Federal Judges

The Sequester Is A Great Idea, If You Want America To Look Like Detroit

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‘This sequester thing is going great’ — said no one outside of Washington.

Yesterday, we talked about how an austerity budget in Detroit has led to a broken justice system in Detroit. In fairness, nobody much cares about that story because, well, it’s Detroit and f**k ‘em.

But I wonder if people will care when Detroit’s style of “we can’t afford this” justice comes to a courthouse near you.

While it looks like lawmakers will come to a compromise that will avoid a government shut down (for another couple of months), it looks like that deal will keep the sequester in place.

The sequester, of course, was designed to be a TERRIBLE IDEA that has a serious deleterious impact on our country. But I guess since the sequester didn’t stop anybody from watching fat people diving into swimming pools, Congress isn’t really motivated to do anything about it.

And our system of justice gets crappier still….

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Reverse Benchslap of the Day: Arizona Attorney General Predicts SCOTUS Smackdown of Ninth Circuit

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Debra Milke

We will be appealing this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. If the Court takes the appeal, I will argue it personally as I have done in two previous cases over the past five months. In my last case, the Supreme Court accepted my argument and overruled the Ninth Circuit’s decision unanimously.

– Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, commenting on the Ninth Circuit’s grant of federal habeas relief to Debra Milke, who has been on Arizona’s death row for 22 years.

(Why is Milke sometimes called the “Arizona sister” of Casey Anthony? Keep reading….)

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Meet the Personal Trainer to Two Supreme Court Justices

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How many push-ups can RBG do? Probably more than you can.

How do federal judges maintain taut abs and tight buns underneath their robes? They all have their own special methods.

For some, it’s about diet. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, for example, has a four-word diet: “Few carbs, less sugar.”

Other judges believe in aerobic exercise. The ranks of runners include retired Justice David H. Souter, whose exercise regimen turned him into a judicial hottie (“Certiorari is GRANTED to that hot, lean body!”); Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson (4th Cir.), whose failure to cross train got critcized by President Bush during a Supreme Court interview; Judge Denny Chin (2d Cir.), a veteran marathoner; and Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain (9th Cir.), my former boss.

But maybe running is for wimps? For the women of One First Street, weight training is the order of the day. Let’s meet the personal trainer helping two of the justices get HUGE….

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Benchslap of the Day: Kozinski & Co. Overturn a Murder Conviction

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Chief Judge Alex Kozinski speaking at Yale Law School last year.

Perhaps this should be “benchslap of a few days ago,” since it happened last week. But it’s never too late to read about Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, right?

This latest benchslap involves the Ninth Circuit setting aside a murder conviction. So you might expect the benchslap to be coming from a unanimous Supreme Court in a summary reversal.

But no. The benchslap — actually, make that benchslaps, plural — come from the Ninth Circuit. On the receiving end: the police, prosecutors, a state judge, and a federal judge. Names are named.

And I wouldn’t hold my breath while waiting for SCOTUS to reverse. This decision looks pretty safe….

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Morning Docket: 03.12.13

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* If you hate the government and you hate lawyers more, then you’ll love this. In the past five years, the feds have awarded $3.3 billion to more than 4,700 vendors for legal work. [National Law Journal]

* A year and a half after he was nominated for a Federal Circuit judgeship, and more than a year after his hearing, the Senate finally decided to confirm Richard Taranto. How kind. [Blog of Legal Times]

* Pretty pretty please? Zvi Goffer and Michael Kimmelman would really really like it if the Second Circuit could overturn their insider trading convictions due to unfairness. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* The U.S. News law school rankings are often criticized, and here’s why: if survey respondents “were asked about Princeton Law School, it would appear in the top 20. But it doesn’t exist.” [Chronicle of Higher Education]

* Nevermind the fact that law school applications are down, but Northwestern Law is doing the “responsible thing” and reducing the size of its incoming class — and raising tuition by 3% to boot. [Wall Street Journal]

* Jason Rapert, the Arkansas senator who passed a fetal-heartbeat abortion ban in his state, says he “has no time” for anyone who says it’s unconstitutional. To paraphrase, ain’t nobody got time for that. [New York Times]

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The Gossip Rag For The Plaintiffs’ Bar?

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Not pictured: Wall Street Journal.

[The article] lays it out. It gives motive, it gives you methodology, it reflects experts who think it’s valid. This is not the only piece. This article takes the same kind of approach that you have taken in this case.

I mean, frankly, I am totally puzzled, given that plaintiffs’ bar in this area uses the Wall Street Journal as their source of clients and cases, right? You guys read it every day, looking for scandal, right? Other people read People Magazine, but you read the Wall Street Journal.

– Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald (S.D.N.Y.), discussing inquiry notice of plaintiff’s claims with David Kovel of Kirby McInerney, counsel for plaintiffs in the Libor lawsuits, during Tuesday’s hearing.

(The article Judge Buchwald mentions ran in the Wall Street Journal in 2008 and raised serious questions about Libor’s integrity.)

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Clash of the Biglaw Titans: Ted Olson and David Boies Meet in Second Circuit Showdown

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Ted Olson and David Boies: adversaries, then allies, then adversaries again.

After covering the Dewey & LeBoeuf bankruptcy hearing on Wednesday morning, I walked a few blocks uptown to the Second Circuit for another exciting event: oral argument in the closely watched Argentina bondholder litigation. It was a Biglaw battle royal, pitting Ted Olson, the former solicitor general and current Gibson Dunn partner, against a tag team of top lawyers that included David Boies, Olson’s adversary in Bush v. Gore (and ally in Hollingsworth v. Perry).

Here’s my account of the proceedings, including photos….

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The Kevin Ring Case Is a Scandal and a Disgrace: Five Things I Think You Should Know

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Kevin Ring in happier times.

Full disclosure: Former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring, whose criminal conviction was recently upheld by the D.C. Circuit, is a friend of mine.  We grew up in the same town and have known one another for decades. In no way is what follows unbiased or objective in any sense.  That said, I know that I’m right and the case against Kevin Ring was simply, unambiguously wrong.  Not to say that there was no ambiguity as to whether he broke a law — there was a tiny bit of that. But under no sane system of justice would Kevin be going to federal prison. Though he almost certainly is, pending a request for en banc rehearing from the D.C. Circuit followed by a Hail Mary filing for a writ of certiorari.

We can all stipulate that Jack Abramoff is one of the sleaziest and most repellent characters to besmirch the legal profession in decades.  (My favorite Abramoff moment: the time he tried convince his rabbi to bestow upon him  a fake, back-dated “Scholar of Talmudic Studies” award, so he could get in the Cosmos Club.)

Anyway, Abramoff was Kevin’s boss for three and a half years, during the final period of which they were both partners at Greenberg Traurig.  In the words of the judge at his sentencing hearing, Kevin was a “cog” in the Abramoff operation, a “second-tier level” administrator of the firm’s lobbying team.  I won’t try to spin Kevin’s time as a lobbyist as some honorable endeavor.  I couldn’t. Generally speaking, lobbyists are regarded by most of us as only slightly less distasteful than the politicians whose favor they are trying to curry.  But that does not make them criminals….

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Morning Docket: 02.27.13

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* The Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments today on a challenge to the Voting Rights Act. If for some reason you’re not sure why you should care about this, here’s everything you need to know to sound intelligent at the water cooler. [New York Times]

* If the sequester goes into effect this Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder warns that we’re probably going to see “profound” effects across the entire justice system. America, f**k yeah! Coming again to save the motherf**kin’ day, yeah! [National Law Journal]

* It looks like the tiny and terrifying Mary Jo White is currently on the Congressional pageant trail ahead of her March confirmation hearing for SEC leadership, and now she’s even vowed never to return to Debevoise & Plimpton. [DealBook / New York Times]

* A coup for Cadwalader and a casualty for Cravath: Jim Woolery chose another firm over his former home of 17 years, and it may have something to do with the Biglaw bonus market leader’s “sometimes antiquated” regime. [Am Law Daily]

* “There are many more fish chasing the same business,” but that’s not stopping new white-collar boutiques from trying to compete for business in what some say is an overly crowded market. [New York Law Journal]

* Louis Oberdorfer, district judge of the D.D.C. and former SCOTUS clerk, RIP. [Blog of Legal Times]

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Today at the Supreme Court: Moving The Starting Point

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Imagine you’re in a negotiation to buy a used car. You use the Blue Book — the Kelley Blue Book, not the legal Bluebook — to set the starting point on the price. You do your research at home based on the blue book that’s online, which says the starting point for the car you want is $10,000.

Then, when you get to the used car dealer, you find out that they have a new blue book, one that just came out that day. It says that the starting point for the car you want is really $12,000.

You’d probably be annoyed, maybe angry. The whole starting point for your conversation about the price of the car changed.

Yet, the dealer could tell you, and you could still agree with him to pay any amount you’d like for the car. The starting point doesn’t necessarily set the ending point.

This was, basically, the situation the Supreme Court was called in to referee in this morning’s oral argument in Peugh v. United States….

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