Federal Magistrate In Miami Steps Down, Blames 'Backward' Courts
MIAMI — Citing ''backward'' federal court trends and the inability to speak freely about them, U.S. Magistrate Peter Nimkoff stepped down Thursday less than halfway through his eight-year term.
Nimkoff, 52, said he has become disenchanted with the direction the federal courts have taken under President Reagan and Chief Justice Warren Burger. He said the Supreme Court and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals are moving ''backward and far to the right'' of the Earl Warren court of the 1960s.
''I don't like the route the train is taking, and since I'm not the engineer it's time to get off,'' he said during his last day as a federal magistrate.
As an idealist and liberal, Nimkoff views himself as a misfit in a system he believes is straying from the presumption that a person is innocent until proved guilty.
No other federal magistrate or judge has resigned citing philosophical differences with the federal administration or the Supreme Court, said William Burchill, general counsel for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts in Washington.
Nimkoff said there are other reasons for his decision to resign. After a brief vacation, he plans to finish his final semester of graduate work in cross-cultural anthropology at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vt.
He is also tired of the political constraints of the bench.
''I hope to be politically involved in the community, whether it be local, national or worldwide, and there are necessary restraints on what federal judges and magistrates can be involved in,'' he said.
Since his appointment as a federal magistrate in May 1982, Nimkoff has been criticized by prosecutors for setting what they considered low bonds.
Several government agents attacked him publicly for the bonds he set in the 1982 Operation Swordfish drug cases. Many of the defendants in that case bonded out of jail and disappeared.
Another controversial issue for Nimkoff is what he called an 11th Circuit belief that criminal cases should not be dismissed because of police misconduct. He believes the court system can deter police misbehavior by dismissing cases where search rules and other regulations are violated.
None of this has endeared him to the government, but his actions appeared to have left him in good standing with local lawyers. In the most recent Dade County Bar poll, which includes defense lawyers and prosecutors, Nimkoff received by far the most ''exceptionally qualified'' ratings among local magistrates.
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