A US Attorney offices ignores orders of a Federal District Court, misleads the Court concerning compliance with the orders, loses or destroy evidence. Collects and reads privileged attorney client communications. Imagine a world in which that conduct was punished. You are not imagining this world, or at least not this country. What the Court is considering is making the US Attorney office pay the Federal Defenders' fees in pursuing the matter. The 184page opinion is at: Aug. 13 opinion. I though the report may have missed something, but it does indeed look like there is nothing happening to the US Attorney in Kansas. There is a chance, of course, that somewhere down the road something in the way of a genuine sanction might be imposed. I am a doubtful. The courts, whether sate or federal, really do not like exercising their supervisory powers, something they have a duty to do, over government lawyers, and prosecutors in particular. In my 20 years in Utah, only once has a prosecutor been subject to misconduct sanctions.
I am sure some budget somewhere will suffer, but what about the lawyers who hid documents, refused to comply with orders, knowingly violated attorney client privilege, and so on? Is it really too much to ask that there be some personal responsibility?
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