Columbus attorneys disapprove of Taitz's actions

Columbus attorney William Mason has seen “birther” lawyer Orly Taitz on television and read about her in the newspaper.

He’s quick with a description of the California lawyer: “She’s nuts,” Mason said. “Based on what I saw and read, she’s nuts.”

Mason said her court filings don’t appear written by someone familiar with the court system. Also, members of the Georgia bar, to which Taitz doesn’t belong, aren’t allowed to advance an untrue cause. And, he said, she’s never been able to support speculation made in federal court that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States.

For attorney Frank Martin, Taitz’s actions are so egregious that she should be disciplined.

“First of all, a lawyer has an ethical duty not to advance an argument that either you know is not true or you do not have an honest basis to argue,” Martin said. “She’s the type of person who gives lawyers a bad name.”

About Taitz

Taitz is a national name in the “birther” movement, whose members think that Obama isn’t legally qualified to be president. Taitz has been involved in federal cases across the country, including two in Columbus involving an Army major and captain who argued they shouldn’t be deployed because Obama isn’t the legitimate commander in chief.

One of those cases involves Capt. Connie Rhodes, who filed a complaint Sept. 4 arguing she shouldn’t be deployed to Iraq because she questioned the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency. U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land dismissed the suit. After Taitz, on Rhodes’ behalf, asked Land to reconsider his decision, the judge received a letter signed “Connie Rhodes” asking that Taitz no longer represent her.

“I did not authorize it and do not wish to proceed,” the letter says about the motion for an emergency stay. “Ms. Taitz never requested my permission nor did I give it.”

In a July 8 suit, Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook sought conscientious objector status and a temporary injunction.

Land sided with the government, saying the case was moot because the Army rescinded Cook’s deployment orders.

Cook, also represented by Taitz, was a reserve officer who had volunteered for active duty. Because of his status, he could have asked for his orders to be revoked up to the day of his deployment.

The motion for emergency stay in the Rhodes case states that Land’s court was subservient to the “same illegitimate chain of command which plaintiff has previously protested.”

The following day, Land gave Taitz two weeks to show cause why he shouldn’t sanction her $10,000.

“What she’s saying is the judicial branch of government has been subsumed by the executive,” said attorney Josh McKoon, former president of the Muscogee County Republican Party and candidate for the state Senate District 29 seat. “That’s not a legal argument. That’s something designed to be in the newspaper.”

Martin calls Taitz’s actions in court better suited to a theatrical stage.

“It’s more than an attack on Judge Land,” Martin said. “It’s an attack on the federal judiciary. I think she’s confused that she’s at a town hall meeting. She’s in a courtroom.”

Rules and law

Mason pointed to Rule 11 of the federal rules of civil procedure when talking about Taitz. He referenced Taitz motion to recuse Land, which states the judge “created a constitutionally intolerable situation in which he is both complaining party, prosecuting attorney, judge and jury regarding the charges of frivolous filing and sanctionable conduct which he has leveled.”

“It’s not a criminal offense,” Mason said. “You’re not entitled to a jury.”

The list goes on. In an Oct. 4 affidavit by Robert D. Douglas of Alma, Ga., Douglas states he saw Attorney General Eric Holder in Columbus on July 16 — the day of Cook’s hearing. Douglas surmises that Holder could have been present to influence Land.

The Office of Attorney General’s Web site states Holder was in Los Angeles that day, but Mason says that even if Holder was in Columbus, it’s not enough to disqualify Land.

“When you say the attorney general was here pulling the strings of a judge, you better be able to call a witness,” Mason said.

Martin agreed, saying the person should be called to the witness stand and swear to what he or she saw.

McKoon said it didn’t matter whether Douglas’ affidavit was true.

“How does it affect Judge Land’s ability to be impartial?” McKoon said. “I’m not sure what bearing it has on anything.”

McKoon added that it’s likely easy to prove where the attorney general would be on any given day. If an attorney knows an affidavit to be false, which would be the same as knowing sworn testimony to be false, that attorney has an obligation to not present it.

Such actions, if not stopped, will diminish the judiciary, Martin said.

Taitz can say what she wants outside a legal proceeding, he said, but there is one place that’s protected from accusations that can’t be backed up, and that’s the courtroom.

Ben Richardson, president of the Columbus Bar Association and Columbus’ solicitor general, pointed to Georgia Bar Rules, though Taitz isn’t a member of the state’s bar:

Rule 3.3 — candor toward the tribunal. An attorney should not knowingly make untrue statements.

Rule 3.6 — pretrial publicity. Don’t make extrajudicial statements.

Rule 3.5 — don’t engage in conduct to disturb the tribunal.

“I don’t really like the fact how she is conducting herself,” Richardson said. “You should conduct yourself with decorum at all times. I’m just shocked that she would behave in that manner.”

Conjecture and theories

In a Sept. 14 hearing on Rhodes’ case, Taitz asked why she had to prove a “Kenyan birth certificate” she submitted was authentic, while her opponents didn’t have to prove Obama had an authentic United States birth certificate. Land pointed out the burden was on Rhodes, because she sought to stop her deployment to Iraq.

Mason said if Taitz had a certified copy of Obama’s birth certificate, it would be different. Instead, she filed a declaration by Lucas Daniel Smith, who claims that on Feb. 19 he visited Kenya and paid a bribe to a Kenyan military officer to get a copy of Obama’s birth certificate.

The purported birth certificate is included in a court filing.

Land ruled the document unreliable because it wasn’t properly authenticated.

“Speculation like that, like speculation that the president was not born in the United States, must be supported,” Mason said. “That’s what lawyers are not supposed to do — saying things in court that you know are not true. You’re allowed to advance an unpopular cause, but not a false one. To my knowledge, she does not possess one piece of admissible evidence that proves the president was not born in the United States. All she had to do was enter a certified birth certificate from Kenya. She didn’t do that.”

McKoon said that as an attorney, he’d not only want to submit a certified copy of a birth certificate, but also have a witness who was the document’s custodian who’d testify to its veracity.

Ultimately, McKoon said, the burden of proof is on Taitz clients.

To prove their case, they need to show that Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate is false and have some certified document showing where he was born.

“He was duly qualified,” McKoon said of Obama. “He was put on the ballot in 50 states. No state said, ‘We’re not putting him on the ballot because he doesn’t meet the qualifications.’”

Taitz mentions the Kenyan birth record and other reports she submitted in a motion to force Land to recuse himself from the case, questioning what the judge found speculative about their admissibility under the ancient documents doctrine of the federal rules of evidence.

She also points to the alleged ex-parte contact Land had with Holder and stocks that she says Land owns in companies she claims are supporters of Obama.

Richardson said an attorney can file a motion to recuse a judge, if that attorney feels the judge is subjective and can back up the argument. The claim can’t only be based on conjecture, Richardson said.

For example, Richardson questioned whether Taitz filed information on how much of any particular stock Land owns. He also questioned whether Taitz showed how much money Microsoft may have given to Obama over the years.

In her motion to recuse, Taitz listed links to online documents containing information on Land’s finances. She provided no information on any money given to Obama by Microsoft.

“You’ve got to have some sort of legitimacy to your arguments,” Richardson added. “You don’t just file anything. You’ve got to determine, would a reasonable person file this? I think Judge Land has shown a lot of patience with her.”

Taitz responds

Contacted Monday and told about the criticism local attorneys have of her, Taitz replied that they have to appear in Land’s court.

“I’m sure they don’t want to get on his bad side,” she said. “That might be one reason they believe what I said was harsh.”

Taitz said that she came to America from a communist country with a totalitarian regime. In the United States, attorneys should be allowed to defend a citizen’s civil rights, she said, and she shrugged off Martin’s suggestion that she be disciplined.

Taitz added that an attorney who believes she should be disciplined is part of an oppressive regime who wants to get on that regime’s good side.

“Sanctions for what?” she asked. “I have not done anything wrong. There’s no reason to sanction me.”

Taitz called Land’s actions in the Rhodes case inappropriate and his decision biased and disrespectful.

“Calling me a ‘birther’ — this is slang that might be used from some very biased reporters,” Taitz said of Land’s use of the word in his order denying her motion to reconsider.

As for Mason’s comment that she’s lost her sanity, Taitz dismissed it.

“This is behavior that you see coming from Saul Alinsky,” she said, referring to the author of “Rules for Radicals.” “They attack you, and they call you names.”

Crossing the line

For Martin, there’s more to the story of Orly Taitz than her court filings. It’s about an attack on a federal judge who served as a Columbus councilor, a Republican state senator and was then appointed by President George W. Bush to the federal bench.

“I think the U.S. attorney’s office has a duty to conduct a criminal investigation into this guy who signed the affidavit,” Martin said of Douglas, the man who attested he saw the attorney general in Columbus. “He didn’t see the attorney general over there any more than I saw Elvis.”

Tactics such as Taitz’s are more akin to guerilla warfare than practicing law, Martin said. Civil disobedience is one thing, like some SOA Watch protesters who cross the line onto Fort Benning each year.

Their actions are within the framework of the judiciary: They are arrested, post bond and appear before a federal magistrate, who hears them speak and adjudicates their guilt.

Taitz’s actions are dangerous, Martin said, and they are lies.

Taitz wasn’t serving Rhodes well as her attorney, Martin said. Instead, she used the captain to get herself on a platform where she used phrases such as “illegal usurper” to talk about the president — words that to Martin violate an attorney’s standard of performance.

“It’s not appropriate,” McKoon said of Taitz’s actions. “This kind of stuff is why attorneys enjoy, as a group, a pretty negative reputation.”

For Mason, it still comes down to a simple phrase about his opinion of Taitz’s mental competency.

“She can go ahead and sue me because the truth is a defense,” Mason said. “She’s nuts.”