What can the judge do to Orly Taitz?

October 5, 2009 10:26 AM

What can the judge do to Orly Taitz?

In response to her unlawyerly behavior in a lawsuit that she filed on behalf of an Army captain, alleging that Barack Obama is not actually the president, and therefore the captain has no obligation to follow her deployment orders, a judge recently ordered lawyer/dentist/real estate agent/Birther extraordinaire Orly Taitz to explain why he should not fine her ten thousand dollars.

The deadline that the judge gave for Taitz to file the explanation was last Friday. Instead of such an explanation, Taitz filed a motion for an extension of the deadline, along with a motion for the judge to recuse himself, based on some truly wacky allegations, such as the judge allegedly owning Microsoft stock, and Microsoft allegedly being aligned with the "de facto president", or an alleged sighting of Attorney General Holder in a coffee shop near the judge's office, allegedly proving that the judge is in the "de facto" president's pocket.

My question is: What can the judge do about this sort of thing?

Obviously he can fine her $10,000. Can he fine her more? Can he throw her in jail? For how long? Can he bring criminal charges? What kind? Or civil charges? Can he have her disbarred? Or recommend that she be disbarred?

What defense does she have against whatever the judge can do, other than to stop yapping?

If it matters, assume that her behavior just keeps continuing indefinitely.

posted by Flunkie to law & government (7 comments total)

I'm no lawyer, but if I recall correctly, Jack Thompson, the attorney who went on a crusade against videogames claiming that Grand Theft Auto was essentially destroying the world, ended up pissing off the legal system so much that he was permanently disbarred with no hope of reinstatement.

And that's not counting contempt of court issues, under which she could quite easily get thrown into jail. So the consequences are potentially quite severe. You do not fuck with a sitting judge.
posted by Naberius at 10:31 AM on October 5

Assuming that you are not the Birther Queen, herself and that therefore you cannot be my client, the judge can find her in civil contempt and fine her or find her in criminal contempt and jail her for a short period. He lacks the power to disbar her, as she is entitled to due process from the bar or whoever does that in California (where I believe she is barred). I am not sure if he can disbarr her from the district court (you have to be barred there as well). Her defense would be an appeal to the 4th Circuit, which would review the judges' actions.

She needs mental help.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:31 AM on October 5 [4 favorites]

Okay, having looked it up, what happened with Thompson was that a judge recommended the permanent disbarment, and that recommendation was approved by the Florida state Supreme Court.

Wouldn't surprise me at all to see something similar happen in this case.
posted by Naberius at 10:35 AM on October 5

Ironmouth, not to nitpick, but Georgia is in the Eleventh Circuit.

There's a guy in Texas (look in this thread, his name's Davis) who goes around filing suits in various courts claiming Title 18 of the US Code (the entire criminal code) its unconstitutional. He keeps getting sanctioned, since there's no merit to the claim, but he causes some headaches. He now has prisoners file it directly, presumably selling them the brief. I believe he's under investigation for fraudulent legal services of some sort.

In any case, my point is that Orly Taitz will probably not go away anytime soon. She can use proxies and continue to file this nonsense and snarl up the federal courts.
posted by j1950 at 11:22 AM on October 5

sorry on the 11th, I'm trying to put some huge filing together and was like, "Georgia's in the South" and left it at that.

Agreed that Ms. Tatiz (really, is that your name?) could go on for some time. Not sure who would be willing to file for her in the profession, but there might be dumb guys who would file pro se and have her ghost write the filings.

But the woman does not understand the burden of proof, certainly. She thinks Obama has to prove he's president in the suit not the other way around.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:34 AM on October 5

There's three avenues (that come to mind) a judge has to punish naughty lawyers-- criminal contempt, civil contempt, and Rule 11 sanctions. Here's the standard for criminal contempt, from 18 U.S.C. § 401--

A court of the United States shall have power to punish by fine or
imprisonment, at its discretion, such contempt of its authority,
and none other, as—
(1) Misbehavior of any person in its presence or so near
thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice;
(2) Misbehavior of any of its officers in their official transactions;
(3) Disobedience or resistance to its lawful writ, process,
order, rule, decree, or command.

Civil contempt is covered by several statutes-- here's the standard, as set out in the "Bench Book for U.S. District Court Judges;" "The primary purpose of civil contempt is
to compel someone to do or not do a certain act." Basically, it's how a judge enforces a prior order to someone to do or not do something. Where someone disobeys a judge's order, you can see that the judge can go either the criminal or the civil contempt route. Criminal contempt is more drastic. The Bench Book recommends that judges exercise contempt power very carefully, and most of them to in my observation.

Rule 11 sanctions refer to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11, which is based on representations made by a lawyer or a pro se party to the court when they submit a signed document of any sort-- a complaint, motion, pleading, whatever. They're representing to the court that "...to the best of the person's knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances:

(1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation;
(2) the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law;
(3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery; and
(4) the denials of factual contentions are warranted on the evidence or, if specifically so identified, are reasonably based on belief or a lack of information."

Criminal contempt gives the trial judge the power to put someone in jail or fine them, not both. Civil contempt can be punished by imprisonment (sometimes until the contemnor has "purged" himself of his contempt) and/or fine. Rule 11 sanctions are punished by fines and award of court costs and attorney fees to the innocent party.

The judge can recommend disbarment to the appropriate state bar or supreme court, whoever handles bar admissions and disciplinary matters, and can probably either bar the attorney from practice before that particular district court, or at least recommend that the attorney not be allowed to practice any more before that court (a "district court" is made up of all the judges of that district).
posted by missouri_lawyer at 11:43 AM on October 5

In this case, the judge fined her $20,000 and had a copy of his order sent to the State Bar of California "for whatever use it deems appropriate."
posted by grouse at 9:42 AM on October 13