Law & Law Enforcement

Unethical Quote Of The Month (And Incompetent Elected Official): Vice-President Kamala Harris, Part 2: Harris Has Directly Violated California’s Legal Ethics Rules

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

There is another aspect of Kamala Harris’s attack on the Supreme Court majority on Dobbs that bears noting.

In most jurisdictions, a lawyer may not publicly impugn the integrity of a sitting judge, and certainly not a Supreme Court Justice.

Here is the relevant rule in California, one of the jurisdictions with the duty to oversee her conduct. California’s position is that a member of its bar is subject to California rules no matter when the lawyer violates them.

Rule 8.2 Judicial Officials – State Bar of California:

(a) A lawyer shall not make a statement of fact that the lawyer knows* to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge or judicial officer, or of a candidate for election or appointment to judicial office.

Comment “To maintain the fair and independent administration of justice, lawyers should defend judges and courts unjustly criticized. Lawyers also are obligated to maintain the respect due to the courts of justice and judicial officers.”

If there is a California lawyer reading who wants to take a stand for the integrity of the ethics rules, a formal complaint to the would be apt and appropriate.

[The graphic above represents my assessment of the likelihood that the California Bar would ever enforce its rules against a good, abortion-loving Democrat for attacking the U.S. Supreme Court.]

Unethical Quote Of The Month (And Incompetent Elected Official): Vice-President Kamala Harris

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

“How dare they?”

—Vice-President Kamala Harris on June 24 referring to the U.S. Supreme Court on the anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org. ruling that finally overturned Roe v. Wade.

This wasn’t the usual infantile babbling that characterizes most of Harris’s public appearances: Ethics Alarms has pledged to skip most of those in fealty to the Julie Principle. That quote is far worse, more significant and sinister. It’s so unethical and outrageous that I initially didn’t believe she could have been referring to the Supreme Court: most of the mainstream media accounts and even the edited videos left out the context of that outburst, so, giving the Vice-President of the United States the benefit of the doubt and assuming that surely, surely, she could not be framing a duly rendered majority ruling on the U.S. Constitution by the independent branch of the government charged with that duty by the Founders in such an ignorant, misleading and inflammatory manner.

She was, however. In fact, she had made the same fatuous, irresponsible and obnoxious statement before, a year ago, and is apparently so proud of her demagoguery that she deemed it worthy of an encore. I thought, and hoped, that her “How dare they?” was at least in the context she placed it in this past January, but no. (That is also an unethical and despicable bit of demogoguery, notable for Harris’s characterization of the famous statement in Thomas Jefferson’s masterpiece as “A promise we made in the Declaration of Independence that we are each endowed with the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Huh. Sounds funny. Isn’t there something missing there? Something that unborn Americans might think is important? I’m sure I’ll think of it in a minute…

But no. I could find no news report that placed this “How dare they?” in the context Harris placed it last week, but a video I can’t embed, available here on the Washington Post website, makes it clear.

In order to make such a dangerous statement, Harris has to also mislead the public into believing that, as she falsely said in January and periodically since, the United States Supreme Court “took away… a fundamental right, a basic freedom from the people of America.” Whatever one thinks should be the law or laws regarding abortion, it was never “a fundamental right, a basic freedom.” It was a Court-made right, and the Supreme Court isn’t empowered to make rights. “Fundamental rights” are the enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights and the subsequent amendments, passed by Congress and the states, in the Constitution. Roe was a bad, political, incompetent decision that most legal scholars, even those who favor abortion, admitted was wrongly decided. (If she ever had chosen to be candid about the issue, it is likely that even the sainted Ruth Bader Ginsburg recognized this.) Roe survived for so long because a parade of Justices lacked the votes and guts to overturn it.

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About This Exchange Between A Reporter Last Week And The White House’s Non-Historic, Non-Incompetent Paid Liar And The Later Response By The White House’s Historic, Incompetent Paid Liar…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

1. How can the White House not have a response prepared for this question?

2. How long can the mainstream media refuse to give this slowly exploding story the attention and coverage it obviously deserves?

3. It is true that everybody—I think literally everybody—knew that Joe Biden was lying when he said his son had “done nothing wrong” and when he said that he never discussed Hunter’s dealing with foreign governments with him. But is it possible that the President, his advisors and his party really think that they can duck the scandal with the Clinton “Deny, deny, deny!” formula?

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A Barn Door Fallacy Classic From California

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

California was the only U.S. jurisdiction that had no version of American Bar Association Rule 8.3, which reads in part, “A lawyer who knows that another lawyer has committed a violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct that raises a substantial question as to that lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects, shall inform the appropriate professional authority.”

“Shall” means must, and thus, theoretically, a lawyer who does not report a lawyer for misconduct that amounts to a serious legal ethics violation is himself or herself committing such a violation as well. That’s the theory.

The California legal community has just gone through a spectacular scandal. Tom Girardi, a famous and much-acclaimed plaintiffs trial lawyer, was disbarred after it was discovered that he had defrauded many clients and illegally obtained millions of dollars in the process. The California bar’s investigation report was horrific: his corrupt activities were successful for so long in part because he recruited—and bribed—members of the State Bar leadership and the organization’s employees. Over a hundred lawsuits had been filed against Girardi by clients for misappropriation of funds, but his record with the Bar remained pristine.

Shortly after the ugly story broke, California began to take steps to add some form of 8.3 to its Rules of Professional Conduct governing the ethics of its members, a cynical and useless move designed to appear responsible. It was also an example of what Ethics Alarms calls “The Barn Door Fallacy,” a phenomenon most common today in the area of post-tragedy gun legislation. After a high-profile disaster, the response is to “do something” that supposedly would have prevented the disaster if it had been in place earlier. Usually, as in this case, the reality is that it would not.

Rule 8.3 is something of an illusion anyway. Bar associations are reluctant to second guess a member and punish him or her for their personal assessments of what kind of conduct constitutes “raising a substantial question as to that lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects.” Stealing money from a client is definitely in that category, but proving that another lawyer “knows” about such conduct as opposed to “suspecting” it is not easy. Most bar counsel have no stomach for it, and prosecutions are absurdly rare.

The fact that 8.3 is called the “Snitch Rule” in the profession tells you how most lawyers feel about it. In general, lawyers tend to make ethics complaints to their bars about adversaries. Blowing the whistle on one’s own firm member, a powerful partner, a close colleague or a friend is rarer than—well, pick your metaphor, I’m not feeling clever today.

To see how the news out of California is even less than meets the eye, note how the state’s version of 8.3 is narrower than any other state. It reads,

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Where Reporting Ends And Propaganda Takes Over: The NYT On Affirmative Action

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Dominating today’s New York Times front page (above) is a report headlined “How It Feels to Have Your Life Changed By Affirmative Action” online and “Inside the Lives Changed by Affirmative Action” in the print version of the Times. The piece is naked and blatant advocacy for the Constitution- and U.S. law-violating policy that has been given temporary pass by a conflicted Supreme Court multiple times despite an unavoidable fact: it’s discrimination, and the Constitution doesn’t distinguish between good discrimination and bad discrimination. By the principles and values this nation was founded upon, all discrimination on the basis of qualities like religion, race, gender and ethnicity is wrong.

The Times approach to the subject is similar to its coverage of the illegal immigration controversy. In that matter, as periodically pointed out by Ethics Alarms, the Times has given readers frequent heart-warming tales of “the good illegal immigrant,” a hard-working immigration law violator who is the salt of the earth, a wonderful parent, and yet cruelly held accountable for his or her law-breaking anyway. The motive of such articles seems clear: use emotions to overcome and blot out law, ethics, fairness and common sense. As the Supreme Court seems poised to finally call college and university affirmative action programs what they are: illegal, the Times is trying to build support for its favorite party’s inevitable accusations of racism and illegitimacy against the five or six justices who will have simply done their jobs.

The headlines tell it all. Affirmative action changed the lives of its beneficiaries for the better, so obviously, affirmative action is good, and ending it would be unethical. What is striking about the article is that none of the affirmative action beneficiaries—all black—interviewed appear to have given a second’s thought to the individual whose opportunity they seized because of their “better” color. Some express regrets because they faced, or felt like they faced, skepticism about their degrees or career accomplishments because they were presumed to be “undeserving” affirmative action beneficiaries. None hint at any regret that someone who deserved to be accepted to an elite school or program was not so they could be.

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The Weenie Mandate

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Elsewhere on Ethics Alarms are a few posts defending the decision by employers to fire employees who have physically intervened in attempted robberies, sometimes to the extent of capturing the thieves. Such individuals are usually hailed as heroes by the media and the public, and the stores that discipline them are assailed as heartless ingrates. The companies are on solid ground, ethically, legally and practically. Typically, there are policies in the employees handbook specifically laying out how robberies are to be handled. Physical intervention not only risks the would-be hero’s well-being, but the welfare of other employees as well. When a staffer’s amateur law-enforcement act goes well, it is still just moral luck.

Unfortunately, this sensible policy has had illicit relations with the “shoplifting should be a crime” mutants, and the result is one frightening deformed offspring. Thanks to woke brain rot seeping through San Francisco and other urban areas, viral videos show staff just standing by politely as people forage through store shelves, sometimes returning several times.

The woman above, Mary Ann Moreno, had worked at Circle K for 18 years. Moreno was behind the counter when Tyler Wimmer walked into the convenience store with a knife, and asked Mary if she would give him a pack of cigarettes for free. Moreno declined. When he grabbed a pack anyway, she instinctively reached out and touched him, then pulled away. Based on the surveillance tapes, the company fired her for violating the company’s “Don’t Chase or Confront Policy” regarding shoplifters and robbers. Moreno is now suing Circle K Stores Inc. Her attorney, Iris Halpern, said the footage clearly shows that Moreno acted in self-defense and made no real effort to stop or chase Wimmer. “Companies have not sufficiently thought through the nuance in these situations,” she says.

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Gavin Newsom’s Unethical, Ridiculous “28th Amendment”

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, issued this on Twitter:

And thus once again we are faced with the question of just how stupid, civically ignorant and gullible an American politician thinks the public is. I can understand why Newsom might believe that the answer is “incredibly stupid, civically ignorant and gullible,” because someone like him was elected governor by Californians. However, there is hope that he is mistaken.

To begin with the most important point, his proposal is pure grandstanding. The chances of any Constitutional amendment being passed are vanishingly small, but the chances of that mess being passed are zero. It is unethical to make proposals that are impossible: call it the “Imagine” fraud. The cynical and manipulative individual putting forth the plan is seeking approval and support for a sentiment that is entirely useless and cruelly misleading, at least for the fools silly enough to take it seriously.

This “amendment” is a sop to the “Do something!” crowd. See? Gavin is doing something! He’s proposing a solution that is absolutely impossible, and that wouldn’t be a solution even if it somehow came to pass!

In addition to the cynical nature of proposing an impossible solution, what Newsom is proposing is an abuse of the amendment process, essentially using the Constitution to pass legislation so the legislation can probably never be repealed. It also isn’t what he says it is: a collection of “four gun safety freedoms.” How are any of those provisions “freedoms”? Newsom is casting a fake amendment in terms evoking the First and Second Amendments though it doesn’t involve “freedoms” at all. That’s OK: most of the amendments are about rights, not freedoms, but his using the term in this context should set off everyone’s snake-oil salesman alarms.

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Does Westchester County’s D.A. Think The Public Is That Gullible? Is Donald Trump?

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah announced on June 15 that her office had closed the pending criminal case against Donald Trump after an investigation she claimed was conducted “objectively, and independent of politics, party affiliation and personal or political beliefs.”

Right. Who believes that? Rocah, a Democrat, decided that the “Get Trump” effort being simultaneously carried out for years by Democrats (like her) in multiple jurisdictions as well as in the U.S. Congress, the Justice Department and the FBI (in redundancy there is security) had finally succeeded with special prosecutor Jack Smith’s indictment. Why waste public funds on one more politically-motivate prosecution when the goal had been achieved?

Then Trump brayed on Truth Social,

“WAS THE HONORABLE THING TO DO IN THAT I DID NOTHING WRONG.”

“BUT WHERE AND WHEN DO I GET MY REPUTATION BACK? WHEN WILL THE OTHER FAKE CASES AGAINST ME BE DROPPED? ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!”

Does he really believe the case was dropped for honorable reasons? Whatever the decision was, it wasn’t “honorable.” If Trump actually misled authorities about the value of the Trump National Golf Club Westchester to pay less on property taxes, then the honorable thing would be to prosecute him. If he didn’t, then the investigation was probably politically motivated. If Rocah really was honorable, she would exonerate Trump and announce that a full investigation found that the allegations against him were false.

(Isn’t there some DA somewhere who will prosecute Trump for writing social media messages in all caps?)

Now THAT’S An Unethical Lawyer! [Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Every December, when I do an end-of-year legal ethics seminar for the D.C. Bar, I discuss the Unethical Lawyer of the Year. It’s only June, but it’s hard to see how anyone, not even Alvin Bragg, can match Jason Kurland this year

Kurland, an attorney who represented lottery winners and was once a partner at the prestigious firm Rivkin Radler, one of the 200 largest firms in the nation, was sentenced last week to 13 years in prison. He had been found guilty of wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud, unlawful monetary transactions and a related conspiracy charge.

Fraudulent representations by Kurland and his co-defendants caused his clients to lose more than $80 million. He also lifted $19.5 million from the account of one lottery winner to make an investment for the benefit of himself and his accessories.

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2023’s Most Insulting Made-Up Excuse For Unethical Conduct So Far

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I had assumed this story from last month had wrapped up the prize: A Colorado man was pulled over by police for speeding and swapped seats with his dog so he could claim, or at least try to claim, that the dog was driving.

“The driver attempted to switch places with his dog who was in the passenger seat, as the SPD officer approached and watched the entire process,” the official statement reads. “The male party then exited the passenger side of the vehicle and claimed he was not driving.” The suspect showed “clear signs of intoxication,” and when the officer asked about his alcohol consumption, he tried to run away but was quickly caught.

The dog told the officers that he was grateful for their intervention because he “thought that idiot was going to kill us both.”

OK, I’m kidding about that last part. There have been some really weird ethics stories involving dogs lately. I ultimately decided not to write about this one, the Penn State professor caught having repeated sex with his dog to “blow off steam” because there are so many tasteless—but funny!—jokes that come to mind and I might not be able to resist making some of them.

But I digress. Almost as revolting as that story is the new leader for worst 2023 excuse, Dr Nicholas Chapman, 55, a British general practitioner, who has been convicted of putting his semen into coffee he served to a female acquaintance in September of 2021. The court was told that Chapman was accused of adding his semen to drinks he made for the victim on several occasions. When the woman kept a sample of some of the cofee he had made for her, tests confirmed the secret ingredient and the DNA matched Chapman’s.

The doctor swore he was innocent. He had a rare condition that causes him to ejaculate while urinating, he said, and he just keeps forgetting to wash his hands after finishing up in the loo.

[I used a photo of Porter, the first driving dog, above instead of a picture related to Chapman’s excuse because…well, you know why…]