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Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Tosses Misconduct Complaint
Murguia Sees No Violation of Standards in Wilson’s Action Resulting in Handcuffing, Manacling of Lawyer
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Mary H. Murguia has dismissed a complaint against District Court Judge Stephen V. Wilson of the Central District of California based on the incarceration and chaining by deputy marshals of an obstreperous lawyer who had repeatedly interrupted the judge and bickered.
She wrote:
“[T]he allegations are dismissed as lacking evidence that the district judge exceeded his authority, behaved in a demonstrably egregious and hostile manner, or otherwise engaged in ‘conduct prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts.”
Murguia’s order was filed Jan. 8 and received by the METNEWS yesterday. The complaint emanated from the Metropolitan News Company and was comprised of a cover sheet and a copy of May 31, 2024 editorial criticizing the lack of action against Wilson.
The incident giving rise to the complaint took place on Nov. 17, 2021. After Westlake Village attorney Marina Lang, of SoCal IP Law Group LLP, talked back to Wilson despite several admonishments as to the impropriety of her conduct, Wilson said:
“You are in contempt,” and queried:
“Is the Marshal there?”
A deputy marshal announced his presence and Wilson directed:
“Take Ms. Lang in custody. She’s in contempt of court.”
Lang’s Declaration
According to a declaration under penalty of perjury executed by Lang, she was handcuffed and manacled, forced to hobble along the courthouse corridor, booked, taken to a cold and smelly basement cell, chained to a chair and, immobilized, could not even scratch her nose.
Later, back in the courtroom, Wilson related to counsel that Lang was in a “holding area” and said: “I’m going to order her released.”
In her order exonerating Wilson, Murguia emphasized the egregiousness of Lang’s misbehavior, but did not make a finding that Wilson had been oblivious as to how the attorney was being treated. She said:
“District judges are required to do what is necessary to maintain order in their courtrooms.”
In a footnote, Murguia remarked:
“To the extent the complaint alleges the district judge exceeded his authority in ordering the attorney detained, those allegations are dismissed as unfounded. Further, any allegation related to the Martials’ treatment of the attorney while she was detained is not appropriate in a misconduct complaint because the Judicial Conduct Rules apply only to covered federal judges….There is no evidence of any separate claim against the Marshals based on her detainment.”
Allegation in Editorial
On Dec. 27, 2021, Wilson ordered Lang to show cause why she should not be found in civil contempt, and in the subsequent order so adjudicating her, maintained that he had not previously declared her to be in criminal contempt. In the course of her order, Murguia disputed an allegation in the METNEWS editorial that in so proclaiming, Wilson lied.
The editorial said:
“Wilson is, if nothing else, a liar. On Jan. 26, 2022, in imposing a $3,510 civil contempt fine on Lang, he proclaimed that on Nov. 17, 2021, he had not ‘actually’ found Lang in criminal contempt but merely had her removed from the courtroom. Nonsense. He said she was in contempt. He directed that she be taken into custody.
“Wilson said in his written order in connection with the civil contempt:
“ ‘But, as this Court has frequently noted, it sought to avoid imposing a punitive measure under the Court’s criminal contempt authority….It was for this reason that the Court did not order to her be booked and processed into custody, as it would have if it had summarily punished Ms. Lang for criminal contempt.’ ”
“Lang’s declaration says she was taken into custody, booked, and imprisoned.
“Disingenuously and unpersuasively, Wilson said in a footnote that although he used the word ‘contempt’ on Nov. 17, 2021, there was ‘not an actual summary contempt adjudication’ because he ‘did not pronounce a sentence, nor complete a summary contempt certification, as required’ by Rule 42 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and case law.
“His having procedurally botched his effort is hardly exonerating.”
Murguia’s Response
Murguia commented:
“[N]othing in the record supports the allegation that the district judge is a ‘liar.’ That allegation, to the extent that it does not relate to the merits, is dismissed as unfounded.”
The chief judge quoted Judicial-Conduct Rule 4(b)(1) as saying:
“Cognizable misconduct does not include an allegation that calls into question the correctness of a judge’s ruling.”
She wrote:
“The same is true of any challenge to the district judge’s evaluation of whether the attorney’s behavior warranted a civil or criminal contempt finding. Accordingly, to the extent complainant brings allegations based on the merits, those are dismissed.”
Lang said in her declaration that Lang was incarcerated “for hours” but also noted that she lacked “any sense of time.” Murguia wrote that the period of detention was “about an hour and a half.”
Lang’s Allegations
Lang said in her declaration:
“Physically restrained in cuffs and flanked by several fully armed male US Marshals, I was removed from the courtroom without any of my personal belongings, walked down the public hallways of the federal courthouse in plain view of other attorneys, my colleagues, and judicial staff, and then taken in and down the public elevator bank to the Cellblock floor used for criminal defendants. At the Cellblock floor, I was informed I had to go through the booking process. The US Marshals led me to sit down on a chair while they questioned me to obtain personal information and then typed in my answers into then computer system. After I was seated, the US Marshals applied additional physical restraints to my body, restraints that are universally known in criminal law as ‘hogtie’ or ‘hobble’ restraints. I repeatedly asked why physical restraints were being used at all and was informed by the US Marshals that they were following Judge Wilson’s orders and that this was standard practice to protect prisoners from falling and hurting themselves. I was also repeatedly told by the Marshals to stop crying and do as I was told if I wanted to get back to my family that night and not have to sleepover in the prison cell.”
She continued:
“Leg irons were applied in addition to the handcuffs, with a waist chain connecting my irons to the handcuffs. Another chain was wrapped around my chest near my collar bone and locked behind the chair I was sitting in, pinning my shoulders and upper body to the back of chair presumably to prevent me from falling forward out of the chair onto my face. I was imprisoned for hours, without access to my physical liberties, without any sense of time, without any indication of what would happen next to me, without any indication of what she had been arrested for, without any idea how long I would be imprisoned for….The only physical movement available to me was to close my eyes and cry into my face mask. Even when locked in the prison cell. I was chained to a chair in hobble restraints….”
Basement Cell
The lawyer told of being taken to, and confined in, the basement cell, saying:
“When being placed in the metal leg cuffs, I was unable to walk independently, so the Marshals removed my shoes and forced me to walk barefoot, flanked by officers holding my shoulders on each side, taking ‘mini-steps’ ten floors down to where the Courthouse has its criminal prison cells, and I stumbled several times. Once inside the isolated locked prison cell, I was ordered to sit down near a feces filled urinal in a cell that was littered with dirt and trash. My physical restraints were not removed after being placed in the locked prison cell. I remained cuffed in ‘hogtie’ fashion, inside the isolated and freezing locked prison cell for hours.”
Lang’s January 2022 civil contempt adjudication was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit in a memorandum opinion on Jan. 24, 2023.
On Aug. 23, 2024, Ninth Circuit Judge Kim Wardlaw dismissed allegations that Murguia had been derelict in not conducting an investigation into Wilson’s conduct.
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