Appeals court throws out Miami judge’s controversial fingerprint ruling

An appeals court has thrown out a Miami-Dade criminal court judge’s controversial ruling restricting long-accepted fingerprint evidence.

The Third District Court of Appeals this week ruled that Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch should have removed himself from the case before issuing his ruling.

The reason: Hirsch had earlier told two prosecutors that he would remove himself from similar cases because he harbored “preconceived opinions on the subject of fingerprints.”

In October, Hirsch ruled that a police fingerprint examiner could not testify that he identified a conclusive fingerprint “match” for Miami’s Radames Borrego, who is accused of two burglaries.

The judge’s ruling raised eyebrows among legal observers because U.S. courts have long allowed experts to testify to jurors that the accused person’s fingerprint is unique to him or her.

The appeals court did not rule specifically on Hirsch’s fingerprint order, but nevertheless threw it out, saying the judge should not have presided over the case. It is unclear whether Hirsch will be able to preside over future criminal court cases involving fingerprint evidence.

Hirsch, a former president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and a law school professor who wrote a book on state criminal trial procedure, is well-known in South Florida’s legal community. He was elected in May 2010.

The judge — who often quotes Shakespeare in lengthy orders — often delves into polemic legal waters.

In 2010, when a Tampa federal judge ruled that Florida’s drug law was unconstitutional, Hirsch was the only local state judge to follow suit. He threw out more than two dozen cases, but the same Miami’s appeals court later reversed Hirsch.

Late last year, Hirsch from the bench criticized relatives of a murder victim after they criticized him in a Spanish-language television interview. After he declined to recuse himself from the case, the Third DCA booted him from the case.

Also last year, the same appeals court said Hirsch “did not have jurisdiction” when he filled in for a fellow judge, then reversed that judge’s decision to keep behind bars a man accused of violating a restraining order.

Hirsch will be ruling on a high-profile case next week.

Lawyers for Sergio Robaina, accused of voter fraud, have asked Hirsch to throw out two misdemeanors charged under a county ordinance prohibiting possession of more than two absentee ballots. The ordinance is unconstitutional, they claim.

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I Might Be Too Old for Facebook Graph Search

On Sunday, I turned 30.

That’s not too old, I tell myself, yet the signs of aging are creeping in. Teenagers listen to music that I either haven’t heard of or believe to be mostly terrible. They use slang I don’t recognize, and I imagine my slang would sound to them like “groovy” or “far out” sound to me.

But for the purposes of our tech blog, the most notable sign is how much more active teens are on Facebook than I am. To hear it from my wife, who works with children and teens at her job, they’re constantly signed in and active, to the point that reaching them by voice call is unreliable. Send them a Facebook message, even during school hours, and they’ll respond right away. (The reality isn’t quite that extreme; according to a Pew survey, most teens communicate through text messages and phone calls more than Facebook, but e-mail is far behind.)

So when Facebook announces a new feature, like Graph Search, I imagine those teens getting the most use out of it. Graph Search lets you look up people, places, photos and other things using natural search queries. Think of it like Google for everything that your friends know; instead of searching the Web for somewhere to eat or something to do, you could just search through the collective wisdom of your network.

Here are some of the example searches on Facebook’s Graph Search home page:

• Music my friends like


• Restaurants in London my friends have been to


• People who like cycling and are from my hometown


• Photos before 1990

Being able to find all that information–and provide your own information for friends–sounds great. But unless you and your pals are putting lots of data in, you’re probably not going to get a lot of data out. I know for sure that I haven’t put much effort into connecting my real life story to Facebook, and as I poke around my network, I see that many of my friends haven’t either. They don’t check in to places they visit. They don’t “Like” everything that they actually like. They haven’t uploaded photos from before 1990. Collectively, we haven’t invested in making Graph Search as useful as it could be.

It might be different if I was part of the generation that uses Facebook more often. Though it’s hard to find data on how Likes and check-ins vary by age, younger users tend to have more Facebook friends than older ones, according to Edison Research, so at least they have a bigger base of people to work with. And according to a 2011 study, teens spend more time on the network per day than older users. If posting on Facebook is part of your social circle’s daily life–that is, it’s not just a way to see what old high school buddies are up to–I imagine Graph Search will be a lot more useful.

That’s not to say Graph Search won’t be of any value to someone like me. It could come in handy as a way to sort through photos, for instance. There’s also a chance that Facebook will improve the ways that it picks up on our interests, and integrate frictionless sharing so there’s less work involved in becoming an information source.

But while I plan to keep up with technology for a long time, I realize it’s hard to keep using social networks like a teenager when your friends are getting older too. Facebook isn’t part of my daily life anymore, so I can’t imagine rewiring my habits and turning it into a primary information source, especially if my friends aren’t doing the same.  It’s much easier to rely on the tools I already have, such as traditional search engines and sites like Yelp–just like it’s easy to stop keeping track of popular music or to pick up on new slang.

Graph Search is in “very limited” beta now, and users who want to try it can join the waiting list. I look forward to seeing what I can do with it, even if it’s not really for me. In the meantime, here’s to growing older.

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Dallas Killing off JR Ewing

Larry Hagman's tragic passing on November 24 served a double blow to the cast and crew of TNT's Dallas. Not only had they just lost a dear friend, but they also had to come up with a way to write J.R. Ewing off the show without derailing their planned storylines.

VIDEO - Larry Hagman Charms in Final ET Interview

Today, TV Guide Magazine reports that the 2012 redux will take a page from the seminal series' most iconic moment and have J.R. Ewing murdered by an unknown assailant towards the middle of the show's upcoming second season.

VIDEO - Matt Damon: Larry Hagman Impacted My Life

This, of course, pays a haunting homage to the "Who Shot J.R." cliffhanger from Dallas' 1980 season finale. The ensuring storm of speculation that swirled throughout the subsequent summer led to the highest-rated TV episode in U.S. history (at the time) with an estimated 83 million people tuning in for the season premiere, Who Done It? -- which was higher than the number of voters in that year's presidential election.

Dallas premieres January 28 on TNT.

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Accused family killing NM teen was suicidal and homicidal, annoyed with mother: statement

ALBUQUERQUE, NM — The New Mexico teenager accused of fatally shooting his parents and three younger siblings told authorities he was annoyed with his mother and had been having homicidal and suicidal thoughts, according to a probable cause statement.

Nehemiah Griego, 15, was arrested following the shootings Saturday at a home in a rural area southwest of Albuquerque where he lived with his family. He remained in custody on charges of murder and child abuse resulting in death.

Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston plans to hold a news conference Tuesday morning, and the teen could make his first court appearance in the next day or two.

AP

A bouquet of flowers adorns the entrance to the home where Nehemiah Griego allegedly shot his parents and three siblings.

A sheriff's detective questioned the teen Saturday night. The statement detailed their conversation.

The teen allegedly told the detective that he took a .22-caliber rifle from his parents' closet around midnight Saturday and shot his mother in the head while his younger brother slept next to her.

Griego told the detective that his brother did not believe him that their mother was dead so he showed his mother's bloody face to his brother and then shot him, according to the statement.

He's accused of then shooting his two young sisters in their room. He retrieved an AR-15 rifle from his parents' closet and waited in a downstairs bathroom for his father to come home. The statement said he shot his father multiple times after he passed the bathroom doorway.

The teen said he reloaded the guns so "he could drive to a populated area to murder more people," according to the statement. His plan, the statement said, was to "shoot people at random and eventually be killed while exchanging gunfire with law enforcement."

Sheriff's spokesman Deputy Aaron Williamson said Monday he couldn't immediately comment on the document.

Detectives have spent two days collecting evidence and trying to piece together what led to the violence.

"There's no other way to say it, except that we have a horrific crime scene down there that we are working on," Houston said Sunday.

On Monday afternoon, the metal gate at the home's entrance was shut, a small bouquet of purple flowers was on the top of the gate and at each side sat religious signs, including one that read: "Jesus is the reason for the season."

The sheriff's office identified the victims as Greg Griego, 51, his wife Sarah Griego, 40, and three of their children: a 9-year-old boy, Zephania Griego, and daughters Jael Griego, 5, and Angelina Griego, 2. All appeared to have gunshot wounds to the head.

Greg Griego was a pastor who had once served at Calvary, one of Albuquerque's largest Christian churches. He was also well-known throughout the law enforcement community for his work as a voluntary chaplain.

Neighbor Terry Wootan described Greg Griego as a man with a big heart. The two sometimes chatted at the mailbox and waved when passing by. Wootan said Griego told him about his time in California when he was involved in gangs and how he turned his life around and found God.

"What he wanted to do was help people, and he would never quit," Wootan said.

The pastor's death has shocked the community, including the Albuquerque Fire Department and the Metropolitan Detention Center, where he volunteered his spiritual guidance.

A records check by the Children, Youth and Families Department indicated no trouble with the family and that Nehemiah Griego had never been in trouble with the law.

"This youth had no history with the juvenile justice system," agency spokesman Bob Tafoya said Monday.

Williamson confirmed there was no history of any emergency calls to the home in the recent past.

Neighbors said they saw the first police cars and ambulances arrive at the home Saturday night. The road was blocked and word of the shootings began to make its way through the neighborhood.

According to the probable cause statement, Nehemiah Griego told his girlfriend at Calvary that his family was dead and that he placed the two rifles in the family van as protection before driving to the church.

At the church, he was called into the pastor's office after his girlfriend's grandmother began asking questions about the youth's account, the detective's statement said. It was previously reported that a person at the church called 911, but the statement did not address that.

After being taken to the sheriff's office for questioning, Nehemiah Griego changed his story, according to the statement.

The statement said he was asked if he had told anyone else about killing his family. He allegedly told the detective that he had taken a picture of his dead mother and sent it to his girlfriend.

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Series for Miami’s emerging art collectors begins Thursday

For art enthusiasts interested in bring their interest home, Miami’s Bakehouse Art Complex is hosting a lecture series for emerging collectors. The first panel, slated for Thursday at 6 p.m., features arists and curators who will talk about fine tuning your taste and learning to make informed decisions. The second session, Feb. 7, is oriented to the mechanics of purchasing. The third, on Feb. 21, explores how to manage your collection.

Moderating all three panels will be Denise Gerson, independent curator who served as associate director for the Lowe Museum of Art for 24 years. Cost is $25 per session or $60 for the series. Seating is limited; reservations are recommended.

Information at 305-576-2828; www.bacfl.org.

Jane Wooldridge

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Cuban exile mother of inaugural poet laureate Richard Blanco now in spotlight as his inspiration

At first, Geysa Blanco thought her son was kidding.

"He said, ‘Mom, I have news for you,’ " Blanco said, recalling the telephone call from her son a few weeks ago.

"Between English and Spanish, he told me that they had chosen him to write and read a poem at the presidential inauguration,” she said.

But Richard Blanco, a child of exiles who was raised in Miami and graduated from Florida International University, was serious.

The Barack Obama inaugural committee chose the 44-year-old Cuban-American civil engineer and author to recite an original poem at Monday’s inauguration.

Richard Blanco has also been speechless. “It took me 10 minutes to remember what the word for inauguration is in Spanish," he said in a telephone interview Sunday from Washington, D.C., less than 24 hours before taking center stage.

Blanco, who now lives in Maine, will become the first Hispanic inaugural poet and the first openly gay one. He is also only the fifth and youngest poet in the exclusive club of poets.

The first was Robert Frost, who in 1961 wrote a poem for the inauguration of John F. Kennedy.

Then in 1993, Bill Clinton chose the African-American writer Maya Angelou. William Miller was chosen for Clinton’s second inauguration, and Elizabeth Alexander wrote the poem for Obama’s first ceremony.

In a statement, Obama said Blanco’s work represents "the great strength and diversity of the American people."

This diversity and strength could be reflected in the story of the poet’s Cuban exile mother.

"She is a very brave woman and has worked hard all her life for my brother and me," Blanco said.

During an interview at her Westchester home, Geysa Blanco, 75, said that it still seems surreal that a woman who grew up in a sugar refinery in Cienfuegos will stand in front of the National Capitol, watching her son recite a poem for the nation and the president of the United States.

“My son said reporters might want to interview me and I said, ‘Me? What for?’ ” Geysa Blanco said. Indeed, local reporters and TV cameras have come knocking and the proud mother has given several interviews.

Geysa Blanco has also become a celebrity among her neighbors, friends and customers at Regions Bank on Bird Road, where she has worked for more than 30 years.

The roots of Richard Blanco’s writing began in 1968 when his parents fled the Communist island and went into exile in Spain. At the time, Geysa Blanco, a teacher, was pregnant and she and her late husband Carlos, already had an older son, also named Carlos.

"We decided to leave Cuba because the government was becoming more and more difficult to live under," she said. "But it was very painful for me because I left my mother and brothers behind and came here virtually alone and with nothing."

After five months in Spain, where she gave birth to Richard, they emigrated to New York.

As a boy, she said Richard always had an interest in exploring his Cuban roots.

"I always had questions about Cuba, about the family we left there," he said. On his website he refers to himself as being “made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and imported to the U.S.”

That sense of not belonging and trying to belong seeps through his books of poetry, which often feature his family and their efforts hold on to their traditions.

When Richard was about 5 and Carlos 11, the family moved to the closest place to Cuba – Miami. His mother went to work in a supermarket and later landed her bank job.

"We lived three generations in one house, my husband’s parents, my husband and I, and Charles and Richard," the poet’s mother said. "Sometimes it was hard because grandparents are not accustomed to the modern ways of young people.”

Today, she laments that those family members are gone. “I wish Richard’s father and grandparents were here to enjoy this day,” she said.

Richard Blanco did get to visit the homeland his parents yearned for when he was growing up.

"Everyone thought he wasn’t going to speak Spanish and was going to feel uncomfortable," Geysa Blanco said of her relatives on the island. "But they were surprised because he picked yucca in the fields, jumped in the canals and danced a lot, just like everyone else.”

That trip as a young man would shape the poet’s future work, his mother said. "I think that’s where he caught the bug to write about his roots," she said.

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Why Google Isn’t Scared of Facebook’s Graph Search

Facebook may have just released a major search product that many are saying “declares war” on Google or may at least put the social network “on a collision course” with the search giant, but Google CEO Larry Page doesn’t sound all that worried about the new competition. Because who said Facebook and Google couldn’t get along someday? In an interview for the new issue of Wired published just two days after Facebook’s Graph Search came out to so-so reviews, Page tells Steve Levy that Facebook is “doing a really bad job on their products.” But before you laugh off that swipe — Google Buzz flopped, Google killed Reader, and Google+ has a loyal but relatively small user base — Page wants to remind everyone that Facebook isn’t direct competition, that these two Silicon Valley giants are too big for either to fail. “We’re actually doing something different,” Page tells Levy. “I think it’s outrageous to say that there’s only space for one company in these areas.”

RELATED: Three Things Google+ Can Learn from Myspace

That’s not to say Page isn’t making Google go social, or that Facebook isn’t in his rearview mirror. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long talked about the rise of social search, and Page has taken a vested interest of late in getting people to use Google+ — even if they don’t want to. In an attempt to conquer the space, direct orders from Page forcefully integrated Google’s social network into its main search results… and pretty much everywhere else its products touch. If it were up to Larry Page, Google would require a Google+ account just to read reviews. His evaluation of Google+ as it stands? “I’m very happy with how it has gone. We’re working on a lot of really cool stuff. A lot of it has been copied by our competitors, so I think we’re doing a good job.”

RELATED: FTC Is Officially Looking into Google’s Self-Promoting Search Features

Critics might beg to differ — Google+ is often referred to as a lesser “Facebook copycat” from the search king — but critics are now comparing Facebook’s search product (which was announced before the Wired interview with Page was conducted) to Google’s main offering. And from a product standpoint, Facebook may have yet to train its users to give Graph Search what it needs to be great. Furthermore, business analysts seem to agree that Facebook’s social recommendation engine won’t hurt Google’s core business … in the near future. But Zuckerberg said at Tuesday’s announcement that Facebook wasn’t focused on the business side of Graph Search just now — even if it does offer huge advertising potential. At the same time, Graph Search could take away eyeballs (and ad dollars) from Google. If Facebook, with its friend-powered engine, ends up giving “better” results than Google for recommendations on restaurants, travel, books, music, and movies — a domination Google is still fighting anti-trust charges over — then why end up Googling at all?

RELATED: The New Google+ Aims to Perfect Procrastination

Well, even Page might think Facebook and Google can complement each other — sort of. To wit, he asked Levy: “For us to succeed, is it necessary for some other company to fail? No.” As Zuckerberg said on Tuesday, “our mission is to make the world more open” by giving people tools to connect. And Google’s stated mission ”is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Are those so similar that they can’t get along? After all, that could be the future of search: You go to Facebook to see what your friends and the people you trust have to say, and then you head to Google for the facts. Of course, neither Facebook or Google wants the future that way, exactly: Facebook has actually teamed up with Microsoft to complement Graph Search, sending people to Bing for those fact-finding, Google-style queries; Google, meanwhile, as Google+ as its social-search equivalent of Graph Searching. And users don’t really want to go to so many different places for basic information that’s built to make their lives easier. Part of the reason people have stuck with Google, despite all of its privacy and anti-trust issues, is that the company’s ultimately done a really good job on their products — GMail, Google Drive, Reader, and their fellow “apps” have become an integral part of our Internet lives. Facebook wants that role, and if social search ends up working — well, then why not chat on Facebook, email (and make phone calls) with Messenger, sext with Poke, and read your news via the News Feed? 

RELATED: Why Google Really Wants You to Use Google+ This Year

Of course, Page said all this stuff weeks ago. And who knows how Graph Search is going over at Google headquarters. Maybe he just he meant a different product that was so… bad. Or maybe he really just doesn’t get Poke? Either way, Larry Page knew this fight was coming. The whole world did.

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The Wanted Give Final Tease of I Found You Video

The countdown is almost over, but in the meantime ET has one last tease of The Wanted's I Found You music video.

PICS: Who Would You Date?

In the clip, guitarist Tom Parker and the boys are cracking jokes after one wild night.

"That was metal," says Parker. "Remember that girl that ripped me tie off?!"

The group's latest single is off their upcoming album Third Strike, out later this year. ET will premiere the full music video for I Found You Tuesday, January 22nd, and you can catch the full video on Vevo.com and ETonline.com Tuesday night.

In Case You Missed Them, Check Out ET's First Four I Found You Teasers:

Get Your First Look at The Wanted's Next Video

The Wanted Teases I Found You Video

Sexy Siva Stars in the The Wanted's I Found You

More of The Wanted's I Found You Video!

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NY vets head to DC for inaugural parade

New York veterans, from every military campaign since Korea, boarded a bus for Washington this morning to march in President Obama’s Inauguration Day Parade.

Jeff Swansen, production manager for the United War Veterans Council which organized the trip, called today's journey an "incredible honor."

"We're very excited. It's the first time we've done this. I mean, the president is the Commander-in-Chief, so this is an incredible honor and we're proud to represent New York," Cold War-era vet Swansen told The Post.

Korean War vet Sal Scarlato said he would tell Obama "not to forget the vets."

Wayne Carrington

Sandi Williams, left, an Army Korean War veteran and Debbera Ransom, right, a Cold War veteran both from Buffalo, NY.

Wayne Carrington

Sal Scarlato, a Korean War vet

"[Obama's] in the ballpark in supporting the vets, but there's always more that can be done … medical, housing, education, jobs...especially for the new guys coming home. They need jobs."

Cold War vet Debbera Random drove from Buffalo to New York for the ride to DC.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Random said. "I'm so honored that I'm physically able to march and to be able to show how excited we are."

The 44 veterans, who left from downtown around 4:30 a.m., will roll past Obama and thousands of spectators on a float that’ll feature the Statue of Liberty wearing dog tags.

Organizers with the United War Veterans Council said the float will be blast Empire State-inspired songs like Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York."

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Three-generation family businesses share their secrets of success

In 2009, when Larry Zinn took over as sales manager for the Infiniti dealership that his father owned, he had a great idea: retrain the sales staff in a team approach and offer customers complimentary add-on services for the first year.

Some salesmen who were used to selling the same way for decades up and quit. But that didn’t deter Larry from insisting a new sales culture and value proposition for new car buyers was necessary. “I was persistent with everything I’ve believed we needed to do going forward. People were going to embrace change or move on,” says Larry, 28.

The resistance quieted, however, after Larry recruited young salespeople and had them trained in the new advantage program. The new approach helped push sales volume up 72 percent. "We had a lot of success with it,” he says.

Larry Zinn’s experience is not unusual for family-owned businesses that survive into a third generation and employ new tactics to keep from becoming obsolete.

Nationally, family-run businesses account for nearly 35 percent of the largest companies including Ford, Koch Industries, Hilton, Wal-Mart, Loews and Ikea. In South Florida, family-run businesses are particularly prevalent and account for a majority of the largest Hispanic companies, including Goya, Bacardi, El Dorado and Sedano’s Supermarkets.

But while more than 30 percent of all U.S. family-owned businesses survive into the second generation, only about 12 percent are passed onto the third generation, according to Family Firm Institute, a Boston-based association for family enterprise professionals. Those that do survive have a few intriguing commonalities: an ability to stay relevant, think bigger and take a long term view.

“They try to figure out where they want to be in 10 years and take steps to make that target,” says Wayne Rivers, president of The Family Business Institute in Raleigh, N.C.

Most third-generation family businesses, particularly those in South Florida, were started by a scrappy entrepreneur who saw business ownership as a way to provide for the family. Those businesses include grocery chains such as Sedano’s, restaurant operators such as Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine and airport concessionaires such as NewsLink.

Typically, in those businesses, the founder brought his kids with him to work, put them in the kitchen, the stock room, the sales floor, and taught them on-the-spot business lessons. Those kids eventually came to work full time and helped the company evolve beyond a seat-of-the-pants start-up into a more sophisticated business with processes and systems.

Now comes the third generation, who are more likely to have received formal business education before they return to the company. Often, they are able to leverage that training and move the company forward dramatically. But the succession also comes with challenges. They must keep the respect of longtime employees and show the same dogged commitment to seeing their company succeed, even after having already grown up enjoying the fruits of its success.

In successful third-generation businesses, the senior generation often stays on to ensure that commitment, adopting a role as mentor or advisor while creating an environment where younger family members can take on real responsibility, says Rivers, who consults for family businesses. “They get out of the way, let the next generation make their own mistakes, and gracefully exit when it’s appropriate.”

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