -- I know of no trend where federal or state courts are deferring to Muslim law in derogation of operative state or federal law.

Like voter fraud and Newt Gingrich, it's basically a scare tactic:

If Sharia opponents can’t name a single instance of Islamic law being used in the state courts, what exactly is the point of banning it — beyond vague and unsubstantiated fears?
On the other hand, there isn’t exactly a compelling counter-argument in favor of Sharia law. The U.S. courts should avoid applications of religious law in general. And Sharia has a particularly horrific reputation, since it’s used to justify the state-sanctioned oppression of women, the silencing of journalists and human rights workers, religious persecution, and vicious executions across the Islamic world.

But the good news for Sharia law opponents is that these things are already illegal in the United States, and Sharia is rarely applied to anything in this country beyond executions of wills and personal financing matters. Unless that changes, attempts to “ban” it are based on little more than hysteria and conspiracy theories.

Although it's obvious the FL bill's sponsors are not targeting English common law or the French civil code, in light of this recent 10th Circuit opinion (on Oklahoma's version), up in Tally they are careful to not mention Sharia law specifically by name -- just the usual dog whistles for the well-trained base this bill is intended to satiate.

All of this is yet another compelling argument to retain Justices Pariente, Lewis, and Quince -- and I personally want to commend Raoul Cantero for putting a bipartisan face on the fundraising event Monday, which btw was well-attended with the cream of the crop in South Florida's legal community all supporting their retention.

We will need good strong judges to resist these sorts of nativist impulses.

(RIP Judge Maxine Cohen Lando.)