In a scathing 234-page order released on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Liles Burke sanctioned three attorneys suing the State of Alabama over its Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act (VCAP).
VCAP was signed into law in April 2022, prohibiting doctors in Alabama from performing transgender operations or prescribing cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers to individuals under 19.
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. Most of the attorneys are associated with left-wing groups.
Burke questioned 11 attorneys in the case in show cause hearings in June about the allegations. Those attorneys were Michael Shortnacy, Kathleen Hartnett, Asaf Orr, Scott McCoy, Latisha Faulks, Carl Charles, Jeffrey Doss, Melody Eagan, Shannon Minter, James Esseks, and Jennifer Levi.
In his order on Tuesday, Burke sanctioned lead attorneys in the case, Jeffrey Doss and Melody Eagan. He also sanctioned Carl Charles. The remaining attorneys were not sanctioned.
The three days of hearings in June generally focused on why attorneys challenging VCAP in April 2022 dismissed their initial lawsuit after it was transferred to Burke and then filed a similar lawsuit with a different plaintiff.
Most attorneys questioned in the June hearings admitted Burke’s reputation as a conservative judge was a factor in dismissing the lawsuit. Ironically, after attorneys filed another lawsuit challenging VCAP, Burke, a Trump appointee, granted a preliminary injunction in May 2022. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the injunction in January.
The attorneys also blamed their confusion over why the case got transferred from U.S. District Judge Annemarie Axon to Burke as a reason for their dismissal of the initial lawsuit.
Burke said in court in June that attorneys' concerns about how the case was transferred to him were “word play, I’m afraid.”
“You clearly thought something was happening that was bad for your clients,” Burke told Eagan on Friday.
Burke wrote in his order on Tuesday, “The lead attorneys in this case— a high-profile challenge to Alabama state law—tried to avoid their assigned judge by voluntarily dismissing one case and filing anew with different plaintiffs in a neighboring federal district court. This was not just a strategic litigation decision; it was a calculated effort to subvert the rule of law.”
“Now, for the reasons discussed below, the Court PUBLICLY REPRIMANDS attorneys Melody Eagan and Jeffrey Doss for their intentional, bad-faith attempts to manipulate the random case assignment procedures for the Northern and Middle Districts of Alabama, DISQUALIFIES them from further participation in this case, and REFERS the matter of their professional misconduct to the Alabama State Bar. The Court declines to exercise its discretion to suspend Eagan and Doss from practice in the Middle District of Alabama. Moreover, the Court PUBLICLY REPRIMANDS Carl Charles for his repeated, intentional, bad-faith misrepresentations of key facts to the three-judge panel about his call to Judge Thompson’s chambers, imposes MONETARY SANCTIONS in the amount of $5,000, and REFERS this matter to the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama and Charles’s licensing bar organizations,” Burke said in the order. “No case is worth the price of one’s integrity; and yet Melody Eagan, Jeffrey Doss, and Carl Charles chose to gamble with theirs. Inexplicably, they decided it was worth the risk. Judge shopping is an affront to the rule of law. It erodes public confidence in judicial impartiality, burdens courts with procedural glut, and casts unwarranted suspicion on judges and case assignments alike. In short, it poses an intolerable threat to the fair and orderly administration of justice. There can be no doubt that judge-shopping undermines what should be a fair and impartial process, one where no matter which judge is assigned litigants feel they have a meaningful opportunity to be heard. Some of the Respondents have now learned this lesson; others have not. Most have accepted responsibility for their misconduct, shown genuine contrition for their misconduct, and require no further discipline. But the rest have not only refused to accept responsibility or apologize sincerely for their actions; they’ve also tried to shift the blame for their misconduct to the judiciary. The Court strove from the first to bring these proceedings to a swift close. But where the Court sought resolution, it met with obstruction; where it asked for compliance, it met with defiance; and where it expected decorum, it met with contempt.”
Burke continued, “Enough is enough. Judges are not political operatives. To the contrary, the integrity of the justice system rests on the steadfast commitment of an independent judiciary to uphold the rule of law. In the words of Chief Justice Roberts, there are no “Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges”; there is only a “group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”
Burke concluded that “Eagan is not just willing but perhaps likely to engage in similar conduct in the future.”
“This finding rests on Eagan’s stubborn insistence throughout the proceedings that (1) she did nothing wrong, and (2) Rule 41 renders the Court powerless to even consider whether she did anything wrong. This finding is not a penalty for Eagan’s vigorous defense throughout the inquiry; rather, it reflects Eagan’s obstinate refusal to acknowledge the indisputable impropriety in her conduct and her wholesale willingness to flout the rule of law,” Burke said.
Burke also said, “Doss too seemed most ill at ease during his in-camera colloquy with the Court. Rather than use this chance to apologize, Doss focused his attention on how the proceedings affected his reputation among the judiciary—he did not “ever want there to even be a question about what [he] do[es] professionally,” so it was “devastating” to have Judge Proctor (for whom he clerked) or the Court question his integrity.”
“Doss apologized at the show-cause hearing, but with the qualification that he and the Court “may have different views on . . . the legal issues in this proceeding.” Like Eagan, it seemed that Doss’s greatest regret was to have been publicly embarrassed by the negative attention; in both form and substance, his apology showed no remorse for his underlying conduct. In short, when the Court questioned Doss about the heart of the matter—his thoughts and actions—his demeanor belied his testimony, which did not appear worthy of the Court’s confidence, belief, or trust. In an abundance of caution, the Court gave him numerous opportunities to supplement, adjust, or otherwise change his troubling testimony. Like Eagan, he never did,” Burke said.
Judge Shopping 9 by Caleb Taylor on Scribd
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