The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

Senate Confirms New Judges—With More Votes Possible This Week

Updated 2:20 p.m.

The lame-duck Senate continued to confirm federal judges at its quickest pace of the year, while more judicial nominations stand ready for votes when the Senate returns to Capitol Hill on Thursday.

The Senate confirmed five more district court judges in Pennsylvania, California and Illinois last week, for a total of 13 confirmations so far in December. That makes this month the second most active for filling the federal bench during this session of Congress, only behind the 15 confirmations made in October 2011, according to statistics from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

On Friday, the Senate confirmed Jon Tigar as a U.S. district judge for the Northern District of California, as well as two district judges Friday to the Middle District of Pennsylvania – Matthew Brann and Malachy Mannion. Those bench positions had been declared judicial emergencies and had been open for more than two years, prompting Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) to write a letter to Senate leadership in September, urging confirmation votes.

The rapid pace has all but eliminated the backlog of judicial nominees only awaiting action by the full Senate. There are now only six district court nominees awaiting votes before the Senate – four of which were approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee this month. For months, the backlog became a major point of contention between Democrats, who argued Republicans were needlessly delaying confirmation votes, and Republicans, who said the pace of confirmations was similar to previous presidents.

The Morning Wrap

Come Together: President Barack Obama cuts his vacation short to return to Washington today to deal with the fiscal crisis, and Starbucks Corp. will use its ubiquitous coffee cups to tell U.S. lawmakers to come up with a deal to avoid going over the fiscal cliff, Reuters reports.

Weak Watchdog: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' ability to thwart gun violence is hamstrung by legislative restrictions and by loopholes in federal gun laws, The New York Times reports.

Worst CEOs: Brian Dunn, who resigned as chief executive of Best Buy after allegations surfaced that he had an inappropriate relationship with a much younger subordinate, tops Bloomberg Businessweek's list of the worst CEOs of 2012. Also included are the heads of Research in Motion, Netflix and Hewlett-Packard.

Former Bush Lawyer Charged with Destruction of Government Property

Updated 5:36 p.m.

A former George W. Bush administration lawyer who once faced jail time for contempt of Congress was charged today in a separate, related offense: destruction of government property.

The saga of Scott Bloch, the former head of the Office of Special Counsel, spans several years. Bloch pleaded guilty in Washington federal district court in April 2010 to the misdemeanor contempt charge of contempt of Congress. Bloch, his lawyer and prosecutors settled on a deal for probation. But that agreement was never implemented.

A federal magistrate judge in Washington, Deborah Robinson, determined the contempt charge carries a one-month minimum mandatory jail sentence. Bloch wanted to end the deal, saying he was unaware of the jail penalty. When Robinson refused to allow him to withdraw the guilty plea, Bloch challenged the decision and successfully walked away from the case. No jail.

This afternoon, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, under a new case number, filed a misdemeanor charge of destruction of government property—at a value of under $1,000—stemming from Bloch's effort to erase files from work computers. In the contempt case, prosecutors had accused Bloch of not being forthright in an interview with congressional investigators about the effort to scrub data from government computers.

D.C. Councilmember Tommy Wells Tapped to Lead Judiciary Committee

D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D) announced yesterday that Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) will take over for Mendelson as chair of the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary in the new year.

Wells, who holds a law degree, has served on the D.C. Council since 2006. In a release on his website, he said that he asked for the committee, which oversees a slew of law enforcement agencies and partners with entities not directly under the city's control, including the local court system and the U.S. attorney's office, which serves as the city's local prosecutor for most felony and misdemeanor cases.

"Whether focusing on improving public safety in our neighborhoods, assuring the District is prepared for emergencies, or working with our judicial and court systems, this committee has an enormous impact on every District resident," he said.

FEC Elects New Chair and Vice Chair for 2013

The Federal Election Commission elected a new chair, Ellen Weintraub, and vice chair, Donald McGahn II, yesterday to lead the six-person body in 2013.

Weintraub, who served as vice chair last year, first joined the commission in 2002. She previously served as chair in 2003. Before she was appointed to the commission, Weintraub was of counsel to Perkins Coie in the firm's political law group and had worked as a litigator at Cahill Gordon & Reindel.

Prior to going into private practice at Perkins, Weintraub served as counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, also known as the House Ethics Committee.

Judge Voids Challenge of Senate Filibuster Rule

A federal judge in Washington this morning dismissed a lawsuit that alleged the U.S. Senate filibuster rule is unconstitutional.

The judge, Emmet Sullivan of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said "reaching the merits of this case would require an invasion" into internal Senate processes and "would thus express a lack of respect for the Senate as a coordinate branch of government."

"The court acknowledges at the outset that the Filibuster Rule is an important and controversial issue," Sullivan wrote. In recent years, the judge continued, "even the mere threat of a filibuster is powerful enough to completely forestall legislative action. However, this court finds itself powerless to address this issue for two independent reasons."

Sullivan said the plaintiffs, the government accountability group Common Cause, four members of the House of Representatives and three individuals, do not have legal standing to challenge the filibuster rule. The judge rejected the argument that vote nullification—the alleged injury among the House members—reaches the threshold for legal standing.

Venable Announces New Partner-in-Charge in Rockville, Md. Office

Venable will kick off 2013 with a new partner-in-charge of its Rockville, Md., office in Montgomery County, the firm announced this week.

Mitchell Mirviss, a co-chairman of Venable's appellate advocacy group, on January 1 will take the reins of the office from Paul Glasgow, who is working to expand his business litigation practice at the firm. The office has about a dozen lawyers, half of which are there full time.

Mirviss said he is excited to help a group of "excellent lawyers" continue their work to develop their practices.

The Morning Wrap

Missing data: From The New York Times today: "Nearly two decades after lawmakers began requiring background checks for gun buyers, significant gaps in the F.B.I.’s database of criminal and mental health records allow thousands of people to buy firearms every year who should be barred from doing so." The Wall Street Journal has this story today: "Lack of Data Slows Studies of Gun Control and Crime." The National Rifle Association is scheduled today to meet with reporters.

Dismissed: A New York state appeals panel upheld the dismissal of a class action that accused New York Law School of misleading potential students about graduates' success in the legal market, The New York Law Journal reports.

Onward to trial: Prosecutors will be allowed to use the cocaine and cash evidence seized in 2005 in the landmark GPS tracking case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The presiding judge in Washington federal district court, Ellen Segal Huvelle, concluded that federal agents had already targeted a drug stash house before the installation of the tracking device. The high court this year ruled the warrantless use of the device violated Fourth Amendment rights.

In GPS Tracking Case, Judge Keeps Alive Drug Evidence

Prosecutors in Washington this evening can rest easier. A judge declined to rule out as evidence the hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and cocaine that the government wants to connect to Antoine Jones, the man who was at the center of the landmark GPS surveillance case in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The high court earlier this year voided the GPS data the government relied on at trial to link Jones to a drug stash house in Maryland. But that left open whether the government would be allowed to tell jurors all about the stuff that was found in the residence.

Ruling for the government this evening, U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle said federal agents—a day before the installation of the tracking device in September 2005—determined the likely location of the drug house in Maryland. The judge's ruling is here.

Huvelle also said that even if Jones "could demonstrate a causal nexus between the GPS data and the location of the stash house," the government wins under the "inevitable discovery doctrine." The prosecution's evidence: $850,000 in cash and 97 kilograms of powder cocaine.

In Mail Theft Sting, Postal Service Uses Electronic Tracking Device

Ever wonder how the U.S. Postal Service investigates a potential rogue mail carrier—someone who's peeking into your card not to see what a relative said about your birthday but to grab any cash?

Here are the tools, as described in court documents in a Washington federal district court case: "Test letters," physical surveillance, undercover post office boxes and electronic tracking devices.

The Postal Service earlier this year received a bunch of complaints about missing packages and letters in one neighborhood in the District. An investigation revealed that a carrier named Ronald Pretlow was assigned to the route where the residents were complaining.

This summer, investigators inserted two "test letters"—cards addressed to homes that did not exist--in Pretlow's mail bag. Internal rules require mail carriers to write "no such number" on the letter and return it to the post office from which it was received. The postal service is supposed to send the mail back to the return address.