“The American Bar Association and dozens of other bar groups this week slammed President Donald Trump’s continued crackdown on the legal system as an attack on the rule of law.
“Words and actions matter,” the groups wrote in an open letter on Wednesday, which did not mention the president by name. “And the intimidating words and actions we have heard and seen must end. They are designed to cow our country’s judges, our country’s courts and our legal profession.””
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“Trump has come down hard on Democratic-leaning law firms, signing executive orders and memos suspending security clearances and barring the federal government from hiring employees from firms like Perkins Coie and Covington and Burling. One firm initially in Trump’s crosshairs — Paul, Weiss — saw its sanctions lifted after agreeing to perform pro bono legal work for conservative clients and ending diversity policies.
The retribution tour has now made its way to Congress, with GOP Senate offices told to take note of the blacklisted firms in an email sent last Friday.”
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““If lawyers do not speak, who will speak for our judges? Who will protect our bedrock of justice? If we do not speak now, when will we speak? Now is the time. That is why we stand together with the ABA in support of the rule of law,” the groups wrote.”
“Two law firms targeted by President Donald Trump sued Friday to bar enforcement of his executive orders seeking to shut them out of government business and strip key lawyers of their security clearances.
In separate suits, Big Law firms Jenner & Block and WilmerHale say Trump’s effort to target them amounts to an unprecedented attack on the legal profession in retaliation for their work for past clients he doesn’t like and for past causes with which he disagrees. If carried out, they say, the orders would devastate their practices and have already begun to cause anxiety among their hundreds clients with government business.
Jenner & Block’s lawsuit contends Trump’s order is an unconstitutional threat to the firm and the legal system itself, seeking to “punish citizens and lawyers based on the clients they represent, the positions they advocate, the opinions they voice, and the people with whom they associate.” The lawsuit was filed on the firm’s behalf by California-based law firm Cooley LLP.
“The President’s sweeping attack on WilmerHale (and other firms) is unprecedented and unconstitutional,” writes Paul Clement, a veteran Supreme Court lawyer representing the firm in its lawsuit. “The First Amendment protects the rights of WilmerHale, its employees, and its clients to speak freely, petition the courts and other government institutions, and associate with the counsel of their choice without facing retaliation and discrimination by federal officials.””
“President Donald Trump has reached a peace deal with a prominent law firm, agreeing to lift a punitive executive order in exchange for concessions that include an agreement to do pro bono work on behalf of conservative causes.”
“The idea that one type of lawyer can meet all legal needs is as outdated now as it was in 1935. Law schools and the legal academy must adjust accordingly.”
Trump fires top military lawyers so they aren’t roadblocks to anything Trump wants to do. But, the lawyers are supposed to be roadblocks! They are there to help the military follow the law and the Constitution.
“Trump talks often about using the DOJ to target his political adversaries and people he views as foes. An NPR report on October 22 found that Trump “made more than 100 threats to prosecute or punish perceived enemies.” That includes a threat to, in Trump’s words, “appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family.”
Trump also accused former Rep. Liz Cheney, a prominent Republican critic of the incoming president, of “TREASON” and threatened “TELEVISED MILITARY TRIBUNALS.” (Which, if they were to actually happen, would presumably take place in the Defense Department’s legal structure, but could involve some DOJ personnel.)
Trump’s decision to name Gaetz, a staunch loyalist, to lead the Justice Department created considerable alarm. Historically, the White House has obeyed strong norms against interfering with Justice Department prosecutorial decisions, but these norms have no legal force. A Trump loyalist like Gaetz could have torn down this barrier altogether. (If someone like him is confirmed atop the Justice Department, that barrier could still go.)
Trump’s decision to appoint his personal lawyers to top DOJ jobs is equally concerning. Federal lawyers are supposed to represent the interests of the United States, not of any particular politician, while they work for the government. But Trump has selected three people who aren’t simply accustomed to representing his personal interests, but who have also likely collected considerable legal fees from him.
Blanche, Sauer, and Bove’s conventional résumés also mean that, if they use their DOJ posts to pursue Trump’s personal campaign of vengeance, they are likely to be fairly effective in doing so.”
“The state eventually dropped the charges against Miller. His two years in jail, however, took a toll, according to his criminal defense attorney, who said Miller’s cancer was in remission but recurred after the state locked him up, as he could not access his medication.
Following his release, Miller sued Craycraft. The district court concluded Craycraft was entitled to absolute immunity. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit subsequently noted that Craycraft’s alleged chicanery was “difficult to justify and seemingly unbecoming of an official entrusted with enforcing the criminal law.” But that court went ahead and ratified the grant of absolute immunity anyway—a testament to the malfeasance the doctrine permits.
Core to the decision, and to similar rulings, is Imbler v. Pachtman (1976), the precedent in which the Supreme Court created the doctrine of absolute prosecutorial immunity. The Court ruled that a man who had spent years in prison for murder could not sue a prosecutor who allegedly withheld evidence that eventually exonerated him.
Plaintiffs’ only way around this doctrine is proving that a prosecutor committed misconduct outside the scope of his prosecutorial duties. It’s a difficult task. Louisiana woman Priscilla Lefebure sued local prosecutor Samuel C. D’Aquilla after he sabotaged her rape case against his colleague Barrett Boeker, then an assistant warden at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.”
The high court did not offer any comment on its decision, which means Powell, Wood and the other defendants must pay a total of $132,693.75 to the city of Detroit and another $19,639.75 in legal fees to the state of Michigan.
In their unsuccessful effort to overturn the 2020 election results in Michigan, Powell, Wood and their co-defendants made wild claims in a lawsuit brought in the state alleging that Dominion voting machines were involved in fraud.
A district court judge ruled that the lawyers’ court challenges represented a “historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.”
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals later upheld the bulk of the district court judge’s ruling, calling the fraud claims “simply baseless.”
In their appeal to the Supreme Court, the defendants continued to argue that they were simply pursuing “legitimate election challenges.”
Powell has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges stemming from her efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia and has agreed to testify against Trump and 14 others still charged there.
Dominion is suing Powell for $1.3 billion over her false claims that the company rigged the election against Trump.
Wood has been subpoenaed to testify in the Georgia case.”
“A new report from the American Bar Association (ABA) presents more evidence that the ubiquitous use of plea bargains distorts the justice system and puts defendants at a disadvantage. Roughly 98.3 percent of federal criminal convictions result from guilty pleas, as do roughly 95 percent of state convictions. “Some jurisdictions have not had a criminal trial in many years,” the report notes. Nor is a guilty plea an absolute assurance of guilt: 18 percent percent of documented exonerations had previously pleaded guilty, as did nearly 11 percent of defendants exonerated by DNA evidence since 1989.”
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“The “trial penalty” defendants incur when they refuse to plead guilty is reflected in the sentencing data reported by the ABA. In federal felony cases, average sentences handed down at trial are seven years longer than convictions resulting from a plea bargain. “Although a modest reduction in sentence is justified in some cases resolved through guilty pleas because a defendant accepts responsibility, sentences should not be punitively inflated simply because a defendant exercised a fundamental right,” the report argues.
Plea bargaining in many cases allows prosecutors to circumvent the defendant’s right to an attorney—particularly in misdemeanor cases and in rural areas. And even with counsel, a hastily accepted plea deal forecloses the opportunity to expose potential governmental abuse. “Challenges to police misconduct are typically resolved through pretrial litigation, but the death of the trial has also increasingly meant the death of pretrial litigation, including those hearings that would bring to light police misconduct,” the report states. “Trial and pretrial litigation are essential for holding police and other state actors accountable, and plea bargaining has eroded these systems of accountability.” Moreover, many “defendants are often denied discovery, including exculpatory evidence, before they make the decision to plead guilty.””
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“Plea bargains have a single great advantage: They increase the efficiency of the justice system. “Efficiency has a role to play in criminal law policymaking, but it should not be the primary goal of that policy,” the report counters. “Rather, the goal should be a criminal justice system where defendants are guaranteed due process, victims receive justice, and the rule of law can flourish.””