Loading...
Michigan attorney Geoffrey Fieger has lost his “right-to-criticize-judges” lawsuit in a federal appeals court.
The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Fieger was not wrongfully punished for lambasting three judges on a 1999 radio show, when he called them “jackasses” and compared them to Nazis for overturning a $15 million verdict.
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that Fieger violated state rules of professional conduct with his “rude and vulgar” comments, and reinstated a formal reprimand against him.
Fieger sued the Michigan Supreme Court over the state rules, which require lawyers to use “civility” when they criticize judges.
A federal district judge declared the rules overly broad and unconstitutional. The 6th Circuit overturned that decision, holding that Fieger can’t prove “actual present harm or a significant possibility of future harm based on a single, stipulated reprimand.
The Court emphasized that Fieger violated the rules, not because he criticized judges, but because he made vulgar, personally abusive comments about participants in a pending case.
Get JD Journal in Your Mail
Subscribe to our FREE daily news alerts and get the latest updates on the most happening events in the legal, business, and celebrity world. You also get your daily dose of humor and entertainment!!
In a dissent, Judge Gilbert Merritt expressed skepticism about the rules for punishing misbehaving lawyers, holding the rules remain unclear about what is permissible or impermissible for lawyers to say about judges.
Fieger, a former lawyer for “suicide doctor” Jack Kevorkian, was the center of controversy last year over a series of television commercials he ran during his trial, in which he compared the Bush administration to Nazis, and claimed that trial lawyers were under attack from the federal government. A judge ordered Fieger to yank the ads after prosecutors complained he was trying to taint the jury pool.
Via NLJ.
