1/6/17 OC Weekly:
Judges Reject Orange County's Claim That Social Workers Didn't Know Lying In Court Was Wrong
Using taxpayer funds, government officials in Orange County have spent the last 16 years arguing the most absurd legal proposition in the entire nation: How could social workers have known it was wrong to lie, falsify records and hide exculpatory evidence in 2000 so that a judge would forcibly take two young daughters from their mother for six-and-a-half years?
Can't a judge hold a lawyer in contempt of court for advancing such an argument?
Varies by state, but lawyers generally have some sort of protection in the terms of lighter contempt sentencing while acting as advocates. It covers compliance with orders and courtroom decorum...but you don't get held in contempt for making a bad argument. If the lawyer had lied, that'd be a disciplinary offense. Can cost one their license. But he didn't lie, he spoke nonsense - morally bankrupt, evil please-God-smite-this-bastard nonsense. Deliberately advancing bogus arguments, that's a Rule 11 sanction - but that requires paying the other side's attorney's fees, not jail time.
ReplyDeleteWhich is utterly inadequate, here, but that's what it is.
That there were officially hired state lawyers making this argument? Argue policy and hit the municipality.