Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Saturday, August 26, 2006 6:31:28 PM
It will be the practice of this blog to highlight morally or legally unethical conduct or comments by attorneys or judges found in other articles and give the post a number with a title.
In this
article, Professor Stone claims that the ACLU could simply go to a court and assert that it, or its clients had standing without the need to prove it, indeed, without any way to prove it given secrecy laws. Their lawsuit was pure speculation.
I wonder if Stone would be making this argument if a few Colorado citizens decided to sue the New York Times for disclosing the NSA program on the speculation that they had or would soon be damaged by its revelation. Of course, these hypothetical plaintiffs would have every right, under Stone's logic, to demand the identity of the codefendants, the leakers, before moving to a trial on the merits.
I find it disturbing that the legal profession's code of ethics allows, nay, encourages this kind of argument. This professor is simply trying to use the courts to change the Constitution's requirement for a true controversy when the Government is a defendant.
Stone's judgment on the proprietary of Judge Taylor's conflict of interest is wrong.
The legal profession cannot be trusted to make and enforce its own ethics rules.