Bizarre, Courts, Lawyering, Society

Attorney Orly Taitz Fined $20,000 for Frivolous “Birther” Litigation

orly2The bill is in for Orly Taitz, the California lawyer leading the “Birther” litigation: $20,000 for sanctionable conduct. U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land previously issued a stern warning to attorney Orly Taitz and others in the so-called “birther” campaign: do not file another such “frivolous” lawsuit or you will face sanctions. Land threw out the lawsuit filed on behalf of Capt. Connie Rhodes who is an Army surgeon challenging her deployment orders due to President Barack Obama’s alleged ineligibility to serve as President. Land (a Bush appointee) noted that “[u]nlike in ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ simply saying something is so does not make it so.” In the most recent order, Land said that Taitz’s conduct “borders on delusional.”


Rhodes previously accused Taitz of filing new papers in Rhodes v. MacDonald without her approval and after she agreed to be deployed by the military. 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 “reprehensible” representation.

When Rhodes learned that Taitz had filed a motion to stay deployment after she had decided to forego further litigation, she 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

In her Motion for Leave to Withdrawal as Counsel, Taitz suggested 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 noted:

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.

The court ruled that Taitz violated Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in filing frivolous papers. Declaring the filings as made in “bad faith,” the court concluded that Taitz’s legal conduct was “willful and not merely negligent.” Sanctions were warranted, he held, because “Counsel’s frivolous and sanctionable conduct wasted the Defendants’ time and valuable judicial resources that could have been devoted to legitimate cases pending with the Court.”

s-TAITZ-large

“When a lawyer files complaints and motions without a reasonable basis for believing that they are supported by existing law or a modification or extension of existing law, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law,” Land writes. “When a lawyer uses the courts as a platform for a political agenda disconnected from any legitimate legal cause of action, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law. When a lawyer personally attacks opposing parties and disrespects the integrity of the judiciary, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law. When a lawyer recklessly accuses a judge of violating the judicial code of conduct with no supporting evidence beyond her dissatisfaction with the judge’s rulings, that lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law. When a lawyer abuses her privilege to practice law, that lawyer ceases to advance her cause or the ends of justice. . .

Regrettably, the conduct of counsel Orly Taitz has crossed these lines, and Ms. Taitz must be sanctioned for her misconduct. After a full review of the sanctionable conduct, counsel’s conduct leading up to that conduct, and counsel’s response to the Court’s show cause order, the Court finds that a monetary penalty of $20,000.00 shall be imposed upon counsel Orly Taitz as punishment for her misconduct, as a deterrent to prevent future misconduct, and to protect the integrity of the Court. Payment shall be made to the United States, through the Middle District of Georgia Clerk’s Office, within thirty days of today’s Order. If counsel fails to pay the sanction due, the U.S. Attorney will be authorized to commence collection proceedings.

I expect that Taitz will appeal the decision, given her past statements. The opinion goes into considerable detail on her conduct and interaction with the court, as shown below.

For the decision, click here.

For the story, click here

1,636 thoughts on “Attorney Orly Taitz Fined $20,000 for Frivolous “Birther” Litigation”

  1. Suspicions were growing last night that Russian security services were behind the leaking of the notorious British ‘Climategate’ emails which threaten to undermine tomorrow’s Copenhagen global warming summit.

    An investigation by The Mail on Sunday has discovered that the explosive hacked emails from the University of East Anglia were leaked via a small web server in the formerly closed city of Tomsk in Siberia.

    The leaks scandal has left the scientific community in disarray after claims that key climate change data was manipulated in the run-up to the climate change summit of world leaders.

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233562/Emails-rocked-climate-change-campaign-leaked-Siberian-closed-city-university-built-KGB.html#ixzz0YuvXvWXM

  2. To Whom It May Concern:

    Watergate redux: Break-ins reported at another climate research center. (Think Progress, 12/5/09)

    Burglars and hackers have attacked the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, apparently in an attempt to further the “Climategate” intimidation of global warming researchers. The Climategate smear campaign rests on the release of thousands of emails illegally hacked last month from the British Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The National Post reports that the Centre for Climate Modelling, a government institution, is also the victim of repeated criminal attacks:

    Andrew Weaver, a University of Victoria scientist and key contributor to the Nobel prize-winning work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says there have been a number of attempted breaches in recent months, including two successful break-ins at his campus office in which a dead computer was stolen and papers were rummaged through.

    http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/05/enviro-watergate/

  3. Byron–

    You wrote: “I don’t think you can compare what happens on Venus to Earth. There is no similarity.”

    I forgot to note one way that Earth and Venus are similar in my last comment. The two planets are similar in size. They have approximately the same diameter. Venus is sometimes called Earth’s twin for that very reason.

  4. Byron–

    I think you missed my point about the effect atmospheric gases have on the temperatures of planetary bodies. Are you saying that even if Earth had as dense an atmosphere as Venus, it wouldn’t be much warmer? Or if Earth had no atmosphere that it wouldn’t be colder on the nightside of our planet?

  5. Elaine M:

    I don’t think you can compare what happens on Venus to Earth. There is no similarity.

  6. Slart, thank you, thats what I try to do when I copy/paste. Pick out part of what I read that stands out to me and then provide the link.

    We are now way way passed the Hide the Decline, Mike’s Nature Trick, the e-mails got stolen phase. There is overwhelming factual evidence that all data has been manipulated one way or the other. We have, over the last several years documented this fact. We have surface temperature stations purposely placed near high heat content areas such as AC units, Roof Tops, Concrete Parking Lots Ect. Ect. We have temp stations removed from parts of the coldest climates. I have provided the links. We have CO2 Monitoring and Collection Stations, I believe 9 in total, located near volcanoes, such is the case as the one in Hawaii. We have scientist manipulating data to which the entire scientific community is now turned upside down. There is either photographic evidence or written admission to all above.

    So far, the most damming statement out of what e-mails that have been reviewed, and mind you there not finished going thru them, is,

    “We can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it’s a travesty that we can’t.”

    Then as you well know the last time we got into this discussion all kinds of cold temperatures were being broken world wide with record snows. Now we got a slow start to winter this year after another below active hurricane season in the Atlantic, with no U.S. strike. World wide we are at a 30 year low for Tropical Cyclone activity , for the THIRD straight year. Winter is underway and we have started yet again with record breaking snow in Michigan, earliest snow ever for Houston, October the third coolest on record, on and on and on. Let me not forget the sunspot activity, which is NIL and has received a fresh look in comparison to past event cycles.

    Yes the e-mails themselves may not be that smoking gun and it sure has shed alot of light of what the hell is actually going on.

  7. Byron–

    I wouldn’t dismiss humankind’s effect on global warming so easily. Some things to keep in mind:

    1) The widespread burning of fossil fuels to generate power since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution
    2) Millions and millions of cars and their gaseous emissions
    3) Burning of fossil fuels to heat homes

    Of course it’s about the sun–the sun and CO2. The gases in our atmosphere can trap the heat of the sun.

    Let’s take Mercury, the planet closest to the sun. It rotates very slowly–a day on Mercury is nearly two earth months. Its atmosphere is nearly non-existent. On the side of Mercury that faces the sun for an extended period of time, the temperature can be blazing hot…maybe 700 or 800 degrees. But on the side turned away from the sun it gets extremely cold–below -300 degrees–because there are no atmospheric gases to trap the heat. The same is true of our moon.

    Venus, on the other hand, has a dense atmosphere composed of mostly carbon dioxide. The sun’s heat gets trapped and can’t escape into space. It’s a good example of the greenhouse gas effect. Venus doesn’t have the same kind of temperature variations as Mercury because of the gases in its atmosphere.

    Wouldn’t it be logical to conclude that if we keep increasing the level of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere, that our planet WILL get warmer?

  8. Byron,

    You said:
    “the wait and see was about what the expert conclusion is to all of this.”

    Oh. Well… then I agree with you on this. I recommend you read the Nature article that Buddha linked and I excerpted as since part of this involves the ‘Nature trick’, their concern (or lack thereof) can be considered part of the expert conclusion.

    Modern humans have only been around for about 200,000 years (according to Wikipedia). (Just thought you’d like to know.)

    I understand that the climate is an extraordinarily complex system with many important inputs (such as the sun and geothermal warming) which adapts to changes and these changes have been happening for the last 4 billion years, but when you’re fiddling with the controls of a complex system (say by adding a large amount of carbon to the air) at some point you hit a bifurcation and instead of your small change causing a small adaptation, it causes some kind of large qualitative change. I agree that this is unlikely to be an extinction level event (odds are better for a giant meteor), but it could well be catastrophic for our civilization. I’m not worried about beach-front land with polar bear corpses, I’m worried about reaching a tipping point where it’s too late to solve the problem before we decide to act. To me this seems to be the choice between doing some things that might hurt a bit in the short term, but will ultimately be very beneficial (no matter what the truth on this topic is) or to do nothing and hope everything works out for the best (which seems a bit unwise when you’re dealing with an unsustainable system).

  9. MikeS:

    I regret the use of T-Rex. People that grow large businesses are smart driven people, they are not “mindless brutes”.

    Maybe I am wrong, you and Buddha certainly have some points. But are those manifestations of our current system (a mixed economy which is regulated) or are they the very nature of a free market? I think they are caused by man tinkering with the markets while you think they are the very nature of a free market.

    Part of my problem is that on the one hand men are greedy and selfish if they engage in building or running a business but are selfless and pure if they are regulating a business or industry.

    If mans nature is to be selfish then all men are such and look out for their own self interest. It matters not the vocation and whether one is pursuing profits or sainthood. If mans nature is to be selfish then he is selfish across all spectrums. Which begs the question – who regulates the regulators?

  10. Slarti:

    the wait and see was about what the expert conclusion is to all of this.

    Global climate change has been taking place for as long as the earth has been in existence. I wont count out the possibility that we have some small contribution to the system. But everyone seems to dismiss the Sun in this equation, it is all about CO2 or cow flatulence or whatever other man made contribution.

    I just read an article about the possibility of geothermal heating of the oceans as an explanation for an increase in sea temperature. Which I think is actually a plausible explanation. Certainly more so than man’s activities having anything to do with it.

    Don’t worry, humans have been on this planet in one form or another for 4 million years plus(?) and I will hazard a guess we will be around for as long as our sun holds up, barring any natural disasters. AWG would not be an extinction level event, it makes for a good movie plot but not much else.

    So sleep well tonight secure in the knowledge that you will not wake tomorrow with water-front property and dead Polar Bears on your front steps.

  11. Byron,

    I’ve read the emails and I’m familiar with the type of discussion they’re having. They are talking about writing a paper, this is not the part of science where you consider all of the possibilities with an open mind – this is the part of science where you try to make the most convincing argument possible for your interpretation of the results. While I haven’t read all of the emails (and have no inclination to read any more than I have already), what I’ve seen portrayed as ‘smoking guns’ has ranged from utterly innocuous to possibly ethically dubious. As I’ve said before, there should be investigation, but it needs to be done by people who understand the context of these emails and are acquainted with the science in question – not the general public. Assuming the worst possible interpretation of these emails (which, again, is totally unwarranted), this has no significant impact on the scientific consensus on climate change. Furthermore, your ‘wait and see’ attitude on this issue is disingenuous at best and disastrous at worst. Since climate change deniers want to continue the status quo, ‘wait and see’ is implicitly deciding that the deniers are correct. If it turns out that they are wrong and we did nothing, it will severely reduce the habitability of the planet and possibly result in the downfall of our civilization or even the extinction of our species. On the other hand, if we act to curb pollution and develop green technology at the cost of 1-2% of our GDP and it turns out that global warming is not man made, we will have gotten several desirable benefits anyway – we’ll have cleaner air and water and land, we will have taken a big step towards sustainability for our society , and we will have made an unprecedented leap in global cooperation. This would be a bargain at 2% GDP. Finally, climate change is not summer getting a little bit longer and winter not being so cold, it’s about costal regions being flooded by the rising sea level, about the ice caps melting and altering the ocean’s currents and destabilizing the climate:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation

    about arable land becoming desert, about summers becoming hotter and dryer, about winters becoming harsher, about more and bigger hurricanes and tornados… well, you get the idea. We’re not playing penny-ante here, we’re playing no-limit Texas Hold’em and Mother Nature’s just gone all-in. All of our chips are on the table and we have to decide what to do right now. We don’t get to ‘wait and see’.

  12. Bdaman,

    Since I doubt that you would follow a link that that doesn’t support your position, I thought I’d post a paragraph from the nature.com article that Buddha linked to. It is basically Nature’s reply to denier’s demands to investigate the ‘trick’ referred to in the hacked emails. Keep in mind that Nature (unlike you) has the utmost in credibility and integrity.

    “The stolen e-mails have prompted queries about whether Nature will investigate some of the researchers’ own papers. One e-mail talked of displaying the data using a ‘trick’ — slang for a clever (and legitimate) technique, but a word that denialists have used to accuse the researchers of fabricating their results. It is Nature’s policy to investigate such matters if there are substantive reasons for concern, but nothing we have seen so far in the e-mails qualifies.”

    You have no desire to know the truth here or understand what (if any) ethical violations occurred, only to exploit the opportunity for propaganda that you hope will obscure the fact that your position is intellectually dishonest, factually incorrect, and scientifically ignorant.

  13. Buddha:

    go read some of those emails and you may change your mind. The more emails I read and the more I learn as I try and understand the jingo the more I am convinced that they have an hypothesis and they are trying to prove it, rather than having an hypothesis and letting the data take them where it takes them.

    There definitely appears to be a subjective component to Global Warming science as done by Michael Mann and Phil Jones and subsequent apologetics by Nature, the New York Times, et. al.

  14. I have read some more of the emails and believe that there are problems with the idea of global warming.

    There is no agreement about Bristle cone Pine ring data whether temperature or CO2 or moisture driven, Surface Sea Temperature data from WWII to 1950 may have been adjusted upward too much and other things lead me to believe that while there might not be intent to defraud there is bad science afoot and we should request a more systematic examination of the data and a consensus opinion of scientists before we spend billions of dollars to remedy something that may not need to be rectified.

    And what is the problem with an extra degree or 2 of mean earth temperature, during the MWP humans thrived and there was an abundance of food because of a longer growing season. Additionally cold weather just sucks.

    I wont say that it looks like some scientists had an idea and went about proving it by cherry picking data but that is what it is starting to look like. Only time will tell.

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