Orly Taitz, the lawyer and de facto leader of the “Birther” litigation, has filed a motion to withdraw from further representation of Dr. Connie Rhodes after Rhodes accused her of filing new papers in Rhodes v. MacDonald without her approval and after she agreed to be deployed by the military. Taitz is also facing a possible $10,000 fine from United States District Court Judge Clay D. Land, who previously dismissed the action. Taitz declared in one filing: “This case is now a quasi-criminal prosecution of the undersigned attorney.” She is already facing a California bar complaint and Rhodes is promising to file a new complaint against her for her “reprehensible” representation.
The latest development in this unraveling case began when Rhodes learned that Taitz had filed a motion to stay deployment after she had decided to forego further litigation. She then proceeded to fire Taitz by sending a remarkable letter from Office Max on the advice of “Tim who works in the District Clerk’s office.” She stated in the fax:
September 18th, 2009
To the Honorable Judge Land:
Currently, I am shipping out to Iraq for my deployment. I became aware on last night’s local news that a Motion to Stay my deployment had been entered on my behalf. I did not authorize this motion to be filed. I thank you for hearing my case and respect the ruling given on September 16th, 2009. It is evident that the original filing for the TRO and such was full of political conjecture which was not my interest. I had no intention of refusing orders nor will I. I simply wanted to verify the lawfulness of my orders. I am honored to serve my country and thank you for doing the same.
With that I said, please withdraw the Motion to Stay that Ms. Taitz filed this past Thursday. I did not authorize it and do not wish to proceed. Ms. Taitz never requested my permission nor did I give it. I would not have been aware of this if I did not see it on the late news on Thursday night before going to board my plane to Iraq on Friday, September 18, 2009.
Furthermore, I do not wish for Ms. Taitz to file any future motion or represent me in any way in this court. It is my plan to file a complaint with the California State Bar to her reprehensible and unprofessional actions.
I am faxing this as was advised by Tim, who works in the District Clerk’s office. I will mail the original copy of this letter once I have arrived in Iraq.
Respectfully,
CPT Connie M. Rhodes, MD
I am a bit curious that all of this case appears to have been a surprise to Rhodes despite endless coverage in the papers and cable shows. It is curious that she never acted to sever representation before this time.
In her Motion for Leave to Withdrawal as Counsel, Taitz suggests that her client is lying to the Court.
She states that she not only has a (rather obvious) conflict with her former client but may present evidence that is embarrassing to her:
The undersigned attorney comes before this Court to respectfully ask for leave to withdraw as counsel for the Plaintiff Captain Connie Rhodes. The immediate need for this withdrawal is the filing of two documents of September 18, 2009, one by the Court, Document 17, and one apparently by Plaintiff Connie Rhodes, which together have the effect of creating a serious conflict of interest between Plaintiff and her counsel. In order to defend herself, the undersigned counsel will have to contest and potentially appeal any sanctions order in her own name alone, separately from the Plaintiff, by offering and divulging what would normally constitute inadmissible and privileged attorney-client communications, and take a position contrary to her client’s most recently stated position in this litigation. The undersigned attorney will also offer evidence and call witnesses whose testimony will be adverse to her (former) client’s most recently stated position in this case. A copy of this Motion was served five days ago on the undersigned’s former client, Captain Connie Rhodes, prior to filing this with the Court and the undersigned acknowledges her client’s ability to object to this motion, despite her previously stated disaffection for the attorney-client
relationship existing between them. This Motion to Withdraw as Counsel will in no way delay the proceedings, in that the Plaintiff has separately indicated that she no longer wishes to continue to contest any issue in this case. In essence, this case is now a quasi-criminal prosecution of the undersigned attorney, for the purpose of punishment, and the Court should recognize and acknowledge the essential ethical importance of releasing this counsel from her obligations of confidentiality and loyalty under these extraordinary circumstances.Respectfully submitted,
By:_________________________
Orly Taitz, DDS, Esq.
California Bar ID No. 223433
FOR THE PLAINTIFF
Captain Connie Rhodes, M.D. F.S.
SATURDAY, September 26, 2009
“Quasi-criminal prosecution”? The judge had ordered Taitz to “show cause” why a sanction should not be imposed in the case. He had previously told Taitz that he would consider sanctions if she filed similar claims in the future. After the denial of the Motion to Stay deployment, Land said that the latest filing was “deja vu all over again” including “her political diatribe.” He notes:
Instead of seriously addressing the substance of the Court’s order, counsel repeats her political diatribe against the President, complains that she did not have time to address dismissal of the action (although she sought expedited consideration), accuses the undersigned of treason, and maintains that “the United States District Courts in the 11th Circuit are subject to political pressure, external control, and . . . subservience to the same illegitimate chain of command which Plaintiff has previously protested.”
Then the kicker:
The Court finds Plaintiff’s Motion for Stay of Deployment (Doc. 15) to be frivolous. Therefore, it is denied. The Court notifies Plaintiff’s counsel, Orly Taitz, that it is contemplating a monetary penalty of $10,000.00 to be imposed upon her, as a sanction for her misconduct. Ms. Taitz shall file her response within fourteen days of today’s order showing why this sanction should not be imposed.
I am frankly not convinced that sanctions would be appropriate for filing for a motion to stay deployment per se. At the time of his order, Land did not presumably know that the filing was made against the wishes of the client. If Rhodes was interested in appealing Land’s decision, which is her right, a stay is a standard request. However, the fact that the filing may have been made after Taitz was terminated as counsel and after she was told that Rhodes was abandoning the case is more cause for possible sanctions. Moreover, the low quality and over-heated rhetoric of the filing can support such sanctions. Her filings appear more visceral than legal. In demanding reconsideration of the Court’s earlier order, she used language that does cross the line:
This Court has threatened the undersigned counsel with sanctions for advocating that a legally conscious, procedurally sophisticated, and constitutionally aware army officers corps is the best protection against the encroachment of anti-democratic, authoritarian, neo-Fascistic or Palaeo-Communistic dictatorship in this country, without pointing to any specific language, facts, or allegations of fact in the Complaint or TRO as frivolous. Rule 11 demands more of the Court than use of its provisions as a means of suppressing the First Amendment Right to Petition regarding questions of truly historical, in fact epic and epochal, importance in the history of this nation.
She also (as noted by Land in his later order) essentially accused Land of treason, as she has in public statements:
Plaintiff submits that to advocate a breach of constitutional oaths to uphold the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, is in fact a very practical form of “adhering” to those enemies, foreign and domestic, and thus is tantamount to treason, as Defined in Article III, Section 3, even when pronounced in Court. The People of the United States deserve better service and loyalty from the most powerful, and only life-tenured, officers of their government.
Taitz is also facing a California Bar complaint, here. Ohio lawyer (and inactive California bar member) Subodh Chandra wrote the bar, stating “I respectfully request that you investigate Ms. Taitz’s conduct and impose an appropriate sanction. She is an embarrassment to the profession.” For that complaint, click here.
A complaint by a former client would likely attract more attention by the Bar. These are now serious allegations including misrepresentation, false statements to the Court, and other claims that will have to be addressed by a Bar investigation. This could take years to resolve — perhaps just in time for Obama’s second inauguration.
Wow.
Judge grants Taitz’s motion to withdraw as counsel.
But with conditions.
She remains subject to court jurisdiction for the show cause sanctions order and related proceedings.
She is NOT authorized to breach attorney client privilege.
The court is not relying on the faxed letter discharging Taitz.
Whether Captain Rhodes authorized the motion for reconsideration is irrelevant to whether it was frivolous.
No matter how it is spun, this is not good for soon-to-be-former attorney Taitz.
QUOTE
09/28/2009 21 ORDER granting 20 Motion to Withdraw as Attorney with conditions (see order for explanation). Attorney Orly Taitz terminated. Ordered by Judge Clay D. Land on 09/28/2009 (esl) (Entered: 09/28/2009)
O R D E R
Plaintiff’s counsel filed a motion to withdraw as counsel for Plaintiff (Doc. 20). Plaintiff apparently does not object to such withdrawal. (See Doc. 18.) Accordingly, counsel’s motion to withdraw is granted with the following conditions. Counsel remains subject to the jurisdiction of this Court for purposes of the Court’s show cause sanctions order and related proceedings, and Plaintiff remains subject to the jurisdiction of this Court for purposes of the Court’s previous order casting the court costs upon Plaintiff.
The Court further notes that this order shall not be construed to authorize Plaintiff’s counsel to breach any attorney-client privilege that may exist due to counsel’s representation of Plaintiff. Moreover, the Court notifies counsel that in issuing its show cause sanctions order, the Court did not rely upon the letter sent by Plaintiff purporting to discharge counsel (Doc. 18), nor does the Court intend to rely upon that document in future proceedings regarding sanctions against Plaintiff’s counsel. Whether Plaintiff expressly authorized counsel to file the motion for reconsideration is irrelevant to the Court’s determination of whether the filing was legally frivolous.
IT IS SO ORDERED, this 28th day of September, 2009.
QUOTE OFF
http://nativeborncitizen.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/rhodes-v-mcdonald-motion-to-witdraw-granted-with-conditions/
We are all adults here, and as adults we know there are consequences for are actions, so if you do not agree with his policies, you can a) do nothing, b) support him, c) not support him, d) protest and picket, its your choice, live the dream! As for Orly Taitz, to this point she has not been successful because she does not have any proof, documentation supporting her claims except her wild rants. I would not bet the farm on this one. She has a mail-order-degree get someone with real credentials (Harvard, Yale Law School) not a Russian immigrant with dual US/ Israel citizenship (where are her allegiances?). Have you even thought of who is paying for all these filings her travel, her wigs? Sorry she has no juice because she does not have any proof, documentation supporting her claims except her wild rants. I heard they are now playing the victim card as well. Please, feel sorry for us the “Birth Certificate” that we built our entire case around and that we have been dancing around turn out to be a big “Fake”. Her material might work on “Fake News” but not in a Court of the United States.
There was some discussion of natural born citizenship in an argument before the Court ten years ago, and the questions are now buzzing around the internet.
Scalia seemed to favor jus soli, law of the ground, or birthright citizenship in the country of birth, against jus sanguinis, law of the blood, or citizenship based on descent from parents.
On the McCain issue, Ginsburg said that children born overseas to U.S. citizen parents should be natural born citizens.
The Justice Department argued that there are only two kinds of citizens, natural born and naturalized.
DOJ did not seem to leave any room for a person who is citizen by virtue of birth in the United States, but who would only be a “born citizen” or “basic citizen,” that is, a citizen born in the U.S. and subject to its jurisdiction who would not be a natural born citizen eligible for the Presidency. [I have found no such concept in the text of the Constitution, or in the constitutional jurisprudence of the Supreme Court.
Here is for all to read and judge for themselves. Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS, No 99-2071, oral argument:
http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2000/2000_99_2071/argument
Vince, maybe she meant to say “surly reply.”
Buddha,
I stand corrected! Great dismantling job Vince.
@mr,ed – Sadly, Taitz is licensed by the California State Bar. Some concerned lawyers, however, are working to see that that is changed.
Taitz has a”law degree” from the online “William Howard Taft University”, and no CA license, or one anywhere else I could find. This could explain some of her misuse of legal terms and ineffectual client representation, and her convoluted briefs/filings/whatever. She’s a cartoon character, like Glenn Beck of the morning zoo radio tradition.
I wouldn’t want her to be looking into my mouth for dental work, either.
Sterngard, thanks for the definition and link. Welcome aboard.
Redressability is the court’s power to give plaintiff the relief she seeks. The United States argues the claims Taitz alleges, purportedly on behalf of her clients, aren’t redressable, since a federal court doesn’t have the power to undo the 2008 Presidential election.
Judge Land was not acting on CPT Rhodes’ letter terminating Orly Taitz when he issued his sanctions OSC. He found the motion for a stay to be frivolous because Taitz continued to use rhetoric for proof and failed to address the abstention issue. And Taitz had a prior history making the OSC appropriate. Her intemperate language became contumacious when she filed the stay application.
All of this is discussed in great detail at http://www.PolitiJab.Com where all of Taitz’s pleadings, and her unethical alliance with a disbarred lawyer (Charles E. Lincoln, III), who has appeared with her in court in California, have been the cause of all her problems. (Of course, having a losing case doesn’t help, either.)
raff,
Thank you but please, really, all the thanks here should go to Vince. I brought some condiments. Vince tracked, manually strangled, butchered, prepared and cooked the entrée.
It is about time that someone smacked down this alleged attorney. Vince and Buddha and Mespo, et all have exposed the nonsense that this person is trying to pass off as legal work. I hope the respective bar association complaints will rid the profession of this stain called Orly.
Vince,
I took a swing at it and while I could make it more readable, I couldn’t make it any more sensible. Her main contention seems to be that she didn’t get her way so obviously there is an issue with the Courts preventing her from enforcing the Constitution as she interprets it and that this prevention is somehow unconstitutional from what I can tell, but beyond that?
I’d say perhaps Orly can get a new job as an interpreter at the U.N., but I can’t see how having another native speaker of a distinctly different sub-dialect of Gibberish is going to help foster peaceful co-operation.
Vince:
“Furthermore, the Defendants assert that the Plaintiffs have not addressed the question of “redressability”, and this matter needs to be clarified in light of the Plaintiffs’ substantive due process contentions regarding the intersection of the First and Ninth Amendments as sources of the right of discrete and insular but politically powerless minorities to invoke strict scrutiny of obvious deviations from and therefore to enforce precisely and exactly the letter of the Constitution on the model of Flast v. Cohen and this charge requires a surreply.”
**************
I bet you can’t string this many non-senical words together!
Here’s my plagiarized attempt:
“‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!”
(With apologies to Lewis Carroll)
whoolie:
“Isn’t this really all about money…”
***************
Isn’t it always.
The very, very latest OrlyBomb from California: [quote on]
Plaintiffs’ L-R 7-10 Motion for Leave to File Sur-Reply To Defendants’ Reply to Plaintiffs’ Response to Defendants’ September 4, 2009 Motion to Dismiss
Plaintiffs hereby move and request leave of court to file a surreply in response to Defendants’ Reply filed and served on Friday, September 25, 2009. Plaintiffs cite the following authority from the Local Rules of the Central District of California:
L.R. 7-10 Reply Papers. A moving party may, not later than the seventh calendar date (not excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays) before the date designated for the hearing of the motion, serve and file a reply memorandum, and declarations or other rebuttal evidence. Absent prior written order of the Court, the opposing party shall not file a response to the reply.
Plaintiffs submit that the Defendants have raised new matter in their reply which require an answer. Namely, the Defendants submit cast in a highly prejudicial light to the Plaintiffs’ cause, namely the orders of the Honorable Clay D. Land from the Middle District of Georgia.
It is true that Judge Land ruled in favor of defense in a case seeking stay of deployment of active duty military pending verification of Mr. Obama’s legitimacy for the position of the President and Commander in Chief. What is most important in that case, is that for the first time after over a 100 legal actions filed all over the Nation challenging Mr. Obama’s legitimacy for presidency, a judge in this case found standing, as judge Land got straight to the substance of the Plaintiffs’ case, assuming standing of the members of the military to challenge the legitimacy of the Commander in Chief, but deciding to exercise discretionary abstention on the issue of deployment. Most of the plaintiffs in this case before His Honor, judge Carter, are members of the military, and as such, based on the precedent set in Rhodes case, they have standing to challenge legitimacy of Mr. Obama, therefore contradicting the defendants’ main argument in the motion to dismiss, their claim that none of the plaintiffs have standing. The fact that Judge Land decided to abstain on the issue of deployment is irrelevant in this case, as it goes to the final disposition of the case, and whether the judiciary should abstain from reviewing a certain procedure within the military.
Furthermore, the Defendants assert that the Plaintiffs have not addressed the question of “redressability”, and this matter needs to be clarified in light of the Plaintiffs’ substantive due process contentions regarding the intersection of the First and Ninth Amendments as sources of the right of discrete and insular but politically powerless minorities to invoke strict scrutiny of obvious deviations from and therefore to enforce precisely and exactly the letter of the Constitution on the model of Flast v. Cohen and this charge requires a surreply. Finally, the Defendants continue to misrepresent the Plaintiffs’ contentions regarding standing and how standing as a barrier to self-governing enforcement of the Constitution through Petition to Article III Courts (as advocated by the Defendants, in any case) would itself constitute a violation of Plaintiffs’ constitutional right to due process of law in the enforcement of the plain letter of the Constitution.
WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs’ pray, pursuant to L.R. 7-10, that they be allowed to file a surreply to Defendants’ response in this case, and even to do so as late as Thursday, October 1, 2009, especially since they are precluded from filing their Second Amended Complaint prior to the hearing on Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss by this Court’s Minute Order entered Thursday, September 24, 2009.
Respectfully submitted,
Saturday, September 26, 2009
By:______________________________________________
Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq., Attorney-at-Law
(California Bar 223433)
Attorney for the Plaintiffs
29839 S. Margarita Pkwy
Rancho Santa Margarita CA 92688
ph. 949-683-5411
Fax: 949-766-7036
E-Mail: dr_taitz@yahoo.com
[unquote]
http://nativeborncitizen.wordpress.com/2009/09/26/keyesbarnett-v-obama-doc-75-motion-for-leave-to-file-sur-reply-to-motion-to-dismiss/
Unsigned again.
What is a “surreply”?
What is “redressabiltiy”?
What are the “substantive due process contentions regarding the intersection of the First and Ninth Amendments as sources of the right of discrete and insular but politically powerless minorities to invoke strict scrutiny of obvious deviations from and therefore to enforce precisely and exactly the letter of the Constitution on the model of Flast v. Cohen….”?
How is standing “a barrier to self-governing enforcement of the Constitution through Petition to Article III Courts (as advocated by the Defendants, in any case) [that] would itself constitute a violation of Plaintiffs’ constitutional right to due process of law in the enforcement of the plain letter of the Constitution”
Can anyone translate any of this into English?
It also seems that Taitz may have added Rhodes to the case in California, Keyes and Barnett v. Obama, without her knowledge and consent.
http://ohforgoodnesssake.com/?p=2535
It should also be remembered that the retired general who was supposedly added to the Major Cook case [and who took up more than 1000 posts at the Retired General thread here] later denied that he ever joined the suit.
After the fax by Captain Rhodes firing Taitz was posted over at the Federal Judge thread, there were immediate claims that Rhodes’ fax was a forgery. The claims were made on the web by Larry Sinclair, A CONVICTED FORGER. Who better to know.
Orly joined the chorus, also chiming in that the fax was a forgery.
But as usual with birther myths, this one was soon exposed, and now even Orly recognizes that she has been well and truly sacked.
The client fired her. So she turns on the client.
Isn’t this really all about money…
I think they had her in mind when this song was composed:
Go girl. This is incredible. Why didn’t the opponents of W do the same thing? After all he did steal not one but two elections.