{"id":112,"date":"2009-11-26T21:57:57","date_gmt":"2009-11-27T02:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richardhornsby.com\/?p=112"},"modified":"2009-11-26T21:57:57","modified_gmt":"2009-11-27T02:57:57","slug":"judge-karen-this-turkey-is-no-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/judge-karen-this-turkey-is-no-expert\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Karen: This Turkey is no Expert"},"content":{"rendered":"

In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday, I thought I would take this time to talk turkey with you.<\/p>\n

You see, I received a lot of heat for my criticism<\/a> of he who I shall not mention by name anymore, but I was most surprised by the opinions of other experts used to prove I was wrong. And when pressed, the only other expert they referred to was none other than “Judge” Karen Mills-Francis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As most of my unfaithful readers probably know by now, Jose Baez made a stop during his whirlwind media tour on ISSUES with Jane Velez-Mitchell<\/a> to discuss his Motion in Limine to Introduce Prior Bad Acts of … Roy M. Kronk.<\/p>\n

As guest “experts,” Jane also had Florida prosecutor Stacy Honowitz and Judge Karen to act as counterpoints to Mr. Baez (a law student would have sufficed).<\/p>\n

And while Ms. Honowitz was about as enlightening as a rock, Judge Karen provided the opinion that has been re-posted as black letter law in every chat room on the Internet.<\/p>\n

Here is the relevant exchange from the show’s transcript<\/a>:<\/p>\n

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Judge Karen Mills Francis, you`re the judge. Do you think the judge in this case will let this evidence, this evidence that the defense says it has collected, in involving Roy Kronk?<\/p>\n

JUDGE KAREN MILLS FRANCIS, HOST, “JUDGE KAREN SHOW”: Well, you know, I`ve been pretty hard on Mr. Baez throughout this whole process. I was a criminal defense attorney for 13 years before I was a judge. I looked at his motion. It`s called a motion in limine. In Florida, a motion in limine is to exclude evidence but his motion is asking the court to allow evidence. There is no such motion in Florida<\/span>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Additionally, he`s asking the court to allow evidence of what`s known as prior bad acts. In Florida, it`s called the Williams rule. That`s a prosecution motion. The prosecution can bring in evidence of the defendant`s prior bad acts to show motive, intent, lack of mistake.<\/p>\n

I have never heard of a defense attorney filing a Williams rule motion to show prior bad acts of a witness. But let`s say for the sake of argument it`s a legitimate motion<\/span>.<\/strong> Under the Williams rule, he has to be able to show that there`s sufficient elements in the prior bad acts that fit with the elements in this case, and I don`t think he has that here.<\/p>\n

He`s got…<\/p>\n

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I got to tell you that Jose Baez is shaking his head<\/strong>, but he doesn`t really want to respond. But he`s shaking his head.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Before I go any further, I would like to focus on the very last part – JOSE BAEZ WAS SHAKING HIS HEAD<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Let me tell you something, I don’t have a lot of requirements in life, just the basics like food, water, and a decent place to sleep. But I am making the following addition to those requirements:<\/p>\n

If Jose Baez ever shakes his head at me in disagreement I better be 100% correct.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"
Jose Baez shook his head.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As I have explained at various places before, a Motion in Limine is not just a motion to EXCLUDE evidence. Rather a Motion in Limine is a motion to determine the admissibility of evidence – meaning whether evidence will be admitted or excluded based upon the Florida Evidence Code.<\/p>\n

I even provided a citation to State of Florida v. Oliver, 977 So. 2d 673 (Fla. 5th DCA 2008)<\/a>, a Fifth District Court of Appeals case where it was the State Attorney filing a Motion in Limine to Admit Evidence. And to further hammer the point home, I provided the search results<\/a> from Google Scholar; which shows over 280 reported cases where such a motion has been filed.<\/p>\n

I also pointed out that contrary to Judge Karen’s claim she has “never heard of a defense attorney filing a Williams rule motion” before and, by negative inference, statement the motion was illegitimate, that there are three Florida Supreme Court<\/a> cases directly on point.<\/p>\n

These cases specifically authorize what Judge Karen denies, that Williams Rule Evidence can be introduced by the Defense. See Rivera v. State of Florida, 561 So.2d 536<\/a> (Fla. 1990); White v. State of Florida, 817 So.2d 799<\/a> (Fla.2002); and State of Florida v. Savino, 567 So. 2d 892 <\/a>(Fla.1990).<\/p>\n

And to put the final nail in the coffin, I provided Simpson v. State, 3 So. 3d 1135 (Fla. 2009)<\/a>, which was a Florida Supreme Court decision decided this year which specifically dealt with a defense “motion seeking a pretrial ruling on the admissibility of alleged ‘reverse Williams rule’ evidence.”<\/p>\n

So let us return to the real “earth-shaking insight” of that interview, with is none other than the fact that Jose Baez shook his head in disagreement with Judge Karen. Let me repeat that:<\/p>\n

Jose Baez shook his head in disagreement with Judge Karen<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now this is Jose Baez, an attorney who has looked like a bumbling fool in every major evidentiary hearing he has conducted on the case. This is Jose Baez who, until this motion, rarely cited one applicable case in support of his motion. (I would like to mention Mr. Baez recently won a major felony case, and I respect that.)<\/p>\n

But more importantly, this is Jose Baez, who I have never seen shake his head in disagreement with another attorney’s legal opinion before. So he must have been pretty confident about this issue…<\/p>\n

We know Judge Karen was utterly clueless about the body of law concerning similar fact evidence or Williams Rule Evidence; you just can’t deny she was clueless about the body of law. And this is what I think about that:<\/p>\n

And I think that anyone who goes onto television and gets their head shaken at by Jose Baez needs a closer look; so I did just that.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

IMDb<\/a> says Judge Karen graduated from the University of Florida College of Law<\/a> (my Alma Matter as well) in 1987 and the Florida Bar says she was admitted in 1989. Now why it took her at least two bar exam cycles to be admitted is something I don’t know. However, her IMDb profile indicates she was an excellent student, so I assume she took a year off – nothing more. (Then again, Mr. Baez passed on his first attempt but was not admitted until several years later).<\/p>\n

Anyway,\u00a0 we know she has been licensed for about twenty years and according to IMDb, her career went like this:<\/p>\n