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Disgraced former judge Matt Destry is calling for the Florida Bar to clamp down on JAABLOG.  He joins Jack Thompson, Charles Morehead, Carlos Llorente, and Barbara Heyer in making his distaste for the blog known, although he would certainly be the first to use LinkedIn as a platform.

Destry, known by reputation as a ladies man during his time on the bench, takes a stand for female judges like Tarlika Navarro, whom he feels are unfairly blasted in the comments section.  Having starred in more than his share of blog articles while riding the downward trajectory of his career path, Destry’s antipathy for your humble author is also palpable, if inconveniently misplaced, seeing as how the Bar has previously ruled that JAABLOG is not liable under the rules of professional conduct for the blog comments.

Given this, and the fact Destry quit the bench under a cloud of damning JQC accusations that, if true, could have caused serious problems with his own Bar license, we posed the following two questions to Destry in an email earlier this evening:

The first question is whether or not you are aware that the Bar, many years ago, reviewed the issue of JAABLOG “provid(ing) an anonymous public forum”, and found my role to be acceptable practice? If you are, is there any reason why you can justify the Bar revisiting the issues?

Secondly, given that we are discussing the Bar, and the fact that you are no stranger to controversy yourself, have you ever been, or are you currently, being questioned or investigated by the Bar in relation to any of the JQC accusations that preceded your resignation from the bench?

We haven’t heard back just yet, but we’ll be sure to follow-up if Matt finds the time to respond.  In the meantime, his LinkedIn article will be printed in the comments section in its entirety, despite factual inaccuracies …

MOTHER JONES – Philadelphia’s District Attorney Just Showed America’s Prosecutors How to End Mass Incarceration

We’re told Tarlika Navarro has been appointed to the circuit court to replace Fred Horowitz …

Should judges be permitted to call prosecutors appearing before them to request case documents without notifying the defense?

Should the State hand over prosecution records to a requesting judge, some of which may not yet be in the defense’s possession, without notifying defense counsel?

Have defendants rights been impacted if either question is answered in the negative?  If it’s been a routine occurrence over months or years impacting long closed cases, what is the remedy?

And if a judge notes the review of discovery documents in a written order denying depositions, does it count as full disclosure?

These are a few of the questions presented by Jason Blank’s Motion For Disqualification Of Judge, filed in State v. Zahariev.  The motion is found here.

At issue is Chris Pole’s habit of requesting things like medical records, crash reports, and supplements as background information before ruling on requests to allow depositions in misdemeanor cases.  Pole, the chief judge over the county criminal courts, is well-known for precluding depositions on cases in his division.

Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.220 (h)(1)(D) provides in part:

… In determining whether to allow a deposition, the court should consider the consequences to the defendant, the complexity of the issues involved, the complexity of the witness’ testimony (e.g., experts), and the other opportunities available to the defendant to discover the information sought by deposition …

Does Rule 3.220 authorize Pole to contact the State on his own and request additional information, or is Blank’s contention that impartiality has been breached accurate, to the point a new judge should be assigned?

From the motion:

… on January 24, 2018, the Court entered an order denying Defendant’s motion and citing to a litany of items it reviewed in coming to its decision … (Blank) was perplexed as to how the Court obtained the documents that it purports to have reviewed, including documents which had not yet been disclosed to Defense in any State’s discovery submission, namely Defendant’s medical records.  (Blank) immediately contacted the assigned State Attorney for this matter and inquired further about how the Court came into possession of these documents … (Blank) was advised that the Court had requested the Sate’s discovery ex parte, via telephone … The Court was then party to a second ex parte communication when the State complied with the Court’s request and provided a slew of documents to the Court … (Blank) was also advised by the assigned State Attorney that it is the Court’s normal practice to make these ex parte requests to the State when motions for depositions are received by the Court … (Blank) then spoke with the Chief Assistant State Attorney who confirmed the ex parte communication in this matter had occurred and agreed to address the Court regarding this matter together with (Blank) … on February 9, 2018 … (the parties addressed the Court) … and the Court not only promptly confirmed that the ex parte requests in the instant matter was made, but that it is the Court’s regular practice to request ex parte from the State, without any notice to the Defense, all discovery materials provided to the Defense … 

YOU MAKE THE CALL!

Available March 16th …

SS: BROWARD TO GIVE SMALL-TIME OFFENDERS A BREAK

NYT: I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream …

Jack Tuter’s war on the jail cap continues unabated -the hotly anticipated Administrative Order implementing the Alternative Sanctions Program for probation violations was issued yesterday for felony offenders and misdemeanor offenders.  Click on the links to study the specifics.

Adam Goldberg, chief of the Public Defender’s Early Representation Unit, told us in January that the statutorily authorized program is already in place in numerous judicial circuits throughout Florida, and should have the effect of clearing a large amount of non-violent probationers away from jail stays when a technical is presented to a judge.  The judges retain discretion on each case, so warrants could still be forthcoming, as with the request for reprimand letters in lieu of warrants process, which has been in place for some time.  With Tuter leading the way, however, it’s hoped judges won’t interfere with alternative sanctions, and allow the Department of Corrections to handle technical violations in house.

Wait and see …

Constitutional Revision Commission – Chris Smith spoke to us this morning regarding an update on the CRC and judicial issues.

The push to get the retirement age up to 75, and doubling the qualifying minimum years of legal experience before becoming a judge from five to ten years, may still make the ballot.

However, merit retention for all county and circuit judges, after having to face one contested election, seems dead.

Smith says he supports merit retention for seasoned judges because he’s unhappy with the current system for electing judges.  He doesn’t think they should have to hustle all over the county without being able to say much of anything after surviving their first election, but mostly wanted to start a discussion about changing the way judges are elected.  After facing strong resistance from the other commissioners, Smith said the next step may be to try and alter the restrictive speech rules governing judicial elections, so candidates for the bench can at least have substantive discussions on the campaign trail …

Congratulations to Johnny McCray, this year’s BACDL Harry Gulkin Award winner.

Well done!

We’re told Michael Davis, previously slated to take over for Kim Mollica in County Criminal, now resides full-time in South Satellite, inheriting Claudia Robinson’s former division.  Kim Mollica’s old County Criminal division is currently being covered by other judges after her reassignment to full-time First Appearances, and County judges will also be asked to rotate through to pick up the slack in Davis’ former Domestic Violence division until further notice.

Please post a comment if you know who is slated to take over the vacant County Criminal division full-time …

Richard Kaplan has filed to run against Mike Usan for circuit court.

Usan is the first incumbent to face a contested election in 2018.

Here’s where things stand so far:

And away we go …

BOB NORMAN WPLG CHANNEL 10: JOEL LAZARUS BANNED FROM CRIMINAL COURT

Claudia Robinson has resigned her position as county court judge, effective February 12th …

From: Jack Tuter

Date: 2/1/18 4:10 PM