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Glass Shattered: California Supreme Court Denies Stephen Glass Law License

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The decision is in, and the California Supreme Court has made their decision to refuse to grant Stephen Glass a law license in the State of California.

We conclude that on this record he has not sustained his heavy burden of demonstrating rehabilitation and fitness for the practice of law.

The full opinion is here.

Ironically, the California Bar’s initial hearing officer, the entity that actually deals with line level lawyers and their practice on a day to day basis in California, found Glass had demonstrated reform and good character so as to be fit for practice. The The State Bar Court Review Department independently reviewed the record and agreed with the initial finding of character fitness for practice. Instead, it was the more insulated elitists in the Bar Committee, and ultimately in the California Supreme Court, who thought otherwise.

Glass’s conduct as a journalist exhibited moral turpitude sustained over an extended period. As the Review Department dissent emphasized, he engaged in “fraud of staggering‟ proportions” and he “use[d] . . . his exceptional writing skills to publicly and falsely malign people and organizations for actions they did not do and faults they did not have.” As the dissent further commented, for two years he “engaged in a multi-layered, complex, and harmful course of public dishonesty.” Glass’s journalistic dishonesty was not a single lapse of judgment, which we have sometimes excused, but involved significant deceit sustained unremittingly for a period of years. (See Hall v. Committee of Bar Examiners (1979) 25 Cal.3d 730, 742 [applications may be rejected in cases of “numerous fraudulent acts” and “false statements”].) Glass’s deceit also was motivated by professional ambition, betrayed a vicious, mean spirit and a complete lack of compassion for others, along with arrogance and prejudice against various ethnic groups. In all these respects, his misconduct bore directly on his character in matters that are critical to the practice of law.

and

Glass’s misconduct was also reprehensible because it took place while he was pursuing a law degree and license to practice law, when the importance of honesty should have gained new meaning and significance for him.

Moreover, Glass’s lack of integrity and forthrightness continued beyond the time he was engaged in journalism. Once he was exposed, Glass‟s response was to protect himself, not to freely and fully admit and catalogue all of his fabrications. He never fully cooperated with his employers to clarify the record, failed to carefully review the editorials they published to describe the fabrications to their readership, made misrepresentations to The New Republic regarding some of his work during the period he purported to be cooperating with that magazine, and indeed some of his fabrications did not come to light until the California State Bar proceedings. He refused to speak to his editor at George magazine when the latter called to ask for help in identifying fabrications in the articles Glass wrote for that magazine.

The decision goes on to hammer Glass about as hard as could be imagined in every aspect of his prior conduct, rehabilitation and application for bar membership. The decision is every bit as venomous and scathing as the oral argument was (further discussed below).

Back in August of last year, I wrote about the attempt of failed, story inventing journalist Stephen Glass’ attempt to gain his license to practice law in the State of California. I drew a comparison between the beyond commendable success Shon Hopwood has found in gaining an exclusive Read more →

Shon Hopwood, Stephen Glass and Second Chances in America

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Say what you will about District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Janice Rogers Brown, and much has indeed been said by both sides of the ideological divide, but she has done something truly remarkable and admirable. Brown has accepted Mr. Shon Hopwood to be one of her clerks.

From Tony Mauro at the Blog of Legal Times:

Shon Hopwood’s unique career in the law has taken a dramatic new turn. The onetime jailhouse lawyer who served time in federal prison for robbing banks has been hired as a 2014 law clerk for Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the prestigious U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

“I’m amazed at the opportunities and second chances I have been given,” said Hopwood Wednesday after returning home to Seattle from his interview with Brown on Monday. Hopwood said the judge offered him the job soon after the interview. “I quickly said yes.”

While in Washington, D.C. Hopwood, 38, also visited former solicitor general Seth Waxman, who has been something of a mentor to Hopwood for more than a decade. They made contact after a certiorari petition Hopwood wrote for a fellow inmate while in prison was granted review by the Supreme Court. The 2004 case was Fellers v. United States. Hopwood chronicled his experiences in the 2012 book Law Man: My Story of Robbing Banks, Winning Supreme Court Cases, and Finding Redemption.

Redemption is right, and a wonderful story of it this is. You see, Hopwood was not a simple wayward youth in minor scrapes with the law, as he told Adam Liptak in 2010 (in a really must read piece):

“We would walk into a bank with firearms, tell people to get down, take the money and run,” he said the other day, recalling five robberies in rural Nebraska in 1997 and 1998 that yielded some $200,000 and more than a decade in federal prison.

Ugly stuff. From which a flower of brilliance has bloomed from the second chance of American opportunity. Just how special the rehabilitation and dedication of Hopwood has been comes in a rather amazing exchange between Hopwood and the federal judge who sentenced him, Richard G. Kopf of the Nebraska District. Kopf, it turns out, has a blog and took to it to state how wrong he had been about Hopwood:

Hopwood proves that my sentencing instincts suck. When I sent him to prison, I would have bet the farm and all the animals that Hopwood would fail miserably as a productive citizen when he finally got out of prison. My gut told me that Hopwood was a punk–all mouth, and very little else. My viscera was wrong.

As if such a heartfelt admission by a seasoned federal judge were not enough, Hopwood appeared in the comments to engage in a remarkable interaction with Kopf, and said:

I wouldn’t say that your sentencing instincts suck. While I meant what I said at sentencing, I was hardly the person that could back it up. I was a reckless and selfish young man back then. I changed. I think most of us change from the age of 22 to 38. And many, like me, outgrow the irresponsibility and foolishness. I can’t tell you how many law enforcement officers (including prosecutors) have come up to me and said something similar to this: I know your story and I too committed some crimes when I was young (although not in the category of bank robberies), and I was lucky enough to not get caught. They changed and channeled their energies and became responsible professionals. I did, too.

It is all pretty breathtaking and fantastic, and hat’s off to both Shon Hopwood and Janice Rogers Brown for having the courage and conviction to make this happen. On other days I would likely be taking fairly strong issue with Brown’s legal handiwork, but not today, and not here.

But the story of American second chance is a fickle and uneven one. For every Shon Hopwood, there are a lot of broken dreams of redemption left scattered, and shattered, on the ground.

This is where the hope of Hopwood meets the flip side of the coin of chance, and both have strong nexus to the Supreme Court of California. From whence Janice Rogers Brown once came, the second part of this story now resides in the name and form of Stephen Randall Glass.

Mr. Glass never robbed a bank, terrorized citizens with firearms or stole money, but he took something extremely precious – truth and honesty – from readers of his journalism. In pretty much exactly the same time frame Mr. Hopwood was robbing banks, Mr. Glass was robbing his readers.

Stephen Glass also, like Shon Hopwood, has a story of bottom to top redemption with a culmination in the love, study and practice of law – or at least hope to do so. Glass’ case is now before the California Supreme Court (yes the prior haunt of Janice Rogers Brown) and has been for over a year and a half waiting…waiting…for a decision.

Let his attorney, Jon Eisenberg, paint the picture from the merits brief lodged on January 3, 2012:

Second chances are an American story. This case is such a story – one of redemption.

Stephen Glass has applied for admission to the California bar. For more than 13 years he has worked diligently to build a good and honest life. His present moral character is outstanding.

But he has had much to overcome. From 1996 to 1998, when Glass was 23 to 25 years old, he committed egregious misconduct, writing 42 fabricated articles for The New Republic (TNR) and other magazines until his lies were exposed and his journalism career ended. Yet Glass, now age 39, has rehabilitated himself during the past 13 years, successfully negotiating a long and difficult road. The law looks with favor upon bar applicants who redeem themselves from prior misconduct. (Pacheco v. State Bar (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1041, 1058 (Pacheco).)

After a ten-day trial with 27 witnesses and thousands of pages of documentary evidence, the State Bar Court’s Hearing Department and Review Department both concluded that Glass has achieved the good moral character required to practice law. The Committee of Bar Examiners (Committee) disagrees. This court will decide.

Indeed, the California Supreme Court will decide.

The parallels between the tracks of the two men are stunning. Both have displayed a contrite determination to redeem and improve themselves over the same fourteen year period, and both have found their way in the law.

Yet one man, Hopwood, the one who quite arguably committed the worse, and definitively violent criminal, conduct is being given a chance in the hallowed halls of the second highest federal court in the land. A chance he has well and admirably earned. But if that is the case, and it is, then so too has Stephen Glass. The Supreme Court of California has inexplicably kept his case on ice for over a year and a half.

The American dream of redemption and second chance only is meaningful if it exists in more than isolated instances. Chief Judge Tani Cantil-Sakauye and the other justices of the California Supreme Court have a chance to follow the admirable lead of their former colleague Janice Rogers Brown by giving Glass a shot at redemption. Will they take it? Will all the internet and print writers and pundits who have rightfully applauded Shon Hopwood’s second chance do the same for their once famed, and now disgraced, colleague? Where lies the fickle line of possibility for redemption?

Vaughn Walker Issues Final al-Haramain Opinion on Damages and Attorney Fees

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As you may recall, Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California (NDCA), who has handled two of the most critical and transcendent litigations of the last decade, Perry v. Schwarzenegger and al-Haramain v. Bush/Obama, is retiring. Today, he has issued his last big opinion left on his table pre-retirement, the ruling on damages to be awarded Plaintiff in al-Haramain, assignment of attorney fees to Plaintiffs, and whether or not to impose punitive damages against the government for their offending illegal conduct.

The government, in its brief objecting to the Plaintiffs’ proposed form of judgment, basically poked the court in the eye with a stick by continuing their obstreperous refusal to accept the court’s jurisdiction over their assertion of state secrets, continued to argue there were no facts competently of record despite Walker’s crystal clear determinations to the contrary, and denied that Plaintiffs were entitled to attorney fees or punitive damages. They just say NO. The Plaintiffs went on to properly lodge their calculation of damages, detailed request for attorney fees and affidavit in support thereof. Plaintiffs al-Haramain, separately, filed a very compelling brief on why the court should award them punitive damages against the government. The government, of course, objected some more.

As lead Plaintiffs counsel Jon Eisenberg stated in the punitive damages brief:

Defendants abused the extraordinary power of the Executive Branch by committing unlawful electronic surveillance of the plaintiffs with full knowledge of, and in flagrant disregard for, determinations by top officials in the Department of Justice (DOJ) that the surveillance lacked constitutional or other legal support. Defendants sought to put themselves above the law, in the manner of a monarch. That is a profound abuse of America’s trust. It calls for strong medicine.

And thus it all comes down to today’s decision by Judge Walker, and here is the full text of his 47 page order.

In short, Walker has ordered that Plaintiffs Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor (a-Haramain’s attorneys wrongfully surveilled) receive $20,400.00 each in liquidated damages. Walker denied damages to al-Haramain itself. In regards to punitive damages, Judge Walker has denied in full Plaintiffs’ request. As to attorney fees, the court grants the motion as to Plaintiffs Ghafoor and Belew only (again, not as to al-Haramain itself, and awards attorney fees and expenses in the amount of $2,537,399.45.

There is a lot to chew on in this order, and both Marcy and I will be coming back to do just that after chewing and digesting it further. But so far, it is clear that the court sided completely with the plaintiffs on compensatory/liquidated damages, giving Belew and Ghafoor every penny they asked for and finding the government’s opposition meritless. This passage by the court is telling: Read more →

Government Remains Belligerent in al-Haramain; Will Fight On

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Yes, I know, it was hard to see this coming. As Condi Rice would say, “who could have expected”? Nevertheless, here it is. As you may recall, back at the end of March, Judge Vaughn Walker entered his somewhat earth shattering order granting summary judgment to Plaintiffs al-Haramain (see: here and here) and on April 16 Plaintiffs lodged their proposed form of judgment (see also: here).

Well, last Friday the government, by and through their ubiquitous attorneys the Department of Justice, filed their response to Plaintiffs’ proposed judgment. To put it mildly, the government is not consenting to the entry of judgment and is not going quietly into the night. The government did not just object to Plaintiffs’ judgment, they have lobbed another giant thumb in your eye belligerent pile of repetitive argument on Judge Walker:

Although the Court has made a finding of liability as to plaintiffs’ FISA claim (with which the Defendants respectfully disagrees), plaintiffs cannot merely rely on that determination at this stage. Rather, the entry of damages and other equitable relief is a separate matter, and plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that there is any basis for the Court to award them the amount of liquidated damages they seek, punitive damages, or the other forms of relief set forth in plaintiffs’ proposed judgment.

For those not familiar with reading between the double spaced lines of legal pleading, the government is continuing to object to everything up to, and including, the Plaintiffs’ right to exist as plaintiffs in the first place. They will not consent to judgment; they will not agree to pay. They are not going to stop at go; they are not going Read more →

Obama DOJ Continues To FlimFlam Judge Lamberth On State Secrets

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The state secrets doctrine was born on the wings of fraud and lies by the US government in the case of US v. Reynolds in 1953. As Congress struggles to rein in the unbridled use of the doctrine to cover up illegality by the Executive Branch (see here, here and here), it is a good idea to keep focus on just how addicted the Executive Branch has become to this unitary ability to quash inquiry into their malfeasance.

It took over four decades for the outright lie in Reynolds to surface and be exposed. The government was well on their way to covering up their similar dishonesty in Horn v. Huddle for decades, if not eternity, when a relentless plaintiff was finally able to demonstrate to Judge Royce Lamberth the fraud being perpetrated upon the court, nearly a decade after the original state secrets assertion. After giving the government multiple opportunities to come clean, Judge Lamberth blistered the DOJ with an opinion literally finding their acts a fraud upon the court.

After being exposed on the record by Judge Lamberth, the government suddenly decided to settle with the plaintiff, with a non-disclosure and no admission of wrongdoing agreement of course, and then moved the court to vacate its rulings against them. The DOJ literally wants to erase the record of their fraud.

But not everybody is quite so excited about the thought of the DOJ wiping the record of their time worn proclivity to dishonesty in state secrets assertions. It important for there to be such a record, with written opinions of the court behind it, because the government is still out there seeking to shirk accountability for illegality and Constitutional malfeasance in critically important cases such as al-Haramain and Jeppesen.

In this regard, the attorney for al-Haramain, Jon Eisenberg, has just taken the extraordinary step of seeking leave to file an amicus brief to Judge Lamberth in the Horn v. Huddle case objecting to the government’s attempt to vacate the court’s opinions. The amicus filing by Eisenberg is brief, but a thing of beauty. And he nails the government for continuing dishonesty with the court by pointing out Read more →