MONTGOMERY — U.S. District Judge Liles Burke began questioning 11 attorneys on Monday after a panel recently found they engaged in "judge shopping" while suing the state of Alabama over its Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act (VCAP).
In April 2022, Gov. Kay Ivey signed VCAP (SB184) into law, which prohibits doctors in Alabama from performing transgender operations or prescribing cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers to individuals under 19. VCAP went into effect on May 8, 2022, but was blocked by U.S. District Judge Liles Burke a few days later. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the injunction in January.
U.S. District Judges W. Keith Watkins, R. David Proctor and Jeffrey Beaverstock said in a report unsealed in March that the plaintiffs' attorneys suing Alabama attempted to manipulate which judge heard the VCAP lawsuit by trying to dismiss and refile their original lawsuit with a different court.
Burke questioned two attorneys, Michael Shortnacy and Kathleen Hartnett, on Monday. Burke is scheduled to question Latisha Faulks, Carl Charles, Asaf Orr, Jeffrey Doss, Melody Eagan, Shannon Minter, James Esseks, Scott McCoy, and Jennifer Levi on Thursday and Friday in federal court in Montgomery. The hearings could result in sanctions or disciplinary actions against some of the attorneys.
Burke said in court it was “very unlikely” Shortnacy would be sanctioned and asked him for the “full, unvarnished truth” about what happened.
The court “shouldn’t use collective punishment because there’s no collective responsibility. You don’t have to cover for anybody,” Burke told Shortnacy.
Shortnacy said Eagan told other attorneys on a call shortly before the case was voluntarily dismissed that Burke was a “bad draw” for their case due to him being a conservative and a Republican.
Shortnacy also testified that other factors contributed to dismissing the case, like the plaintiffs' attorneys’ “confusion” over how the case was transferred from multiple judges to Burke.
“We needed a pause,” Shortnacy said.
Hartnett and Shortnacy are both based out of California.
Burke said cases getting transferred to different judges for various reasons, such as scheduling or personal conflicts, was a normal occurrence that had happened to him when he was a practicing attorney.
“It never occurred to me to dismiss (a case). It never occurred to me anything nefarious was going on,” Burke said.
Hartnett also said other attorneys representing plaintiffs in the case considered Burke to “not be a good draw” for the case. Hartnett also blamed conflict between the multiple attorneys representing plaintiffs as a reason for requesting the case be dismissed. According to Hartnett, Burke scheduling a status conference on Monday a few days after the case was transferred to him in April 2022 was another reason plaintiffs asked for the case to be dismissed due to not being able to find a qualified attorney to appear in court on a short timeline.
Burke said the plaintiffs' attorneys' explanation “looks like a Keystone Cops routine” and that an attorney “two days out of law school” could’ve handled the status conference.
“Who files a lawsuit with a (temporary restraining order) to block a state law, and they can’t get anyone out there to a status conference?” Burke asked.
To connect with the story's author or comment, email caleb.taylor@1819News.com.
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