Judge threatens to sanction Hunter Biden’s attorneys for what the judge called "false statements"

The Hill is reporting that a federal judge threatened to sanction Hunter Biden’s attorneys for making “false statements” in their motion asking to dismiss his criminal charges in California.  Go here for the full story.

Illinois Supreme Court Amends Rules 8.4(j) and 5.1 Addressing Harassment and Discrimination

About a month and a half ago I reported that Illinois had finally adopted a version of Model Rule 8.4.  See here.  Illinois Lawyer Now has more on the story here.

Federal prosecutor accused of withholding evidence in Trump protest cases

The Washington D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel (ODC) has accused a former federal prosecutor who oversaw more than 200 cases related to protests of former President Trump’s 2017 inauguration of withholding evidence and of attempting to edit or obscure video evidence used against the defendants that otherwise could have been used to clear them of criminal charges.  The Hill has more on the case here.

New trial ordered for criminal defendant after attorney failed to provide effective assistance of counsel and failed to seek to suppress evidence

 Here is an interesting fact scenario.  A criminal defense lawyer does not effectively represent a suspect during a police interview, and the police obtains information useful to the prosecution.  The lawyer then realizes that he should try to fix the problem but doing so would require him to file to suppress evidence from that interview on grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel.  But this would mean the lawyer has to admit their own ineffective assistance which would be self-incriminating (and would probably require the lawyer to testify in a fact finding hearing).  So the lawyer does not file to suppress the evidence and continues to represent the defendant.  After the defendant is convicted, represented by a different lawyer, the defendant asks for the conviction to be overturned.  What should the court do?

In a recent case with similar facts, the Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld an order for a new trial. Go here to read about the case and access a link to the opinion.  The Legal Profession Blog has a summary and some key passages here.

How not to practice law: commit voter fraud

A Trump supporter lawyer who was convicted of two counts of election fraud, based upon evidence establishing that he had voted in both Florida and in Ohio in the 2020 presidential election as well as in the 2022 general election and who was later suspended from the practice of law in both Ohio and Florida, was more recently disbarred in New York.  For more on the case, go to the Legal Profession Blog here.

Judge dismisses Rudy Giuliani’s bankruptcy proceeding

July 12, 2024

Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane has dismissed Rudy Giuliani’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy, removing a shield that for six months froze two Georgia election workers’ efforts to collect their $148 million defamation judgment. In the ruling (available here), the judge commented on Giuliani’s “continued failure” to provide financial transparency. 

Giuliani's case involves the interests of the two Georgia election workers who won a defamation claim against him, in addition to those of Dominion Voting Systems, and Giuliani’s former assistant Noelle Dunphy. The latter two have pending lawsuits, while the Georgia workers have an enforceable judgment for many times the value of Giuliani’s assets. 

Because they’re not all going to get the money they seek from Giuliani, the ones with perfected claims would like to attach all his assets now.  Dominion and Dunphy have argued that the case should remain as a Chapter 11 bankruptcy claim, while the Freeman plaintiffs urged the court to dismiss the case entirely.

And that is exactly what the judge did, leaving [for the moment] nothing for Dominion, whose defamation suit is still in discovery, or for Dunphy, who is suing Giuliani in state court for assault and various labor violations. Of course those parties would prefer that the court retain jurisdiction and adjudicate their claims while a Chapter 11 trustee babysits the debtor to ensure he doesn’t loot the estate.  I imagine appeals will follow.

For more on the story you can check:

The Hill 

Above the Law

MSNBC

Law & Crime (‘Continued failure’: Rudy Giuliani has bankruptcy case dismissed by angry judge who points out numerous ‘troubling’ discovery violations)

Courthouse News Service (Judge chides Rudy Giuliani for ‘troubling’ conduct, tosses NY bankruptcy case)

The Guardian

Above the Law (Rudy Giuliani Falls Ass Backwards Out Of Bankruptcy)

Jurist

Brady violation allegation leads to dismissal in case against Alec Baldwin

As reported in The Guardian (here), "Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial came to a dramatic end on Friday, after a New Mexico judge dismissed the case against the actor and found that the state had improperly withheld evidence related to how live rounds of ammunition ended up on the film set where the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot.  Just days after courtroom proceedings had begun, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ruled in favor of the defense and agreed that the charges against Baldwin should be dropped, finding that the state had concealed evidence that would have been favorable to the actor. The dismissal, made with prejudice, puts an end to the involuntary manslaughter case against Baldwin."

Law & Crime has more on the story here.  According to this account, the motions hearing "eventually spiraled into something like a Russian nesting doll of discovery violations" and near the end of the hearing it was revealed that the "first chair" prosecutor — the one who gave the prosecution’s opening statement during the trial — had resigned.

Now the question is whether the prosecutor(s) will have to face discipline for their conduct.  I guess we will have to wait and see.  

MSNBC has more on the story here.

New Hampshire expands the program that allows non-laywers paraprofessionals to provide some legal services

 Long time readers of this blog may remember old posts about how some states have slowly approved regulation to allow “non-lawyer professionals” to provide legal services.  The terminology used to describe the professionals and the types of services varies quite a bit, but the idea is to allow certain trained professionals who are not admitted to the practice of law to provide some services that would otherwise be considered to be exclusively reserved for lawyers.  Obviously, the idea is to provide more (and perhaps less expensive) access to legal representation given that studies have always shown that there is a need for such access.

The success of these programs has also varied, with at least one eventually being abandoned, but that would be the subject of a different conversation.

I am writing today to report that, as of last month, New Hampshire extended such a program for another five years and expanded the “jurisdiction” of the professionals allowed to participate in it to include all state Circuit Courts.  Eligible paralegals under the program may appear in cases related to family law, domestic violence, stalking orders of protection, and landlord-tenant cases.  The new statutory language can be found in the New Hampshire Statutes, Title XXX: Occupations and Professions, Chapter 311 (Attorneys and Counselors), Section 311:2a (Legal Services by Paraprofessionals).  You can find a link to the section here, although as of the time of this post, the section’s language has not been updated with the newly approved statute.  The original statute (as of now) is here.  It is possible that some time soon you will be able to use this same link to see the new language, but as of now this link takes you to the statute that went into effect in 2023.  If you want the new version, look for the language adopted in June 2024.

Thank you very much to Jonathan Teller-Elsberg for the update!

Rudy Giuliani is, finally and officially, disbarred in New York

In a move that I suspect surprised no one, Rudy Giuliani was been disbarred in New York.  You can read the full order here.  It concludes, in part that, 

Contrary to respondent’s allegations, there is nothing on the record before us that would permit the conclusion that respondent lacked knowledge of the falsehood of the numerous statements that he made, and that he had a good faith basis to believe them to be true. On the contrary, as the Referee properly found, the 16 acts of falsehoods carried out by respondent were deliberate and constituted a transparent pattern of conduct intended and designed to deceive. More specifically, as the Referee aptly described, respondent “told numerous lies in the numerous forums all designed to create distrust of the elective system of our country in the minds of the citizens and to destroy their confidence in the legitimacy of our government.” Undeterred, respondent went as far as to attempt to deceive this tribunal by his numerous inconsistent statements before the Referee and the AGC.

 As you probably recall, Giuliani was suspended from practice in New York in 2021 pending his disciplinary proceeding (see here) and later recommended for disbarment in Washington Dc (see here).  The proceeding took a long time to unfold in New York but the decision was finally announced this week.  

For all my posts about the claims against Giuliani, go here.

You can read coverage and commentary about the disbarment in New York, here:

The Hill, Politico, Law & Crime, Courthouse News Service, MSNBC, The Legal Profession Blog

UPDATE July 12, 2024:  Giuliani's hearing to determine if he should be disbarred in Washington DC was held recently.  For a report, go to Law & Crime, here.

Emerging Trends in Legal Tech

 The Legal Talk Network has a new article with links to podcasts on emerging trends in legal tech here.