The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - #BecauseMiami: Lets Get Ready to Rundle

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

This week on Because Miami, we find the common theme in today's show is Katherine Fernandez Rundle and her inability to do her job as "Top Cop" a.k.a Miami Dade State Attorney. First, Billy Corben talks to Melba Pearson, the director of Prosecution Projects at Florida International University, about how two of Rundle's top prosecutors was thrown off the trial of Corey Smith for which they're seeking the death penalty. Nicholas Griffin, who has written play about the riots that happened after the acquittal of the cops who murdered Arthur McDuffie in 1980, comes on to teach us the history. And David Winker, an attorney out of Miami, who says that a federal judge ruling against the redistricting in Miami may lead to the entire city commission to have special elections. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Catherine Fernandez Rundle has been the state attorney in Miami-Dade County for more than 30 years. Rundle's office was state attorney in Miami-Dade County for more than 30 years. Rundle's office was seeking the death penalty against Corey Smith. On the eve of resentencing, a Miami-Dade judge disqualified two of Rundle's top prosecutors, accusing them in a written order of misconduct and alleging they were manipulating witness testimony in a death penalty case. Rundle's office denied it did anything wrong, but during the hearing,

it was revealed that Rundle's office would allegedly bring prisoners who would testify in their cases to the Miami Police Department to coordinate their stories before going to court, allegedly rewarding them with food, alcohol, and wait for it, the ability to have sex with their girlfriends in the

police department's interview rooms. Mayors come and go, police chiefs come and go, commissioners come and go, except if you're Joe Carollo then you're around forever. But if you want to know what's wrong with the community, you have to look at the constants. You have to look at what doesn't change. And Catherine Fernandez-Rundle has been the top cop in Miami-Dade County for 31 years. So if you want to say, why is Miami so broken?

Why is it so corrupt? Why isn't anything work right? Why don't people in the public sector behave ethically or legally or constitutionally? It's because the person responsible for holding them accountable has abdicated her responsibility for over three decades. And that is generations of law enforcement, generations of lawyers, generations of judges who have not existed in a real criminal justice system, but in Cathy Court, in this kind of backwards world where it's not what is ethical or legal or constitutional, it's whatever her whim is.

And Roy, for the entire 31 years that she has been in office, she has never once prosecuted a law enforcement officer for an on duty killing. That's Cathy Court with a K, right? Yeah. Cathy Court with a K. And this is a disturbing thing because while the media, which is also kind of abdicated, its responsibility as the fourth estate to hold these public officials accountable because many times, right, Cathy Rundle has run unopposed and the media doesn't say anything about it.

And when a mayor runs for office, a mayor who may have no power in some local town here, they cover it like it's a presidential race. But this position is one of, if not, the most powerful positions in the state of Florida, the largest county, crime-ridden, I mean, a target-rich environment for public corruption and yet nothing. We get no justice. Katherine Fernandez Rundle and state's attorney in Florida have the power to deprive any of us of life, liberty or property at any time

and she does not wield that power ethically or responsibly. She does it politically for her own survival. And this year, she is running for what will be her eighth consecutive term. And so far, nobody has filed to run against her. And now she is completely caught up in one of the worst misconduct scandals I think I've ever seen anywhere one of her veteran prosecutors who worked was her like right-hand man for 28 years was just disqualified as you heard Jim DeFede from CBS say from a death penalty case for gross

prosecutorial misconduct These are alleged crimes that these prosecutors committed that Kathy Rundle has put people in jail for less. You're talking about witness tampering, obstruction of justice. You're talking about alleged conspiracy to commit witness murder. Michael Van Zamth was not a prosecutor. He was a f***ing gangster.

Now someone who was brave enough to take on the establishment here in Miami-Dade County is Melba Pearson. She was a former homicide prosecutor in the Miami-Dade state attorney's office for 16 years. She was a former deputy director of ACLU of Florida. She's currently the director of prosecution projects at Florida International University and she did at one time challenge Kathy for state attorney four years ago. Melba, thank you for being here. Also, thank you for your bravery for speaking up. I find it's very hard to do that. In this case that we're talking about today, the Cory Smith case, he was the

alleged leader of the so-called John Doe gang back in the 90s, a drug, violent drug gang in the Liberty City area here in Miami. Cory Smith's attorneys, who are trying to keep him off of death row, are from out of town. They're not local. They're from Florida, but it always seems to me Mel, but that it's people from out of town with some objectivity that come in and finally,

it's like the emperor's new clothes. They're like looking around in Miami and go, what the hell is this? This doesn't work anywhere in the 66 other counties of Florida. And I just want to thank you for, you know, your bravery. You've always been willing to step up, step out,

be a voice for reason and state the obvious. Why is it that so many people are afraid to tell the truth? The emperor has no clothes. First of all, thank you for having me on, Billy. And yeah, I think the reality is people are just scared. They find that their political fortunes are tied to the belief that if she's mad at them, then they're never going to be able to move forward. They're afraid of backlash.

They're afraid of, you know, money going in their pockets. But listen, my parents raised me with the lessons of the civil rights movement. That change does not come without blood, sweat and tears. of the civil rights movement, that change does not come without blood, sweat, and tears. And I felt that as someone that was blessed to be able to have a lot of opportunities, to be able to have voice, to be able to build my career in this way, it was important for me to give back by speaking the truth, by standing side by side with people that are marginalized, by standing with people who have been harmed by that system. That's something that has always been important to me,

which is why it was a natural progression to speak out whether while I was a prosecutor, and if a cop acted inappropriately, being one to run it all the way up the flag chain, if it was a flagpole, excuse me, if it was at the ACLU, fighting for, fighting for voting rights, fighting for, you know, people who are transgender, whatever the case may be, whatever they want to do to express their lives and live happily, stand in solidarity with them. So it was an outgrowth of all that work why

I decided to take on and run against, you boss because I thought that there was a better way to approach things. But again, I was warned all the way along the way, oh my gosh, this is going to be the end. You're going to have to leave Florida. You're never going to be able to survive. Well, guess what, y'all, I'm still here. God damn right.

So, and the reason why I'm saying that it's not like a game Melba but it's also don't be afraid to speak out. Oh, because democracy like the Washington Post says democracy dies in darkness. And if we're not here speaking out and speaking truth, the power and voting and using our voices, we're never going to see the change that we want in this community. Melba, I often say Florida rarely shocks me, but regularly disappoints me.

This is shocking to me. What's going on in this case is shocking. I mean, I've always believed that there is no more dangerous gang, forget the John Doe gang, than the state attorney's office here in Miami-Dade. When it comes to street gangs, there is recourse. There is criminal justice.

There is accountability. Who polices the state attorney's office? And what stands out about this injustice system here in the state attorney's office in Miami-Dade that makes the Corey Smith case, in your opinion, extraordinary? So the sad part is, I wouldn't say it's fully extraordinary. Oof. Because I think there was a crew of folks at the state attorney's office who I gave

very wide birth to and made it very clear if I was elected that that would be the crew that would be first fired that were able to operate with impunity. Because I think about the line prosecutors who, you know, two years in three years and five years in, they don't have the discretion to be able to move in this fashion, right? That's just not even an option. But when you get further up and you feel more emboldened, you feel more insulated because you've been there for 20 years, 30 years, whatever the case may be, or better yet, you were there for 20 something years, retired, and then was brought back to continue doing, you know, whatever it was

in your secret office, thus denying good people the opportunity to move up. And of course, keeping that insular nature of those folks who can, you know, have the state attorney's ear and can, you know, handle cases however they see fit, I'm not stunned. And also Michael Van Zout is somebody who has never been a good person and he has never been about the right thing. And I'm saying that publicly because I know this firsthand. And for the state attorney not to know what he was about, yeah, that is a whole water for me.

She, you know, I believe that he is just one of her hitters. And, you know, maybe she didn't know part in parcel every single thing he was doing. But he has been operating in that manner, as you stated for 28 years. So this isn't like he just brand new popped up last week and did something unethical. That's basically how he's always conducted business. And there was always this crew, especially of male, senior male prosecutors that somehow got themselves confused and thought that they were police officers. Because let's be very clear. The role of a prosecutor is very different from that of a police officer. You don't go in and make arrests. You don't go in and try to get confessions out of people.

That is not your role. That is left to the police department, the detectives, so that way they can be called to the stand and you can have them testify. If you insert yourself in the case, you now make yourself open yourself up to having to testify at trial, which is something no prosecutor wants to do. So, again, I am not surprised that this all came to a head. I'm saddened because it's only the good work of the good people in that office who you know want

no part of this and actually want to help people but they want to do it the right way not doing the end justifies the means and throwing the Constitution out the door. Judge Andrea Wolfson who disqualified you from the case, and you're right, he did wind up testifying, he had to, in this disqualification hearing. She said, rarely do we get a smoking gun, never do we get a Perry Mason moment in court. And in this case, they absolutely did. In this stunning recorded call, this is with an inmate in prison.

And this is Michael Van Zandt, the prosecutor, talking to a man who is serving a very long sentence for murder. And among those murders, a witness murder. And you'll hear him talking about making a witness in this case who no longer wants to cooperate with him make her quote, unavailable, end quote. If I call her and she refuses, then I will find a way to make her unavailable and then I can read her whole testimony.

He replies, you really want to do that? That's what the guy says. And this is a guy, you can't remove the context from the situation. This is a guy in prison in part for witness murder and he's talking about making her unavailable. He means like legally unavailable but this guy goes you really want to do that? I mean it is chilling and they played that out loud in court. Melba that's not just acting like a police officer like I said earlier that's acting like a police officer. Like I said earlier, that's acting like a gangster. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Because again, why are you talking to a witness about making this one unavailable

and that one unavailable? You shouldn't be trying to coordinate the statements between your witnesses. The witnesses should be telling the truth. So you speak to each witness individually, understand what they want to are able to testify to or what they know. And then you're not talking about other witnesses testimony to another witness. You don't do that. That's unethical. You just don't do

that. So to even go further and talk about legal unavailability to a lay person who doesn't necessarily understand what that means, but they understand from a straight perspective how to make somebody unavailable, you're setting yourself up for disaster. So again, that's why you don't go into those waters because hello, danger girl Jaws is out there, right? So you have no business having these kinds of discussions. We got 10 seconds, but I have to ask you, is this an isolated

incident? Or is this a pattern or practice of not only gross misconduct, but unconstitutional and even criminal behavior on the part of the Miami Dade State Attorney's Office? I will say unequivocally, this is not an isolated incident, not only with Michael Van Zand Sam, but with other senior attorneys in the office. There are others who have come through the office and done something similar and have left, but of those that still remain, I think there's much more, much, much more to be investigated, to be revealed. And I am hopeful that all the truth will be revealed in short

order because this is unacceptable and it's shameful. Melba Pearson, thanks so much for being here. Thank you, Billy. Are you tired of snooty wines and their old world wine culture confused by words like malolactic fermentation? Yeah, we are too. So with 19 crimes, you can do the fancy schmancy tilt sip smell. Oh, I think it tastes like old red cherry a little bit of wood and mahogany little leather. You

can do all that stuff or don't. 19 crimes is the rebel of wine culture telling stories of rogues and rule breakers who overcame adversities from convicts banished to Australia to the legendary icon Snoop Dogg himself. 19 Crimes Wine is defiant by nature, bold in character, and always uncompromising. 19 Crimes, the official wine of the UFC, pick up in stores nationwide or online at 19crimes.com. Enjoy Responsibly copyright 2024, Sonoma, California. He was a black insurance man named Arthur McDuffie, and he died after an altercation with Metro- Dade police. The officers involved were charged with the cover up of the incident only to be found.

Not guilty. So say we all. David H. Fisher Foreman. What happened after that is history. Three days of riots, 18 people dead. We are human beings and we want to be treated like human beings. Roy, earlier when we were talking to Melba Pearson about the John Doe gang in

Liberty City, there was a lot of assumptions made at the time when they busted up this gang that John Doe was a reference of assumptions made at the time when they busted up this gang that John Doe was a reference for like bodies they were dropping on the street but the reality is the origin of that name is when Arthur McDuffie was brought by police to Jackson Memorial Trauma Center after they beat him nearly to death he would die at the hospital very shortly thereafter they put him under the name John Doe probably you know at the beginning of shortly thereafter, they put him under the name John Doe, probably at the beginning of the cover-up here

of this police murder. And so his family maybe couldn't find him, and while they were getting their story straight and trying to get this cover-up rolling, they could buy some time. And the John Doe gang named themselves the John Doe gang because that was what Arthur McDuffie was admitted, that was the

name he was admitted under in December of 1979 before Christmas by police officers who beat him ultimately to death. Nicholas Griffin is the author of one of the greatest books, maybe the greatest book. I'm always sorry Nick, I'm always awesome. Is it the greatest book? It's one of the greatest books ever written about Miami, the year of dangerous days. It is so good. It is about Miami in the year 1980, which I would argue is one of the most single consequential years in an American city ever in history. All of the social, political, cultural upheaval that America

is experiencing now. Miami went through that almost entirely in the year of 1980. It's the reason why I say the Miami of today is the America of tomorrow. Lo siento, sorry everybody about that, about what you're about to see. He has now adapted that book, The Year of Dangerous Days, into a play called Dangerous Days,

now playing at Miami New Drama, at the Colony Theater, historic, beautiful theater on Lincoln Road in South Beach. Nick, thank you so much for being here. First, I wanna talk about the book, which is unequivocally a masterpiece. And I had the pleasure of interviewing you about it

in your Q&A for the Miami Book Fair years ago during the pandemic, very much like this, actually. This is how, this is how we know each other. I don't know that Nick has a bottom half of his body. I actually don't know. It'd be just like, you know, Eddie Murphy at the beginning of Trading Places maybe, you know, riding around in that little,

in that little cart, but- Yeah, he's wearing shorts right now. Yeah, we always, who said he's wearing pants at all? I mean, who knows? Like, you know, so- Maybe I haven't moved in four years. Yeah, for all I know, that's true. Nick, why did you, I mean, clearly,

we can already hear from your voice. You're probably not from around here, probably not from Miami originally, but why Miami and why Miami 1980? Look, I mean, I was, you know, the origin story for the book was that I'd come down here, I married my wife is Venezuelan, and, you know, like all good magnets,

I'd been drawn south, and this was a far south as I was willing to go. You know, I was really just trying to figure out where I was I'd already written seven other books and I thought maybe there's a book in Miami and I was sort of trying to find What was the origin story of how the city became quite as strange as it is? You know, why why is 63% of the people speak a language other than English down here? What are the racial tensions down here? Because you is the first city to ever sort of triangulate race in America. What's up with that?

Why did cocaine move through America and spread to America through Miami? All these questions that I had. And wherever I was asking, whoever I was asking, people would keep pointing me back to 1980. Very few people knew that it seemed like everything that happened in 1980. They tended to know one sector or another, they knew everything about cocaine or

everything about Castro and Mariel, or everything about the McDuffie riots and race. But but the truth is all of these things basically happened within weeks of one another. And that's what I found riveting. Yeah, it all came to a head right here. The cocaine wars, the Mariel boatlift for people who don't know what that is, that's the beginning of Scarface in the spring of 1980 when Miami had 150,000 new immigrants

arriving in a matter of a few short months. And it nearly bankrupted the four southernmost counties of Florida because the resources needed to absorb that kind of population are just extraordinary. They needed food, shelter, medicine, education, schooling, and it was amazing. And of course, as we know, Castro had emptied his prisons

and mixed those folks amongst just people who were escaping Cuba for the freedom of Miami. And of course, you have a situation where, I often say that the shameful American tradition is black people are treated as second class citizens. What happens in Miami starting in 1980 is that, you know, we ultimately wind up with a minority majority or majority minority community. The Cuban American story is one of the most successful immigration stories in the history of the United States of America, probably in the history of any place. But what happened was everybody got pushed down a peg.

Anglos, as we call them here, probably the only American city that calls its Caucasians Anglo, became second class citizens in a way. Black people in Miami became third class citizens. Haitians and Bahamians got pushed down even further. And there was a lot of tension and discord. And it all starts with Arthur McDuffie, which you have taken a thread of your book, just the McDuffie story, and of course, Edna Buchanan, who was the journalist at the Miami Herald,

later a Pulitzer Prize winner, the crime journalist here, we interview her in the Co-King Cowboys movies, and how she uncovered through a tip what happened really to Arthur McDuffie, which the police tried to make look like a motorcycle accident. You make that a really riveting, fast, 90 minutes, no intermission play. Why did you decide when you're adapting the story

that has so many extraordinary characters and subplots and themes and, I mean, it's very cinematic, the book. Why McDuffie and Edna? Yeah, I mean, I guess two reasons. One, I sort of follow four people around in that book and two of them sort of appear in the Edna and McDuffie thread.

You could even argue three of them do with McDuffie, the Captain of Homicide, Marshall Frank, and then Edna Buchanan herself. The other thing was, you know, we needed to deal with geography and you know, a lot of the other stories really jump around. If we're following cocaine, you really have to do

with the Bahamas, you have to deal with Columbia, you have to deal with New York, Miami, Washington. Yeah, Roy is a big follower of cocaine. Ah, yes, yes. I'm an expert in Yes, you can you can tell you can tell by you know, he's very excited. Very wired. Very wired. Yeah. Sorry, Nick. Go ahead. Yeah, so that was one. And then, you know, if we did Mariel, then, you know, you're also dealing with, once again, Havana, Miami, Washington, you know, and then Arkansas and other places.

So, it seemed to us that if we could keep our eyes on just the McDuffie story and Edna Buchanan and the Captain of Homicide, Marshall Frank, then we could really make this a Miami, Miami, Miami story and just keep it here. And that is after all what the theater company tries to do is to find Miami stories and tell them to a Miami audience. In this case, it's a piece of strange enough to me,

almost forgotten Miami history. Seems like the sort of thing that could never be forgotten by a city, but you know, we do our best around it. Speaking of which, I don't wanna give it away. The last line of the play is so good. I feel like Buzzfeed right now. It's like top 10, you won't believe number nine. Spoiler alert.

You won't believe that the last line of the play is so, so good and so, so powerful. And I'm gonna talk around it a little bit because I don't want to give it away. But really, McDuffie, when you think of what they call the Miami Uprising, or you think of race riots in America, people think Detroit, you know, they think Los Angeles. But Miami in the 1980s was the capital of the United States when it came to incidents in which white or Hispanic

police officers murdered unarmed black men, and then the city burned. It happened in 1980, it happened in 84, it happened in 89 during the Super Bowl while the entire world's media was at Joe Robbie Stadium. The city was burning in another one of these incidents. What is it, I don't want to say is there a sequel, but I mean, what is it about Miami in 1980 and throughout the 1980s that really set the scene for what America has become? I mean, like when George Floyd happened years ago, I was just like, this is just Miami in the 1980s.

Yeah, but I think there are two things to remember. One, you've already put your finger on, but first of all, it's that the riots don't happen when McDuffie's murdered, right? They only happen after what's called an open and shut case goes to Tampa, and then somehow you've got 15 officers on scene. You know the man is murdered. No one's doubting any of that, but it comes down to this sort of a trickery, legal trickery that no one could actually decide who had delivered the worst blow to McDuffie. Therefore, no one could be proved guilty. So it was the disappointment in the justice system or anger that there couldn't be justice, even with a shining

citizen like McDuffie, even when you know which cops are there, justice still couldn't happen. So there's that. And then I think you put your finger on it. So, you know, when we talk about the triangulation of race in Miami, which is sort of happening all the way through the eighties and the difference, the big difference between pre 1980 and the end of the eighties is who's holding the political power in Miami, right?

At the beginning of 1980, it's still a mixture of sort of Anglo and then Mefa Ray who describes himself as a Latin wasp at the time, but then there's sort of the Cuban takeover, right? So by the end, the city is locked down, but so where does that leave the black community? You know, unemployment's gone up. You've had Marielle, you've had other waves

of Cuban immigration happening, and yet nothing's looking particularly good for the black community by the end of the 80s. Everyone else seems to be recovering but you know the holes of like they call over town the hole in the donor when it comes to development in Miami and that really is only a big need to change now. Just to gentrify it though not to help rebuild the community yeah for its residents. Why does the trial get moved to Tampa and how does the jury selection end up that way? Well, the trial gets moved to Tampa by the judge, by Lynn Nesbitt, and her decision, you know, the logic, and I don't think it was logical in the end, was that the trial

could be so explosive that she called it a time bomb waiting to happen. So the idea was that if you moved it to Tampa, well, even if you don't get exactly the verdict that you'd like, then maybe there'll just be this sort of a degree of separation. But of course, you know, she's where boy is she wrong. And then yeah, you're legally at that time in Tampa, you are allowed to strike off jurors for pretty much any reason you want to. So they sort of literally go through the jury pool. And I think there are 20 black jurors in the jury pool and each one of them struck off.

And then on the other side, they strike off any connection anyone has to law enforcement. So you get, you know, as ever, a slightly tilted jury. But in this case, it ever, a slightly tilted jury. But in this case, it was only a jury of six for a trial that was a manslaughter and murder two trial. You know, they were basically all middle-aged white men. Because Tampa, you know, Roy, they say that Tampa is the Florida of Florida.

And what's amazing is that it was 15 cops to one unarmed insurance salesman and military veteran. And what happened there is that there was a total diffusion of responsibility. If you can't say, oh, I don't know, everybody's sort of pointing at the other person, and it's like you can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt who struck the fatal blow, then there's nothing they can do about it. And what's interesting that Nick pointed out is that in the case of McDuffie, there was no unrest after the murder was uncovered.

It was only after the all white, all male jury, after like, I don't know how this trial was really long. And all this evidence and all these witnesses, they deliberated for like two hours and it was all over. But in 84 and in 89, when these incidents, when similar incidents happened again, the unrest happened immediately. Because as Nick said, by the end of the decade, the message was clear. There would be no justice. And because of that, there was no peace in Miami. Nick Griffin, author of the amazing book, The Year of Dangerous Days and the outrageously,

like you have to go see this, Roy, it's amazing. Dangerous Days at Miami New Drama. Go to MiamiNewDrama.org for more information. Nick, thanks so much for being here. Great to see you. Bye guys. The way that the original districts were made was gerrymandered.

We need to make sure that there's gonna be an African American elected. We need to make sure there's an Anglo American elected and up in this commission, that in the rest of the districts that are majority Hispanic, that they stayed that way. We go beyond 112, north of 112, we're entering into African-American neighborhoods.

Yes. And we can't touch that area. You can't, because then you're gonna be taken away from the purpose of why we did the districts to begin with. To make sure that an Afro-American was going to be elected and that an Anglo, as it was called before, was going to be elected. To make sure that there were enough African-Americans

in District 5 to elect an African-American for District 5, we gerrymandered and broke up numerous neighborhoods. I'm gonna call Spade Spade with gerrymandering. -♪ Wow. Okay. I guess you can do that and sound racist if you want, calling Spade a spade, but hey, what guess you can do that and sound racist if you want. Calling a spade a spade. But hey, what are you going to do?

Well Roy, that went on like that for six meetings over two years in which the Miami City Commission in redistricting and trying to save their jobs and in Joe's case his house, we know about that. We've talked a lot about that in the ball andin case and the $63.5 million corruption judgment, all this craziness. That tainted the redistricting process. One of the most important and sacred responsibilities in a democracy is who's going to get to vote for which representative. But they talked all about how they needed one black district, one Anglo district, and three Hispanic districts because everybody just politically, ideologically, they just believe the same thing if they're of that race.

They're all like-minded, they all want the same, and a federal judge this week in a crazy 83-page ruling found that this was outrageously, grotesquely, overtly unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. That the fact that they wanted to have three Hispanic districts and an Anglo district, that that consideration is not, cannot be the only consideration, if any consideration at all. And this judge, K. Michael Moore, he was appointed by George H.W. Bush 30 years ago like that, says that all five districts in both the 2022 and 23 plans

are unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. And the city of Miami and its officers and agents are permanently enjoined from having any more elections under the unconstitutional districts. Unbelievable. And then says, you know what, later we'll figure out of a status conference and we'll

figure out what the remedies are. But like for 82 pages, this judge burns down the city of Miami and then says, ah, we'll decide later if we're going to call the fire department or rebuild or whatever. But joining us now is attorney David Winker practices down here in the city of Miami. David, what do you make of this? Like, am I overstating it? Is this completely turn the city of Miami upside down? It is what we would call a una ruz con mango?

It is, you know, we overuse the term unprecedented. This is unprecedented. And I think that it is a, the word I would use is a thunderous opinion, right? It's a judge who's seen enough and is offended, right? You can you when you read this opinion, and I would encourage everyone to read the opinion if you want to understand how government goes wrong. So the idea is it is going to I think it is a culmination of years of work by many of us including you Billy

um and and those of you who care about the city and the future of our city of you know why things look the way they do you know we have these moments where we look around is like why is this happening to me like what what decisions have led me to be in this situation? And so much is explained by this decision and the way the judge reached it and telling the history of basically why our government isn't working.

And what does it say about how Miami government works or doesn't work? What does it say about the city attorney Victoria Mendez? What does it say about city manager Art Noriega? What does it say about the mayor Francis Suarez that they have allowed this to metastasize to the point where a federal judge writes an 83 page take down of their government?

Yeah, and I think it's important, you know, a take down of the commissioners, a take down of the attorney that they hired to do this, right, the professional who was to do this, and basically says like, you did all of this wrong. And it's one of those things I always say is like, you know, let's start with this. Why do residents have to work so hard to get their city to comply with the law? Right? Let's just start with that. Like, how much work did it take to bring this lawsuit, fight this and fight what's happening? And then when you get past that, right, when you get past

the idea of like, we've got a government that's gone rogue, you know, and to quote the great Al Crespo, right, he used to always say, city of Miami commission is nothing other than a one billion dollar criminal enterprise. Vote everybody out of office. And we don't use that term lightly, right? And I think that you're seeing a number of decisions. But I think this is a foundational, a foundational opinion in that it shows us how do we get here, right? How do you end up with Joe Corroyo, you know, getting his house conveniently redistrict

so he can move into his house to avoid his judgment? How do we end up with these things? And then to answer your question really directly, when you watch that video you showed, part of it is you think where was the city attorney who was like, hey guys, guys, stop talking. Don't say that. That is not how this works. You know, let's, let's go back to the drawing board and talk about the well settled law

on how we set up districts. And the last thing I'm going to say about it is you got to remember this was a big part of this was just intended to break apart the Grove, right? A lot of this origin was Joe Corroyo and Alex Diaz de la Portilla upset people at the Grove for speaking out about things. And it's like, you know what, you know, again, the weaponization of government, right? And the next thing you know, oh, you guys, you guys are complaining too much, well, we're gonna take your district and bust it into two

to dilute your political power. You are a vile little man. Winker, reading this decision, and the judge saying all of this is unconstitutional. You had elections that were unconstitutional. All five out of five districts are unconstitutional. You are not allowed to hold any more elections because it's unconstitutional. You can't be trusted to do something constitutional. If you put garbage in, you're going to get garbage out.

I have to wonder though, legally, and this might be just a sort of a law school kind of exercise, but like, is there an argument to be made that what the government has done in its entirety over countless meetings over the past several years have basically been unconstitutional, meaning that every vote they've taken, every action they've taken, people could come back and say, hey, this judge said y'all are unconstitutional and we need to redo the last X number of years of city government here. Is there some sort of crazy possibility of that? Again, the city's just turned upside down. I have two reactions to that.

One, it really, it goes back to what I said about law enforcement's involvement, right? There's so many times when we watch what's happening and we think where is law enforcement? Where's the state attorney? Where is federal law enforcement? Where, who's going to help us? And there's been a lot of you know, the feeling among law enforcement and I've heard them say it is

We're loathe to help you because you don't help yourself. You keep electing corrupt Commissioners, you know, we sit here and we talked about Joe Corolla We talked about Alex Diaz de la Partida who was arrested we talked about Joe Corolla, we talked about Alex Diaz de La Portilla, who was arrested. We talked about those people and of all their faults, I'm not sure they hide who they are. Right? I don't know that you could accuse them of selling you something that they're not. Right?

They're very plain who they are. They're very plain on what they're there to do. They don't have any outside employment. They're here plain who they are. They're very plain on what they're there to do. They don't have any outside employment. They're here to make money. They're here to get themselves power. And we keep electing them. The most transparent thing about them is their corruption. I agree.

Exactly. And I have to defend them on that, right? They don't hide that. They don't sit there and tell them, I'm here helping you. They don't say that. They're very clear on what their goals are. And we keep electing them. They don't sit there and tell them, I'm here helping you. They don't say that. They're very clear on what their goals are.

And we keep electing them. And I think this decision helps understand how that happens, how the government is set up to ensure that that happens. It begs the question of a lot of things, like why do we only have five commissioners? Why is it done the way that it does? We have less commissioners than any other city of similar size. But I do think it goes back to this idea of what is the solution? This will be a failure if the solution is, let's just redraw some maps and we'll go

back to it. There needs to be some redress for how we do this. We always talk about, there's so many things that judges do. Well, one is punish people, right? So what is, what is the punishment for what happened? If nothing happens to the people that did this, right? From the city attorney up, why wouldn't they just do it again? Right? Like, like, oh, great, we're going to do whatever we want. And then let's see if the residents can pull money together, hire lawyers, fight for years, and then we lose. And then we just let's see if the residents can pull money together, hire lawyers, fight for years and then we lose and then we just let's start all over again.

So I think that there is a question, there's going to come a point where, I mean, there's talk in the city of how we just need to abolish the city of Miami, right? Just get rid of it. It's not helping anybody. Let's just let the county administer the city or do something different. Or a point of receiver, right? Over everything. I mean, people are usually not aware, I use the term a billion dollar enterprise. The city of Miami has a billion dollars worth of real estate, much of it waterfront real estate. And I think that we can all agree, it's all mismanaged.

It's all, you know, it's not being put to use for residents. It's not helping anybody. Well, at what point does someone just come in and say, like, we need to have all of this. These people need supervision. Here's what I have to say about law enforcement saying, we're not doing our jobs because you're just going to elect terrible people. Oh, that's BS. No, totally BS.

The reason why corruption has absolutely, not only metastasized, but it's just blossomed as a perennial, year after year getting worse and worse, is because law enforcement has sent a message of impunity to this community. We're not going to do anything about it. We're not going to hold you accountable. And as a result, like you said, they know they can get away with it and keep getting away with it. We have a state attorney in Catherine Fernandez Rundle, who has just told everybody, I'm not going, not only is she not going to prosecute you, but she is so conflicted. She is so part of the cesspool, the incestuous cesspool of corruption in this community

that the only time we get a substantive public corruption case is when she recuses herself. That's why Alex Diaz de la Portilla was arrested because Catherine Fernandez Rundle kicked it up to the Broward State attorney who was like, what the... The second an outsider comes in and goes, what the hell's going on in Miami? This place is absolutely crazy and backwards. We have 20 seconds here, Winker. How much of this, what is broken about this city and it seems irreparably so, do you blame on Catherine Fernandez Rundle, the top cop in Miami Dade?

It's interesting you say that because, it would make a huge difference if our state attorney did prosecute public corruption. On the other hand, you see the treatment that the Broward prosecutors getting for bringing this case, right? You open yourself up to just open attack, right? They're accusing them of everything. Alex de la Portilla is just in the

public media accusing the state attorney of it's political, it's Democrats versus Republicans, you know, DLP saying, I'm a Republican, who by the way was removed from office by Republican governor DeSantis, but they just attack and attack. So the environment and even that impunity to just call into question law enforcement and say like, you know, your law, your enforcement of me is, is inappropriate. I think it goes beyond that to be honest with you. I think it's a federal problem and I think that we need federal help. I mean I would call for a federal receivership at this point to put the city back on track. Remember this is not a foreign concept to the city of Miami. We've been under federal,

we've been under back back under the the mayor when Corolla was the mayor right? That's how long this guy's been around. We were under with Xavier Suarez. We were under federal receivership because of financial issues. I think that there's gonna come a time where we have to call on it. And it will be interesting to see what the judge does because reading that opinion,

you can tell the judge has zero faith, city's gonna do this right. Well, then what happens? Who does the work? Yeah, where is the US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Markenzie LaPointe? It's time for a federal grand jury down here already. Miami attorney David Winker, keep getting into good trouble.

I'll see you at City Hall. Thank you. For this week's Miami Moment, Miami Commissioner Christine King's performance as the City Commission Chair has been nothing short, Roy, of a First Amendment fiasco. Honest to bed. commission chair has been nothing short roy of a first amendment fiasco that's a bad she's apparently a lawyer but i wouldn't hire her to defend a parking ticket held subpoena covo knows more about the pledge of allegiance and christine king

knows about the constitution you get that reference of course i don't i think yeah i'm perhaps uh... she needs a federal judge to school her the way they did joke earlier will billy corbyn coca we don't know how bad public comment we do not shy away from public comment we welcome all public comments in our developments and russle ma'am yes we don't missus and i think it's bad, or indifferent, we welcome all public comments.

I'm just talking about lobbying related to this, how there are unregistered lobbyists. Thank you ma'am. It's not our place or your place to talk about who's registered or not registered. You can't pick and choose our public comments. Mr. Corbyn, if I interrupt you again, I'm going to have you removed. We are talking about the city's budget, not law suits. Is the city going to pay the bond? That is not before us, that has not been requested.

It's an RE2, it covers the budget of the city, Madam Chair. You can't get upset when somebody says something that you don't like. My son wants to speak, but he's very nervous. Can he attempt or can I speak for him? No, you cannot have his two minutes, thank you. Okay, tranquila everybody's gonna be heard. Never claim my time please. No. Hashtag because Miami. This is on your little Twitter account little Billy.