We are seeing the Peter Principle at work here. Somehow Aileen Cannon has risen to a job that she is incompetent to do, and unless she’s removed from that job, she’ll continue to bungle it, if history is our guide. Cannon keeps making rookie mistakes and this one truly takes the cake. She had a trial in which a man, Christopher Tavorris Wilkins, had allegedly thrown a chair at a prosecutor and threatened to kill him. This incident was on tape. His case came before the court and the Jury Instruction did not contain the choice, “Not Guilty” which is pretty binary, a person is either “Guilty” or “Not Guilty.” Daily Beast:
“How far does somebody have to go to school to say that a verdict form is supposed to say guilty and not guilty?” asked defense lawyer Jeffrey Garland. “That would be one of the more egregious versions of jury instruction error… it’s such a rare error.”
Garland formally filed an appeal on Thursday and hopes to overturn a case that’s as black-and-white as they come—on a technicality.
“This is the judge’s deal. This is nobody else’s deal. I’m gonna tell ya, I’ve done a lot of appeals, and I’ve got a pretty good winning record. This is a great issue,” he said. “For a guy who’s on tape throwing a chair in court, it’s pretty ‘not good’ behavior. It would have been simple. You have a trial, properly instruct a jury, give them a form, and the jury’s gonna do what the jury’s gonna do.” […]
Cannon first came to people’s attention last year, when Trump’s lawyers were chastened by a judge who accused them of trying to game the judicial assignment system in a brazen attempt to have her oversee a conspiracy-laden lawsuit against political rival Hillary Clinton.
But she gained notoriety when Trump sued to block the feds from investigating Mar-a-Lago and she was oddly assigned the case, despite being in a distant corner of the district far from Trump’s mansion. Cannon immediately began to issue bizarre orders that froze the investigation—until appellate judges told her to back off. A court screwup even exposed how she was bending over backwards to appease the man who appointed her.
But now she’s come under fire over her inexperience.
Last month, The New York Times discovered that Cannon has only handled four trials, collectively accounting for just 14 days in court—less than three weeks of experience before handling a potential turning point for American democracy. Last week, Reuters exposed how Cannon kept family members of an accused viewer of child sex abuse locked out of her courtroom during some of his trial in June, violating his Sixth Amendment rights to have a public trial—and somehow forgot to swear in the prospective jury pool, the most basic of mandatory procedures.
Something is amiss, here. Judges don’t forget to swear in jury pools or omit basics from jury instructions. The woman is not playing with a full deck. Maybe the scrutiny is getting to her. Maybe she should never have been on a list of prospective appointees to begin with. But she keeps screwing up. At the very least, maybe a leave of absence would do her some good.
I feel like they are degrading and damaging our legal system by doing things like; A CONSPIRACY-LADEN LAWSUIT AGAINST POLITICAL RIVAL HILLARY CLINTON.
Their standard procedure seems to be to bring charges without the first shred of truth.
All I can do is shake my head. Then, they find a judge who seems to fit right in their scheme.
Time for Rany Rainbow to remake an old “ear wash” song, to go something like:
“COME ON Aileen, oh Come On Aileen
You are clueless, Recuse and just go way!”
I wrote about her foibles myself but maybe since you’re a better writer and have a much larger following more people will take notice of just how unqualified she is to be handling a federal trial, ANY federal trial much less something as important as one that literally is about NATIONAL SECURITY. I think Jack Smith has know it all along and has a rough draft of something at the ready which can and will be updated at the appropriate time.
What I mean is that odds are overwhelming Cannon will issue a ruling that anyone but a MAGA knows SCREAMS for appeal and for which there are rock solid legal grounds to do so. When that happens, when she issues some boneheaded ruling with no basis in law it will open the door to bring up other stuff like this. I don’t know that the appellate court has the authority to remove her from the case but if I’m not mistaken the Chief Judge in her District does and the appellate court can and likely would “suggest” she’s “out of her depth” and that she should be replaced with a more experienced judge. Would they go so far as to suggest the Florida Bar recommend some continuing education? Maybe not, or at least not on the record but some quiet lunches or dinners might be had where that might be raised.
I still think The Federalist Society has a couple of experts who have been down there (or already lived nearby) who have been “coaching” her to help her help Trump but do so in a way that passes muster. And he most recent order to prosecutors questioning basic law and grand jury procedures is her blowing them off, stepping off the reservation. SHE after all is a Federalist Society groomed federal judge although I suspect at this point they are realizing they got too loose in their evaluations of who they recommended for federal judgeships. They are certainly getting a lot of unwanted attention these days and she’s become an embarrassment. If they can’t control her they just might cut her loose and go to the FL Bar themselves!
Our ‘legal system’ has been a pile of stinking garbage from the jump. It was set up by the racist rich and designed to promote their interests at the expense of the powerless,(95%), the rest of us. That’s why cannabis has remained against the law federally for 50 years, as the criminal Richard Nixon intended. 700,000 citizens get arrested yearly since 1971, and it’s the reason it remains a cash business in states that have legalized it recreationally,(18). Meanwhile the death industries, alcohol, tobbaco, fossil fuels, pharmaceuticals, and chemical companies pile up the bodies. Good thing the American public is stupid, lazy, and ignorant. Chickens that continue to vote power to the butchers.
Don’t forget that prisons were privatized so all the marijuana “crimes” filled the coffers of those prison corporations who were paid by the government by head count.
Sometimes you just can’t fix stupid. The magats prove this every day and this silly-ass “judge” proves it with disturbing regularity. We can’t fix the stupid so we either live with the stupid and somehow try to shield ourselves and everything else from the stupidity or we just get rid of the stupid. Don’t care how we get rid of them really. As easily and cheaply as possible I guess.
She would be challenged handling traffic court cases and her lack of credentials must have been known to whoever it is approves case assignments. Something is very rotten in Florida and Smith has every reason to ask for a change in venue.
Something rotten in Florida? That’s an understatement! What ISN’T rotten in Florida? It’s a disgrace to the rest of the country.
This Judge has a proven record, perhaps a little short for long term averages that bean counters rely on …
Do you suppose she has trouble finding her reserved parking space in that small town where her micro-dot courtroom is the biggest politically biased thing for miles around?
Her space would naturally have a small but cool sign, “This space reserved for the Honorable Judge, Aileen Cannon …”, but she would be so busy trying to remember where her office was, the sign would be barely adequate …
It IS scary to think what the Republicans, with their seemingly huge stash of money have been doing and will continue to do to make the GOP, “guilty-as-charged”, in so many ways … Those ass-kissers that pollute our House, Gym Jordon, Matt rusty Gates, M.T.G., various Gun worshipers and others … They have NOT done ANYTHING to improve our lives, security, or job adaptions to new technology and needs of the masses … The biggest money people own the GOP, pushing to get blood out of the turnips, as we float into a rising ocean of dirty water that should be a priority to make clean and clear for drinking …
It’s alright though, Trump will begin to glow as wings sprout from his shoulders and he promises millions of other things he cannot possibly deliver …
It’s only right that Trump goes into lockdown, his threats that keep the violent Magas always ready, are growing in intensity and frequency, time for him to be gathered up by the Marshal’s who will be directed to do so, (or DRAGGED) into Court under armed guard …
I can see Trump stomping around, crying real tears, while wearing the latest thing in cuffs and leg irons … “but I only sent a few secret docs to the Saudi’s with my son-in-law” …
Look how that paid off!! 2 billion dollars !!! …
My supposition is that she has trouble finding her own a$$ with her hands tied behind her back.
You may be right. Alas, one a$$ she has found is Trump’s and her lips are surgically attached to it.
This really exposes the shallowness of The Federalist Society’s ‘philosophy’. Anyone who has any ability can’t be a member unless they are corrupt. And when corruption becomes a requirement, intelligence and competence go out the window. She really is the best their money can buy.
And what a record! Can it really be that she has run only four trials- and two of them, half !!, are having to be redone because of her basic incompetence? Even if she had run ten trials, that failure rate should disqualify her. In a fair world she would be dismissed from her position, back to being a lawyer. Then, at least her ineptitude would only affect her client, not our jurisprudence.
But we are in a world with Trump in it.
I’ve got a lot of problems with the f.s., probably goes without saying I guess. The big problem I have is their hypocrisy. They base their legal “reasoning” on the federalist papers (loosely mind you but that’s another tldr). Ok but since they are reading stuff written by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay (or Publius) and they reason these guys were there when the constitution was written, used these papers in the bid to ratify the constitution. Ok. Three guys. Right. There were other writings and written musings by others involved in the ratification process and even things written by the person who drafted the Declaration of Independence: Thomas Jefferson. Why are these others, who were part of the process (the publius folks were not the only ones you know and maybe not even the major ones), NOT treated with the same weight and gravity as the publius’? What about T.J.’s thoughts on freedom including of religion (or none whatsoever)? Nothing is ever mentioned by these f.s. people about the fact that the found fathers were deists: they believed in a higher power but shunned organized religion like a pox-ridden prostitute. What about the fact that Madison and Jefferson opposed the Federalist Party (headed by Hamilton) and created another political party (Democratic-Republican Party)? Sounds to me like there were progenitors of not only our nation but also of our constitution who maybe did not agree with each other-perhaps to the point of even changing their mind about positions taken when writing the federalist papers. Don’t tell me that is not possible. When you create a whole other political party to separate yourself from another one, there are some disagreements with either concepts themselves or the interpretation of concepts.
Yeah, cherry picking, particularly when used to take away rights or not even allow the rights is a bad look. It looks like an ill-fitting speedo on these f.s. a-holes.