Former Prosecutor Sentenced To Three Years For Accepting Drugs For Fees

Prof. Jonathan Turley's blog is reporting today that a former Florida prosecutor has received a three-year prison sentence for accepting more than 200 oxycodone pills as payment for legal services in 2010. Go here for more details.

D.C. Courts System Adopts New Code of Judicial Conduct

The Blog of the Legal Times is reporting today that "for the first time since 1995, the District of Columbia courts system has adopted new rules for judicial conduct, which encourage judges to take a more "affirmative role" in making sure pro se litigants understand legal proceedings."  For more information go here.  For a copy of the new rules go here.

Link to oral argument in Filarsky v Delia

You can now listen to the oral argument in Filarsky v Delia here.

Supreme Court considers issue of qualified immunity for lawyers

Last week, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case called Filarsky v. Delia which asks the Court to decide whether a private attorney, retained by a city to assist in an administrative investigation, is entitled to assert qualified immunity from a suit brought by the person who was under investigation.

In a short article posted just prior to the oral argument, the SCOTUS blog, the best source of information for Supreme Court news, explained the background of the issue this way:

42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides that any person acting “under color of” state law who deprives another person “of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured.”  Section 1983 principally serves to regulate the conduct of government employees.  But private individuals, too, can be liable when they are clothed with governmental authority.

The immunities available under § 1983, however, do not necessarily follow § 1983 liability.  Private persons sued under § 1983 may not be entitled to qualified immunity — which is available to a defendant unless he violated “clearly established” legal rights, of which a reasonable person would have known — even when government employees would be immune under identical circumstances.  So held the Supreme Court in Richardson v. McKnight and Wyatt v. Cole.  Nonetheless, those decisions acknowledged that private individuals might be entitled to immunity under different circumstances.

 The case of Filarsky v. Delia forces the Court to explore those circumstances once again.

You can read the full article here. 

After the oral argument, the blog posted that the "oral argument in Filarsky v. Delia veered in several directions, even discussing matters well outside the question presented. By the time the dust had settled, though, a majority of the Justices seemed inclined to hold that Mr. Filarsky – a private attorney who had provided services to a city government – was entitled to the protection of qualified immunity. More difficult to discern was the Court’s preferred rationale."  The full post oral argument analysis is available here.

Finally, go here for access to all the relevant documents related to the case including the briefs, the lower court's opinion and the transcript of the oral argument.

UPDATE: You can now listen to the oral argument here.

Does the Constitution guarantee effective assistance of counsel to aliens during removal proceedings

Thanks to my friends over at the Legal Ethics Forum, I have discovered yet another blog to add to my subscription list.  This new blog (well, new for me at least) is all about issues over which the federal appeals courts are split.  Presumably, this makes these issues "ripe for review."

Today, they have posted a short comment (with lots of links) on the fact that circuits disagree on whether the Clause’s guarantee of effective assistance of counsel, a component of due process, applies to aliens during removal proceedings.  You can find it here.

More comments on Smith v Cain

On Tuesday I reported the Supreme Court's decision in Smith v. Cain in which the Court reversed a conviction because of the prosecutor's failure to disclose information to the defendant.  As I said, though, the opinion is very short and, oddly, does not really pass judgment on the prosecutorial misconduct.

Today, Jonathan Turley has published a short comment on Justice's Thomas dissent.  He also notes that the majority opinion (by Justice Roberts) "guaranteed that the case did not include language detailing the violations of the prosecutors" and suggested that the Chief Justice might have "use[d] his right to take a majority opinion to minimize the impact of a case." 

As to Justice's Thomas dissent, Prof. Turley concludes that "Thomas engaged in what can only be described as judicial artistic license" in voting against reversing what he called "an outrageous conviction" which "was a travesty by any measure outside of a Tehran Sharia court."

You can read the comment here.

For more on the case go here.

And, as usual, you find the relevant documents, transcripts and links to more information in the SCOTUS blog.

Yet another Paradise Lost: new movie about the West Memphis 3

I have blogged before about the movie Paradise Lost and the case of the West Memphis 3 and I just read that HBO is due to start showing the newest installment in the series.  This will be the third movie on the case of the trial of three young men for the murders of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, a small town in eastern Arkansas.  One of the kids confessed but then recanted; the others always maintained their innocence.  At their trials very little evidence was brought forward to connect them to the murders but they were all convicted. They were finally released last August. 

A film crew followed the case as it was being tried and eventually released an outstanding documentary called Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills.  A few years later, a "Paradise Lost 2."

Here is a link to Roger Ebert's comment on the new Paradise Lost 3.

Quick analysis of Smith v Cain

I just published the news that the Supreme Court has decided Smith v Cain.  And just a few minutes ago, the SCOTUS blog has a short comment on the case here.  It starts,

Using brevity as a blunt instrument, the Supreme Court spent very little effort Tuesday in ordering the New Orleans district attorney’s office to provide a new trial in a murder case because prosecutors — using a tactic several times challenged before the Justices — had failed to hand over evidence that could have helped in defending a murder suspect.

Supreme Court decides Smith v Cain

As you probably remember, last November, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments (available here) in a  case on prosecutorial misconduct from New Orleans called Smith v. Cain. The oral argument before the Supreme Court did not go well for the office of the prosecutor. (See here for a report.)  This was the second case on prosecutorial misconduct out of the same office in two years.  The previous one, Connick v. Thompson, has been described as "one of the most bitterly divided opinions of the Court in a criminal case in recent years."

One issue that divided the Court in that case was whether the evidence supported a finding that the misconduct was not an isolated incident.  Evidently, in this particular case the Court thought the misconduct was enough to warrant reversal.  The opinion does not really talk about misconduct as an ethical matter but simply concludes that the failure to disclose certain information to the defendant constituted a violation of the prosecutor's duty under Brady v. Maryland.  As predicted by those who reported on the oral argument, the Court has decided to reverse the conviction and remand the case.  The vote was 8 to 1.  Justice Thomas was the only dissenter.  The opinion, which is only four pages long, and the dissenting opinion are available here.

For analysis from the SCOTUS blog go here.  To listen to the announcement of the decision of the court (and more) go here.

How not to practice law: lie to cover up your mistakes

I sometimes tell my students that my kids (ages 7 and 5) could teach some aspects of the course:  don't steal, don't take what's not your etc.  Here is another simple lesson I have already taught that my kids:  if you realize you made a mistake don't lie to try to cover it up, it will only make matters worse.  Instead, admit it and try to find a way to fix it.  Try to minimize the consequences if possible but ultimately accept them and learn your lesson from the experience.

Here is a new case that illustrates this.  The Legal Profession blog is reporting that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ordered a two-year suspension in a case where the attorney had committed negligent misappropriation.  In response, the attorney made false representations to Bar Counsel and submitted false documents to support his explanation.

Note that the charge here was based on negligence.  That is significantly different that cases where the attorney knowingly tries to steal money from clients.  The attorney made a mistake; an important mistake, clearly, and a mistake that would have consequences, but there is no question that lying about it made it worse.