Category Archives: Miami

I'm working desultorily on a longer post about strange things that can happen in the classroom, which may be why this story in the Miami Herald leapt out at me over breakfast:

Teacher loses bet over leap out window: A 17-year-old boy jumped out of a second-floor window at Miami Beach High last week after betting his teacher he was strong enough to do it and not get hurt.

He won the bet, landing unharmed. No immediate word on whether he got any money out of it.

The teacher has been reassigned to a non-teaching job at a regional ACCESS Center while police and school officials investigate the incident.

The science class was in the middle of a lecture on evolution on Wednesday when the student — whose name was not released — began talking about jumping out the window to prove his point, according to the police report.

The teacher, Yrvan Tassy Jr., bet him $20 that he would hurt himself if he jumped, police said.

That's when the boy jumped out the window. He landed on his feet — in a patch of dirt and grass — and returned to the classroom, the police report stated. He asked Tassy for the $20, and Tassy said he'd bring it the next day, students told police.

Unlike some other incidents I have in mind, where I can feel sorry for the teacher, this one defies sympathy. I will take a firm stand on this complex question: Autodefenestration has no place in the classroom. Indeed, I'll even go on record against all forms of classroom defenestration, especially from above ground level.

South Florida is teeming with dangerous and weird wildlife, much of it non-native and out of control.

And, no, I don't mean the local lawyers or South Beach nightlife.

Forget the Gators: Exotic Pets Run Wild in Florida: The southern end of Florida, the most tropical state outside Hawaii, is teeming with exotic beasts. As if alligators, panthers and other native creatures were not enough, the steamy swamps, murky waterways and lush tree canopies here are a paradise for furry, scaly, clawed, fanged and otherwise off-putting things that have no business roaming this side of the equator.

“This stuff doesn't happen in New Jersey, it doesn't happen in Ohio, but in South Florida it happens constantly,” said Todd Hardwick, whose trapping business, Pesky Critters, gets 60 calls a day from people with peacocks on their roofs, caimans in their driveways and iguanas in their tool sheds. “Miami-Dade County is probably ground zero for exotic animals that are on the loose and doing very well.”

Then again, that last remark does fit some people I know….

Congratulations to our new (2 year old) neighbors, the FIU Law school, who have just passed a critical milestone on the road towards provisional accreditation. The Miami Herald reports that FIU's site visit went well, and that the provisional accreditation could happen as early as August, which would then allow FIU's first class to take the bar exam.

FIU has done everything by the book. They hired a Dean, Leonard Strickman, who is very experienced at navigating the ABA process, and I'm certain they will jump through all the necessary hoops in the shortest possible time.

One interesting thing, though. FIU is marketing itself as a more practice-oriented law schol, and a very international one, the implication being it's not trying to be like U.M. (although in fact we are very very international). Yet if rumors are to be believed, the folks they are hiring this year are exactly the kind of people we hire here at Miami. Indeed, some of them are people we interviewed.

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It looks to me as if this judge has clearly shown that he must recuse himself. That said, his commentary in open court is pretty reliable evidence that the Miami cops were — as has been suggested here before — waaaay over the line in trying to corral the FTAA protestors:

A judge presiding over the cases of free trade protesters said in court that he saw ''no less than 20 felonies committed by police officers'' during the November demonstrations, adding to a chorus of complaints about police conduct.

Judge Richard Margolius, 60, made the remarks in open court last week, saying he was taken aback by what he witnessed while attending the protests.

''Pretty disgraceful what I saw with my own eyes. And I have always supported the police during my entire career,'' he said, according to a court transcript. “This was a real eye-opener. A disgrace for the community.''

In the transcript, he also said he may have to remove himself from any additional cases involving arrests made during the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit.

''I probably would have been arrested myself if it had not been for a police officer who recognized me,'' said the judge, who wears his hair in a graying ponytail.

Note that Judge Margolius is a state court judge, not a federal judge.