How to Get Reprimanded, #137

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Call the judge a "jackass."  To be extra sure, describe a whole panel of appellate judges that way.  If you want to really lock it down, throw in a comparison or two to Adolf Hitler.

This precedent was established on Monday when the Michigan Supreme Court reprimanded Geoffrey Fieger, best known for representing the now-imprisoned Jack Kevorkian, for appearing on Detroit-area radio shows and calling the state appellate judges "jackasses" and other names that were not reprinted.  (They had pissed him off by overturning a $15 million judgment he had won.)  Fieger had argued to the grievance board that he and other lawyers (and anybody else, I suppose) have a First Amendment right to criticize judges publicly.  An intermediate body agreed with Fieger, but on appeal the state supreme court found 4-3 that the remarks were just "personal abuse," not protected speech.

Fieger’s attorney said that Fieger would appeal to those jackasses at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Link: AP via FindLaw.com