Weekly Briefs: Legal sector gains 34,700 jobs in a year; judge unseals Trump search warrant
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Legal sector adds 3,000 jobs or more, 3 months in a row
The legal services sector added 3,100 jobs in July following a June gain of 3,300 jobs and a May gain of 3,000 jobs, according to seasonally adjusted, preliminary figures released Aug. 5 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The July number is a gain of 34,700 jobs from July 2021. The legal sector had 1,188,700 jobs in July, 1,185,600 jobs in June, 1,182,300 jobs in May, and 1,179,300 jobs in April, according to new and previously released figures. The jobs number is based on payroll jobs for attorneys and staff members working at firms providing legal services. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics news release and legal services table)
Judge unseals Trump search warrant; top secret documents seized
U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart of Florida has unsealed the warrant for the FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, and a receipt showing the property taken during the search. The warrant authorizes a search of all the rooms in the 58-bedroom, 33-bathroom mansion accessible to Trump and his staff members where boxes of documents could be stored. Among the documents seized were “Miscellaneous Top Secret Documents” and “Info Re: President of France.” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland had announced Thursday that the Department of Justice was seeking to unseal the documents. Trump’s lawyers did not object to the release. Garland did not seek a release of the search warrant affidavit, but some news organizations have asked Reinhart to do so. Trump has claimed that he declassified all the documents. (The warrant, the New York Times, the Washington Post)
No indictment for woman who accused Emmett Till
A Mississippi grand jury has declined to indict the white woman who accused Black teenager Emmett Till of making improper advances, leading to the youth’s lynching in 1955. Prosecutors presented the case to a grand jury after researchers found an unserved 1955 arrest warrant in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse for the woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham. The Leflore County, Mississippi, grand jury returned a no bill on charges of kidnapping and manslaughter. Donham’s then-husband and half-brother had confessed to the killing after an acquittal by an all-white jury. (The Associated Press, the New York Times, CNN, the district attorney’s press release)
Elected prosecutor plans to fight suspension by DeSantis
The elected prosecutor in Tampa, Florida, said he will fight his suspension by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had objected to the prosecutor’s “woke” positions on abortion and transgender medical care. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Andrew Warren, the elected state attorney in Hillsborough County, Florida, called his suspension “a blatant abuse of power.” (Law.com, the Washington Post)
Federal judge changes mind about senior status
U.S. District Judge David N. Hurd of the Northern District of New York has rescinded his move to senior status, even after assurances were made that his replacement would sit at the courthouse in Utica, New York. Hurd at first said he would take senior status “if a confirmed successor lives in this area and is permanently assigned to the United States Courthouse in Utica,” according to reporting by the Albany Times Union. An aide to Democratic U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said the nominee to replace Hurd, Jorge Rodriguez, was committed to serving in Utica, New York. Hurd said in an Aug. 10 letter he would nonetheless remain an active judge “for the foreseeable future.” (Reuters, Law360)
3 sentenced for hate crimes in Ahmaud Arbery’s death
U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood of the Southern District of Georgia sentenced three Georgia men Monday for their convictions on federal hate crime charges in the 2020 death of Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery. Travis McMichael and his father, Gregory McMichael, were sentenced to life in prison, while the man who recorded the incident, William “Roddie” Bryan, got a 35-year sentence. The men were already convicted of murder in Arbery’s death in state court, in which the McMichaels got life without parole and Bryan got life with the possibility of parole after 30 years. Wood said she had “neither the authority nor the inclination” to allow the men to serve their sentences in federal prison, rather than state prison. (The New York Times, the Associated Press, Department of Justice press release)
