JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG

WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL RICHARD E GERSTEIN JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG. THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO JUSTICE BUILDING RUMOR, HUMOR, AND A DISCUSSION ABOUT AND BETWEEN THE JUDGES, LAWYERS AND THE DEDICATED SUPPORT STAFF, CLERKS, COURT REPORTERS, AND CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS WHO LABOR IN THE WORLD OF MIAMI'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE. POST YOUR COMMENTS, OR SEND RUMPOLE A PRIVATE EMAIL AT HOWARDROARK21@GMAIL.COM. Winner of the prestigious Cushing Left Anterior Descending Artery Award.

Monday, January 16, 2006

ROY BLACK COMMENTARY

Mr. Black dominated the posts this weekend.

Anonymous writes:

Why are all you kiss asses so nice to ol Roy Boy - did you all forget that the guy has caused riots in black Miami through his representation of a cop who shot ayoung black teen in the back. ?Of course you die hard PC defense attorneys will say every defendantdeserves the best attorney. And that's true, but the bottom line is that verdict perpetuated a system of white is right and too bad if you're black.Any wonder why to this day the state will never prosecute any of these bad cop shooting cases. That's his real legacy.


Rumpole roars: How did you find this blog? With reasoning like that we find it impossible to believe you graduated High school. You can’t really be a member of the bar can you?

What would you suggest Mr/Ms “not know it all?” Should Mr. Black screen the cases he wants to take by a committee who will approve what clients it is ok for him to represent? Or should Mr. Black (or any attorney) just pre-judge a case and not try so hard to win if the social repercussions of a win would be severe?

We hate bad or dirty cops. But in our society, the prosecution is required to prove their case. And if they can’t, the charges are meaningless.

Mr. Black didn’t cause any riots. He did his job very well, and that is all he did.

Little history lesson for you ( we want to include an epithet starting with 'numb' but we won't) : On March 5, 1770, British soldiers fired on a mob of colonists in Boston. This incident, known as the Boston Massacre, enraged American colonists. Yet John Adams, future second president of the United States and cousin of Boston Patriot-leader Sam Adams, ended up defending the soldiers in two separate trials, getting acquittals for most, even in an atmosphere where American mobs threatened to end the trials with lynchings.

President Adams had a pretty fair legacy, and when all is said and done, so will Mr. Black.


Anonymous warns:

Many well respected criminal defense lawyers take the position that due dilligence must be taken before they accept legal fees from drug defendants. This might prove to be mistake. If you are paid from the defendant or his family, you are immune from federal prosecution if the fee is bonified ie for legal services rendered.

And Jason Grey yells:

Are you nuts ! just ask Johnny Elso, Art taylor , Frank Quintero, Paul lazarus, Etc. The feds will go after any lawyer who won't lay down. Fees are an easy way to get you, once they flip your client behind your back. Forget the so -called safe harbour in the 11th . see US v Elso.


And anonymous corrects Mr. Grey:

It's Neil not Art and you got me with that one.

And Jason finishes up:

Apologies to both neil , and arthur taylor, I was kinda drunk last night
Jason Grey

Rumpole warns: we have already discussed the dangers of drinking and blogging in previous posts.

Anonymous writes about Mr. Black:

Great lawyer? yes. Innocent? Yes. But wonderfull person? Rumpole do you know Roy personally?

Rumpole replies: We know Mr. Black professionally. We have been at social occasions where he was present. Does he call us up for golf, or for a referral?
Nah. We have seen Mr. Black’s kindness, hidden under one of those black suits, but it is there.

On the Bar Complaint post , Anonymous correctly says:

Rump, you blew it on this one. Why in the world you you allow someone to attack a respected member of the Bar anonymously like this? Is the purpose of you site to provide an opportunity for bitter (and, spineless) folks to slam other people? This attack on Brian is ridiculous. The author knows (or should) that it would be unethical for Brian to respond. I can't believe you posted this

Rumpole apologizes: You are 100% correct. We debated on the post, and in retrospect there was no debate. If the poster did not sign his/her name, the post should have been removed. Every now and then ( or more often if you talk to the judiciary) we blow it. We apologize to Mr. Tannebaum.

If we announce a bright line rule about posting a name if you criticize a person, then people who complain about Judge XYZ for showing up late would have to post their name. And we don’t want that. So if the rule is arbitrary on this blog, then we become the final arbiter of what some one can post anonymously and what someone cannot post.
We invite input on this one.



On the alleged personal ad, Jason Grey writes

I can't remember the last time I saw real and spectacular in the samepackage. This needs further investigation

Rumpole says: should married men be investigating this sort of nonsense? We would be happy to devote the time and energy to finding out if that winsome young woman is real (and spectacular).


DIRTY COPS AND KARMA

John Brown writes: as a long time defense attorney, i have no sympathy for state witnesses who fail to show up for their depositions and end up facing rules to show cause. boo hoo! when lazy cops skip their depos, defendants rot in jail and are forced to blow their speedies. maybe cops should spend more time showing up for depos and less time fabricating a-forms and stealing money from arrestees. check out this link in case you've been living in a cave.
bad karma finally catches up to some real bad cops! i suppose ofcs. losada and fernandez won't be showing up for depos in the forseeable future! hahahahaha!


Rumpole reminds: These men are innocent until proven guilty. See the first post about Mr. Black's representation in the McDuffy killing and the Lozano case. The final chapter has yet to be written about these two police officers.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rump - the issue of personal attacks seems pretty simple - posts that are anonymous should be taken with a grain of salt. In addition, if they are about issues for which the attack-ee can not respond (such as the grievance committee thing with Tannebaum), then you, rump-o-maniac, should take care to either state that this may be an issue that cannot be responded to, or not post it at all.

Criticizing judges for their practices, or other people for things that can be responded to are fair game.

Anonymous said...

I guess that moron would ALSO criticize Ed Odonnell for winning McDuffy.

Anonymous said...

Hey Rump I mean Phil,
Your conformist former state self is really starting to show with these latest comments.

The final word on Det. Fernandez
is that he's a lying piece of sh$#
cop who finally got caught. If they
did stings on all of these UC officers (especially the Northside District), my guess is 40% would be
arrested.

I've had Fernandez on 2 trials and
in both my clients rejected what amounted to CTS pleas insisting that the guy was lying.

How many times do we have to hear from our clients that they
actually had 4K on them when arrested and not the 2K that the
officers listed on the property receipts?

Or how about the clients who insist
(as mine did in one Fernandez case) that they were just chillin when jump out arrested them and then said the drugs they found around the corner were theirs?

Anonymous said...

A) I found your site while surfing for justice in Miami-Dade County.

B) I didn't know a High School Degree was required to speak on a subject I care deeply about.
(I dropped out in 11th grade)

C) I should have known this site was being run by a bunch of lawyer snobs who ofcourse think they know
it all.

D) No he did not start the riots, but my observations go to the fact that doing a good job as a lawyer does not always mean doing a good thing for society as a whole.

Anonymous said...

Leave it to a defense attorney to generalize about police officers ("less time fabricating a-forms and stealing money from arrestees") while vehemently arguing for his clients (98% of whom or more we know are guilty of violating the law).

Anonymous said...

You admit you erred when you posted the Tannenbaum complaint but leave it up? You've got to be kidding me. Why don't you remove it? You know it doesn't belong here. Your apology to Brian doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot if you leave up the post that never should have been published.

How can you wax eloquent about the presumption of innocence and leave an unfair post like that on your site? Smacks of hypocrisy to me.......

and begs the question: are looking to create another tabloid or a real discussion forum?

Anonymous said...

Rumpole- Roy Black did not represent McDuffy- Eddie O did.

Anonymous said...

Re: my earlier very specific comment about Brian Tannebaum's limited grasp of the concept of "probable cause," he certainly knows who posted it, unless (which seems possible in his case, but doubtful on a statistical basis), he has caused other lawyers to have to mount a 2-plus-year defense to defend against a charge that any competent criminal defense lawyer should have found highly suspicious at the outset (the initial accusation having been made by a civil lawyer to gain an advantage in a civil matter), and at least worthy of some real investigation (rather than applying a "presumption of guilt"). No one seems to have come up with a defense other than to criticize my anonymity (and worry about his "presumption of innocence" ). I think that the comments I made, fully supported as they are by the record, are eligible for inclusion in the Justice Building Blog.
Of course, if more of you denizens of the GJB volunteered to serve on Grievance Committees, as I have, criminal defense lawyers might not get such bad treatment there. Clients file complaints against criminal defense lawyers in huge numbers, at least in part because the clients cannot file malpractice actions (and also, I am reliably informed, because the jailers tell them that, if unhappy with a trial's outcome they can vent their displeasure via a Bar complaint). Post or not, Rumpole