This week, the Supreme Court declined to hear appeals from seven attorneys allied with former President Donald Trump. The lawyers, including L. Lin Wood and Sidney Powell, face sanctions for filing groundless lawsuits claiming massive fraud in the 2020 election.
The decision might come as a surprise to some, given the court’s conservative majority and the fact that Trump appointed three of its nine members. But that doesn’t mean they have any desire to bail out his ethically challenged attorneys. The court’s decision not to try to save Wood and Powell is not only correct, it is entirely predictable.
These lawyers are not heroes to Supreme Court justices of any stripe.
After the 2020 election, Wood, Powell and five others eagerly followed Trump’s lead in claiming the election was stolen. (Powell in particular found viral infamy with her promise that her evidence would “release the Kraken.”) They filed a lawsuit in Michigan attempting to get that state’s election results thrown out. The lawsuit was based on nothing but a fanciful tale about a stolen election that never was. In the end, reports NBC News, they “were ordered to pay legal fees, undertake new legal training and were referred to their respective state bar associations for any disciplinary procedures.”
These lawyers are not heroes to Supreme Court justices of any stripe. They sully the reputation of the profession to which the justices all belong. They do not want to look down from their elite perch and see the Woods and Powells of the world abusing their power as members of the bar without repercussions.
It’s true that attorneys do not enjoy the highest level of respect and popularity among other professionals. (Please insert your favorite lawyer joke here.) But lawyers hold themselves to high professional standards. Attorneys must pass not just the bar exam to practice law, but also a moral character exam. We must adhere to a code of ethics. We cannot, to take a wild…
Read the full article here
