Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 11:51:59 PM
This is an
I Don't Rant, I Write Post. Recently I wrote a post suggesting that limiting judicial and lawyer immunity might serve the public interest. Frigglesnitz, a retired legal clerk, challanged me on the issue in a comment. My view is that after a comment is a week old, it is lost to the world. Rather than answer her very good questions in another comment, which would be immediately lost, I
answered in two posts. I tried to present reasoned arguments for my positions. She and other readers will be the judge as to whether I succeeded.
One of her best questions required that I give examples of an entity that has been damaged by immunity. I spent a whole
post on that subject.
Also, this week, I have been writing about a DA who appears, if I read the Rocky Mountain News correctly, to have tried to discourage an attorney from allegedly harrassing a consituent who claimed to be an identity theft victim, and is facing disciplinary proceedings for it. It is my view, stated over and over, that this disciplinary action is NOT in the public interest. I think any prosecutor who was forced to prove this case before a jury of laymen would see the futility of proceeding. The problem for the DA is that she is facing a tribunal of lawyers whose job appears to be to protect the profession's ability to harass the public at will.
It is my view also that this is another of the examples that Frigglesnitz was seeking. If the people at Attorney Regulation had more limited immunity, I think they would be very reluctant to persue this action. They would fear that the DA would be able to take them before a civil court with a jury consisting of no attorneys with resounding success.
There is a simple and fair way to put this theory to the test. I'd suggest that before proceeding, each attorney from Attorney Regulation and Judge Lucero's court voluntarily surrender their immunity to DA Chambers and allow her to litigate against them in civil court to recover damages if she can. She has to have substantial damages, both to her reputation and in attorney's fees.
Care to bet this won't happen?