Attack the Reasoning, not the Judge

In her post Be Accurate in Your Case Citations, Professor Dysart mentioned two things that she emphasizes when she talks to attorneys and students about professionalism in appellate advocacy. First, the importance of accurately representing case law and the record. (Her post focused on this point.) Second, the importance of not attacking the lower court judge or opposing counsel. The latter point called to mind Sanches v. Carrollton Farmers Branch Independent School District.[1]

There, the appellant’s opening brief contained this paragraph:

The Magistrate's egregious errors in its failure to utilize or apply the law constitute extraordinary circumstances, justifying vacateur of the assignment to Magistrate. Specifically, the Magistrate applied improper legal standards in deciding the Title IX elements of loss of educational opportunities and deliberate indifference, ignoring precedent. Further, the Court failed to consider Sanches' Section 1983 claims and summarily dismissed them without analysis or review. Because a magistrate is not an Article III judge, his incompetence in applying general principals of law are extraordinary.

This paragraph was of much interest to at least one judge on the panel. Appellant’s counsel spent the first five minutes of his fifteen minutes of oral argument time responding to questions about the attack on the magistrate judge’s competence. You can listen to the argument here: Sanches Oral Argument.wma. That time would have been better spent discussing the substance of the appeal.

The court’s PUBLISHED[2] decision called out the attack on the magistrate judge:

Not content to raise this issue of law in a professional manner, Sanches and her attorneys launched an unjustified attack on Magistrate Judge Stickney. The main portion of the argument on this point, contained in Sanches's opening brief, reads verbatim as follows:

The Magistrate's egregious errors in its [sic] failure to utilize or apply the law constitute extraordinary circumstances, justifying vacateur [sic] of the assignment to [sic] Magistrate. Specifically, the Magistrate applied improper legal standards in deciding the Title IX elements of loss of educational opportunities and deliberate indifference, ignoring precedent. Further, the Court failed to consider Sanches' Section 1983 claims and summarily dismissed them without analysis or review. Because a magistrate is not an Article III judge, his incompetence in applying general principals [sic] of law are [sic] extraordinary.

(Footnote omitted.)

These sentences are so poorly written that it is difficult to decipher what the attorneys mean, but any plausible reading is troubling, and the quoted passage is an unjustified and most unprofessional and disrespectful attack on the judicial process in general and the magistrate judge assignment here in particular. This may be a suggestion that Magistrate Judge Stickney is incompetent. It might be an assertion that all federal magistrate judges are incompetent. It could be an allegation that only Article III judges are competent. Or it may only mean that Magistrate Judge Stickney's decisions in this case are incompetent, a proposition that is absurd in light of the correctness of his impressive rulings. Under any of these possible readings, the attorneys' attack on Magistrate Judge Stickney's decisionmaking is reprehensible.[3]

But the court didn’t stop there, it also called out the errors in the appellant’s brief:

Usually we do not comment on technical and grammatical errors, because anyone can make such an occasional mistake, but here the miscues are so egregious and obvious that an average fourth grader would have avoided most of them. For example, the word “principals” should have been “principles.” The word “vacatur” is misspelled. The subject and verb are not in agreement in one of the sentences, which has a singular subject (“incompetence”) and a plural verb (“are”). Magistrate Judge Stickney is referred to as “it” instead of “he” and is called a “magistrate” instead of a “magistrate judge.” And finally, the sentence containing the word “incompetence” makes no sense as a matter of standard English prose, so it is not reasonably possible to understand the thought, if any, that is being conveyed. It is ironic that the term “incompetence” is used here, because the only thing that is incompetent is the passage itself.[4]

Yikes!

Attacking the lower court judge is not just poor advocacy that damages your reputation and your client’s case, it also may subject you to disciplinary action. The Model Rules of Professional Conduct say that “A lawyer shall not make a statement that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge, adjudicatory officer or public legal officer . . . .”[5] So, attack the reasoning, not the judge.

 

[1] 647 F.3d 156 (5th Cir. 2011).

[2] Professor Dysart’s post also noted that the decision she discussed was published. Be Accurate in Your Case Citations.

[3] Sanches, 647 F.3d at 172.

[4] Id. at n.13.

[5] ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 8.2(a).