The State Bar, under fire for its dereliction in failing to act on complaints about Thomas V. Girardi (now disbarred) until his dishonesty became manifest and widely reported by the news media, is now going after two celebrity lawyers—former Los Angeles County Bar Association President Brian Kabateck and criminal defense lawyer Mark Geragos—in a move that could backfire if the two are exonerated—for a fourth time.

Kabateck has attained multi-million dollar judgments and settlements; Geragos is a criminal defense lawyer whose clients have included Whitewater defendant Susan McDougal, former Rep. Gary Condit, actress Winona Ryder, and entertainer Michael Jackson.

In a Sept. 27 press release, the State Bar said the two are being investigated “in connection with the Armenian Genocide insurance settlement funds from which dispersals were made in the U.S. and France.”

Kabateck and Geragos obtained a settlement of $37.5 million in separate actions against two insurers who failed to pay claims under life insurance policies issued to persons who were slain in the Armenian genocide. Major attention has been focused in recent Los Angeles Times articles on what happened to proceeds from a $17.5 million settlement with a French insurer in 2005.

Questions have been raised as to whether the two lawyers pocketed any of the funds. While moneys are missing, the lawyers point out they had nothing to do with the distribution of the proceeds.

They were previously cleared of wrongdoing in two State Bar probes and one by independent investigators.
The State Bar press release quotes Board of Trustees Chair Ruben Duran as saying:

“The State Bar is charged with protecting the public. Confidence in our ability to do so has unfortunately been shaken in recent times by the Girardi matter and what it represents. Restoring and maintaining the public’s trust in the disciplinary apparatus of this agency is imperative.”

He continued:

“To that end, it is important to emphasize that the State Bar investigates possible misconduct wherever it might occur. The status of attorneys, or the size of their practice, cannot and will not impact our decisions to investigate misconduct.”

Geragos—who says he will be suing the State Bar—remarked that Duran’s mention of Girardi shows that “all they’re trying to do is deflect” attention from the debacle in responding to complaints about Girardi.

Kabateck asserted:

“This is a political stunt by the State Bar.”

Lending credence to that assessment is that no proceedings have been instituted against either lawyer.

So far, there is no indication of any investigation having been mounted as to conduct on the part of U.S. District Court Judge Stephen V. Wilson of the Central District of California—conduct which, if allegations are true, could warrant disciplinary proceedings and which, arguably, comes under exceptions to judicial immunity.

It is alleged that when Westlake Village attorney Marina Lang got into a squabble with Wilson over his rulings, she was not merely ordered out of his courtroom but was handcuffed and manacled, forced to hobble in the courthouse hallway before onlookers, booked, and was, for hours, chained to a chair in a cold and smelly basement cell, immobilized, unable even to be able to scratch her nose. Her being in custody was consequent to an express order by Wilson, though the extent of his knowledge as to the precise treatment of Lang has yet to be established.

The record does show that after Wilson expressed, with the jury not present, disgruntlement over her conduct in the closing phases of a trial in a trademark dispute, and she indicated like disgruntlement with his behavior, the judge declared:

“You are in contempt,” and asked:

“Is the Marshal there?”

A deputy marshal was present. Wilson then commanded:
“Take Ms. Lang in custody. She’s in contempt of court.”

The order was treated by deputies as an adjudication of criminal contempt. Lang was told by deputies, when she protested the metal restraints they were doing what the judge wanted. Later, back in the courtroom, Wilson related to Lang’s co-counsel, who had continued representing the client, and to opposing counsel that Lang was in a “holding area” and advised: “I’m going to order her released.”

She was eventually freed that night after court hours, according to her declaration, with her car locked in a parking lot.

The facts and the allegations are not alluded to in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’s Jan. 24 memorandum opinion affirming a civil contempt fine of $3,510 imposed by Wilson on Lang, and would seem to be irrelevant to the issue before that court. Wilson imposed the fine, to be payable to the other side, in a trademark dispute, and the opinion says in Footnote 1:

“Lang acknowledges that she lacks an appellate remedy for her period of temporary confinement and does not appeal it, so we express no views on that issue.”

She had appealed from the Jan. 26, 2022 civil contempt fine but not from the Nov. 17, 2021 order finding Lang in contempt and ordering that she be taken into custody.

A Feb. 1 METNEWS editorial is titled, “Was a Lawyer Subjected to Barbaric Abuse at a Federal Courthouse?,” with a subtitle, “Allegations of Official Misconduct Must Be Probed.” It urges that Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Mary Murguia, acting pursuant to 28 U.S. Code §351, look into Lang’s allegations and, if they withstand initial scrutiny, the matter be referred, in accordance with §352, to the Ninth Circuit’s Judicial Council, or that a special committee be appointed to investigate under §353. It also calls for E. Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, and the federal Grand Jury to probe the deputies’ actions.

“Facts must be uncovered, with relevant facts not overlooked or whitewashed,” the editorial asserts, adding:

“A failure on the part of federal authorities to ascertain what occurred on Nov. 17, 2021, would constitute dereliction, and a failure to impose consequences, and severe ones, if Lang was indeed caused the physical pain and dehumanization she describes would be unpardonable.”

It labels Wilson “one slippery hombre” by contending, in his 2022 order finding Lang in civil contempt, that he had not really found her in criminal contempt in 2021 because he had not adhered to the procedures dictated by Rule 42 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The editorial remarks:

“Oh? A judge has not, in fact, taken an action, though pronounced by the judge, if that action is not authorized by law? Poppycock.”

A link to the editorial was emailed by the METNEWS to Murguia and Estrada on Feb. 2 with a request that action be taken; there has been no response. Whether any action followed is unknown.

On Feb. 6, Lang’s lawyer Dan Lawton filed a petition for a rehearing either by the panel that affirmed the civil contempt fine or by the Ninth Circuit sitting en banc. (It cites the editorial, providing no authority for the opinion expressed by a newspaper being cognizable, and quotes it out of context as accepting Lang’s allegations rather than calling for an investigation into them.)

The petition asserts that among the issues presented of “exceptional importance” is “whether a district court in this Circuit may flout the procedure for summary adjudications of criminal contempt mandated by Rule 42 by summarily jailing an attorney without notice or a hearing and then later issuing a false, post hoc ruling declaring the jailing ‘not an actual summary contempt adjudication,’ thus insulating its lawless action from review by this Court.”

It argues:

“By affirming the lawless and medieval treatment of Ms. Lang which occurred below, the panel at once blesses an inhumane miscarriage of justice and sends this message to every District Judge and lawyer in the Circuit: no attorney, on a bad day or a good one, will be safe from being shackled, frog-marched to jail in front of client, counsel, and jurors, fined, and held in contempt without a hearing or any of the protections provided by Rule 42, should she offend the District Judge with advocacy that is deemed to cross a line.”

The petition does not address Footnote 1 of the Ninth Circuit’s opinion nor otherwise explain the relevance of the asserted “cruelty and inhumanity of a District Judge” on Nov. 17, 2021 to the issue of the correctness of his ruling on Jan. 26, 2022, that monies be paid to the other side in a trademark dispute. The theory behind the fine was that the Nov. 17 brouhaha had necessitated the granting of a new trial in light of the potential effect on jurors and the attorney fees incurred by the defendant connection with the proceeding should be borne by Lang.

Lang does have the option of suing Wilson, testing whether, under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1991 decision in Mireles v. Waco, judicial immunity exists—that is, whether the judge’s acts were in aid of jurisdiction or outside of it. However, the lawyer appears disinclined, at least at present, to pursue the matter. She said in a Feb. 2 email to the METNEWS:

 “Ultimately, I am trying to move on from this traumatic event, personally and professionally. When Judge Wilson didn’t file a response to my petition (nor did the defendants), I assumed the 9th Circuit would treat the silence as an admission of the harsh, inhuman and degrading incident detailed in my appellate brief. But Judge Wilson’s needlessly cruel behavior was left wholly unaddressed by the 9th Circuit. I am disappointed in their lack of action. But at least I am free.”

Although the prospect exists that Lang will be granted a rehearing by the three-judge panel or by the court, sitting en banc—so that the matter is not dead—what remains subject to resuscitation is the issue of whether Lang’s conduct warranted an order that she pay to the other side the attorney fees it incurred on Nov. 17, 2021, and not whether Wilson committed misconduct in ordering her taken into custody on that date. The prospect of further proceedings relating to the imposition of a civil fine would not appear to preclude an investigation into Wilson’s actions in treating Lang as criminal.

Although Murguia has taken no action with regard to possible misconduct on the part of Wilson—arguably indicating dereliction on her part—the Ninth Circuit announced in a Feb. 28 news release that allegations of misconduct on the part of District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez of the Southern District of California, based on the momentary handcuffing of a 13-year-old girl—as opposed to the alleged hours-long shackling of Lang—are under investigation. Murguia said in an accompanying order that “this order and the fact that I identified a complaint against Judge Benitez are publicly disclosed in order to ‘maintain public confidence in the Judiciary’s ability to redress misconduct or disability.’ ”

The incident concerning Benitez was recounted in a Feb. 23 sentencing memo prepared by attorney Mayra Lopez of Federal Defenders of San Diego, Inc. in connection with a parole violation by a client of hers who had committed drug offenses. At a hearing, the man, Mario Puente, expressed concern that his daughter was keeping bad company which could “lead her into the same path I went down.”

The memo says:

“Several minutes later, Judge Benitez asked a U.S. Marshal, ‘You got cuffs?’ The Marshal continued he did. Judge Benitez then ordered the 13-year-old girl to leave the spectator area, approach the front of the courtroom, and stand next to her father’s lawyer. He told the Marshal to ‘(p)ut cuffs on her.’ The Marshal did so, cuffing the girl’s hands behind her back. As he did so, she was crying. Judge Benitez then instructed the Marshal to ‘put(’) her over there in the jury box for me for just a minute.’ The Marshal complied, placing the girl in the jury box in handcuffs. She continued to cry.

“After a long pause, Judge Benitez released the girl. But he did not allow her to immediately return to her seat. Instead he told her, ‘don’t go away. Look at me.’ He asked her how she liked ‘sitting up there’ and ‘the way those cuffs felt on you.’ Still in tears, she responded that she ‘didn’t like it.’ He told her she was ‘an awfully cute young lady’ but that if she didn’t stay away from drugs, she would ‘wind up in cuffs’ and be ‘right back there where I put you a minute ago.’ ”