Mark Bennett e-mailed me yesterday asking me if the reason I hadn't written anything in a couple of days about the 185th Grand Jury was because I was representing somebody involved.
I told him that I wasn't (and I won't because that would preclude me from writing any more about it), but that there wasn't any news to publish that I was aware of. The 185th Grand Jury (I believe) meets on Mondays and Thursdays. There were rumors afloat yesterday that many of Pat Lykos' "leadership team" had been subpoenaed, but I have no confirmation of that.
Right now, I'm pretty much just waiting to see what happens on Monday in the 185th District Court with the Show Cause hearings. My prediction on what is going to happen is nothing.
Although I've never been held in contempt (believe it or not) and I've never represented a fellow lawyer who was, I spoke with Todd Dupont who has handled contempt matters.
NOTE: Todd was NOT held in contempt (believe it or not).
After talking to Todd, my guess would be that the District Attorney's Office is going to file a Motion to Recuse Judge Susan Brown from hearing the contempt hearing. According to Todd, that's something that any officer of the court (i.e., a lawyer) is entitled to. It's nothing against Judge Brown, and I don't think it will affect the ultimate results of the hearing.
But it will possibly delay them.
And it will absolutely make the District Attorney's Office look like they are hiding something, in my opinion.
The question that will be interesting is are the two court reporters involved in the Show Cause hearing also going to be entitled a different judge. If they aren't, Lykos is going to have a tough decision to make. If the two lawyers accused get a new judge, do they really want to be dealing with two different hearings. I don't know the answer to that question, but I will be interested to see how it shakes out.
Additionally, the rules regarding conflict of interest are coming into play very much at this point. I don't know what the circumstances are behind the District Attorney's Office being in possession of Grand Jury witness testimony, but there is a huge probability that the interests of the court reporters may very much conflict with those of the prosecutors.
Think of the mantra from A Few Good Men: "Who ordered the Code Red?"
If there is a conflict of interest (and I tend to believe there will be), who represents everyone? It would seem to me that if General Counsel John Barnhill (presuming he isn't a witness) is representing them, that his duty would be to protect the Office. The interests of Pat Lykos' offices most definitely could conflict with those of the court reporters.
Having Scott Durfee (also with the General Counsel's Office) doesn't really solve that problem, either -- any more than having two partners in a law firm representing two sides of a lawsuit would be permissible either.
Either way, I just keep coming back to the same conclusion:
Monday is going to be an interesting day.
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