Daily News Summary
An electronic digest of media coverage of interest to members of The Florida Bar compiled each workday by the Public Information and Bar Services Department. Electronic links are only active in today's edition. For information on previous articles, please contact the publishing newspaper directly.
Sept. 7, 2010
REFRESHER COURSE OFFERED ON FLORIDA OPEN RECORDS LAWS-- Pensacola News Journal, http://www.pnj.com, Sept. 5, 2010. [Also: OPEN GOVERNMENT SEMINAR WILL SPREAD MUCH SUNSHINE-- Naples Daily News, column, http://www.naplesnews.com, Sept. 4, 2010].
The First Amendment Foundation will give government officials, reporters and the public a refresher course on the state's open records and open meetings laws during a seminar in Pensacola. The Tallahassee-based organization and The Florida Bar are co-sponsors of the 2010 Sunshine Seminar, to be held Sept. 17 at the Pensacola News Journal. It's open to the public. The Florida Bar Media & Communications Law Committee will host afternoon sessions that cater to journalists.
--Judiciary--
SANTA ROSA COUNTY ATTORNEY LOOKS TO NEW CAREER AS JUDGE-- Santa Rosa Press Gazette, http://www.srpressgazette.com, Sept. 5, 2010.
Back on Aug. 9, Tom Dannheisser, who has served as the Santa Rosa County Attorney for the last 24 years, was appointed to take over a position being created by the retirement of Judge David Ackerman. Before becoming Santa Rosa County Attorney, Dannheisser was an assistant Escambia County Attorney. Dannheisser will mostly deal with criminal cases as a judge in Pensacola.
RENEWED DEBATE OVER JUDICIAL ELECTIONS-- The Miami Herald, http://www.miamiherald.com, Sept. 7, 2010.
The unprecedented number of challenges to sitting Broward Circuit Court judges in 2008 and 2010 has reignited the debate over whether some Florida judges should be appointed instead of elected. State Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Parkland, said he would like to scrap elections for circuit judges. Instead, he would have panels screen candidates who would be appointed to the bench by the governor. The appointed judges would face voters later in retention elections but wouldn't go head-to-head with challengers. Of the 50 states and District of Columbia, 27 elect judges in partisan or nonpartisan elections. Doing what Ring proposes would either require a change to the Florida Constitution, which has to have approval from the Legislature and the voters, or a countywide petition drive to collect 74,000 signatures -- 10 percent of the votes in the 2008 presidential election. And citizens might not easily give up their authority to pick judges.
LEGAL LOGJAM LEAVING JUDGES' SEATS EMPTY IN FEDERAL COURTS-- St. Petersburg Times, http://www.tampabay.com, Sept. 6, 2010.
The article is from the Los Angeles Times. Almost one in eight federal judgeships is vacant in the country and legal scholars warn that the increasingly politicized confirmation process threatens the administration of justice across the nation. Of the 102 federal judgeships open, there are nominees pending for 39 seats. If the current rate of replacing retired, resigned and deceased judges continues, Assistant Attorney General Christopher H. Schroeder warned, nearly half of the 876 federal judgeships could be vacant by the end of the decade.
--Civil Justice Issues--
FLORIDA'S HIGH-SPEED ANSWER TO A FORECLOSURE MESS-- The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com, Sept. 5, 2010. [Also: COURTS WORK TO CLEAR HOUSING CASES-- Sarasota Herald Tribune, http://www.heraldtribune.com, Sept. 6, 2010].
From The New York Times:Earlier this year, Florida earmarked $9.6 million to set up foreclosures-only courts across the state, staffed by retired judges. The goal of the program, which began in July, is to reduce the foreclosures backlog by 62 percent within a year. No one disputes that foreclosures dominate Florida’s dockets and that something needs to be done to streamline a complex and emotionally wrenching process. However, lawyers representing troubled borrowers contend that many of the retired judges called in from the sidelines to oversee these matters are so focused on cutting the caseload that they are unfairly favoring financial institutions at the expense of homeowners. In any event, huge numbers of cases are being handled. For example, in the Sept. 1 issue of The Florida Bar News, Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Belvin Perry Jr. said that during July, 1,319 cases had been closed by three senior judges in the district's two counties, Orange and Osceola.
GRASSROOTS EFFORT LEADS TO ATTORNEY GENERAL PROBE-- Daily Business Review, http://www.dailybusinessreview.com, Sept. 7, 2010.
Lisa Epstein, an unemployed oncology nurse, and Michael Redman, a former online salesman for Toyota, never planned to be on the front line of the foreclosure crisis. That happened when they independently mounted campaigns to challenge a system they say is stacked against consumers and where courts are more focused on moving cases than dispensing justice. For nearly a year, Epstein and Redman have spent countless hours in South Florida courthouses scrutinizing foreclosure documents filed by lenders’ lawyers. They have sent copies of filings they consider improper — including potentially fabricated documents and many with signatures they believe are forged — to the Florida attorney general, the FBI, Florida legislators, the U.S. attorney, The Florida Bar and other agencies urging probes of the law firms that filed them. Now, it seems their efforts have paid off. Last month, the Florida Attorney General's Office began investigating whether Florida's largest foreclosure law firms had submitted false affidavits and other documents in order to obtain final judgments against property owners whose properties were in foreclosure.
FLORIDA PANEL TAKES AIM AT LEGAL INJUSTICES-- The Palm Beach Post, http://www.palmbeachpost.com, Sept. 5, 2010.
Across the country, 258 men and women - all wrongly convicted of crimes - have been exonerated by DNA evidence. In Florida, 12 men have been freed from prison since 2000 after DNA evidence proved their innocence, some after serving time on Death Row. The Florida Supreme Court has created the Florida Innocence Commission to learn what went wrong in these cases and to propose reforms. Florida becomes the 10th state to study the causes of wrongful convictions. The commission will have its initial meeting Friday [Sept. 10] in Tallahassee, with its first report due to the state's high court in June and a final one due a year later.
GULF OIL SPILL: WILL CUTTING STATE OF EMERGENCY HURT CLAIMS?-- Daily Business Review, http://www.dailybusinessreview.com, Sept. 7, 2010.
The governor has vastly scaled back the number of Florida counties covered by a state of emergency following the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but attorneys suing BP and its rig partners say it won’t affect their claims. However, some speculate BP’s lawyers could use it to the oil company’s advantage. Although oil didn't directly have a visible impact on most Florida counties, hotels, restaurants and others claim that didn’t stop tourists from canceling trips. And some believe the oil hurt distant wildlife, especially some species of fish, whether scientists have come to that conclusion or not. In the weeks following the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, Gov. Charlie Crist placed all 26 coastal counties in the state from the Florida Panhandle to Palm Beach on the list. Crist revised the list on Aug. 26, keeping only seven Panhandle counties under emergency protection.
[Revised: 09-08-2010]
© 2005 The Florida Bar | Disclaimer | Top of page | 