Orly Taitz update II: she's about to get sanctioned to the tune of $10,000

Remember the Rule 11 warning that Judge Clay Land gave "attorney" Orly Taitz when he dismissed her client's birther lawsuit this past week?

Furthermore, Plaintiff's counsel is hereby notified that the filing of any future actions in this Court, which are similarly frivolous, shall subject counsel to sanctions. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c).

(In English, that means, "If plaintiff's lawyer files any more papers in this court based on birther arguments, I will fine her for wasting the court's time and resources.")

Lawyers aren't often threatened with Rule 11 sanctions, and actual levies of Rule 11 sanctions are even more rare. So perhaps Taitz was thinking she could beat the odds when she filed her client's "emergency request for stay of deployment pending motions for rehearing" (PDF) with Judge Land, even though the paper included the following language:

Plaintiff avers that there is increasing evidence that the United States District Courts in the 11th Circuit are subject to political pressure, external control, and, mostly [sic] likely, subservience to the same illegitimate chain of command which Plaintiff has previously protested in this case, except that the de facto President is not even nominally the Commander-in-Chief of the Article III Judiciary.

"Commander-in-Chief of the Article III Judiciary"? I must have slept through that part of civics class. And law school. Or maybe it'll be in the user manual I get with my law license in a couple of months. But it must be a really important exception to the separation of powers concept, because Taitz put it all in bold print in her paper. She continues:

[B]oth Plaintiff and her counsel were denied meaningful access to the Courts by the very fact that this Court entered its September 16, 2009, ruling without reference to any of the key issues actually raised in Plaintiff’s Complaint or TRO. The fact that the Court’s 14 page order does not address any actual statements in Plaintiff’s complaint by page or paragraph number, or any page citation to her TRO, suggests to a reasonable and objective mind that the Court either did not read these documents or was summarily instructed by that same illegitimate “chain of command” alleged above not to address at least the three key questions asserted in Plaintiff's complaint[. . . . ] The Court’s failure to address these three key issues again, standing alone, is suggestive that the executive branch is exercising control over the Court’s decision-making process[.]

On the plus side, Taitz used a proper comma construction around the date there. I hate it when people leave off the comma after the year, which, syntactically speaking, is an appositive and requires a trailing comma.

On the minus side, Taitz is saying that the judge didn't engage in any legal analysis in his 16 September 2009 order, which is both untrue and also simply insulting. (Aside: when you use a pretentious Euro-style date convention rather than the American style, you avoid the comma issue altogether.) Furthermore, Taitz is saying that a reasonable, objective observer would conclude that there is a massive conspiracy, from the White House on down to the smallest individual federal district courts in the nation, between the Democratic President in his branch of government and the GWB-appointed judges in their own, aimed at keeping Taitz and her client from having their case heard in a court of law. Only an unreasonable observer would conclude, to the contrary, that Taitz is plainly incompetent -- apparently she's been failing to sign some of the documents filed with the court -- and is about to be $10,000 poorer. More:

[ . . . ] the obvious fact that [President Obama's] Father was an (admittedly disloyal and possibly treacherous) Subject of the British Crown when he was born, even though this fact alone would disqualify the President as a “natural born citizen”, regardless of his place of birth.

This is an incorrect statement of immigration and citizenship law. One of my parents was not an American citizen when I was born (the other had been naturalized). But because, like President Obama, I was born in an American state, I am a natural born citizen of the United States. 8 U.S.C. 1401(a). There were no relevant changes in that part of immigration and citizenship law between President Obama's birth and my own. And finally:

[ . . . ] the encroachment of anti-democratic, authoritarian, neo-Fascistic or Palaeo-Communistic dictatorship in this country [ . . . ]

This one needs a Zippy the Pinhead treatment: Neo-fascistic Palaeo-Communistic! Neo-fascistic Palaeo-Communistic! Neo-fascistic Palaeo-Communistic!

Anyway, long story short, Judge Land has rejected Plaintiff's emergency request (PDF), explicitly using words like contemptuously and phrases like illegitimate use of the federal judiciary to further her political agenda. The judge also uses a lot of Rule 11 language and then orders Taitz to show cause why he should not fine her 10 grand for her conduct. For one thing,

counsel contends that the Court dismissed her Complaint without giving her an opportunity to respond adequately[.] Counsel ignores that she sought to have the case heard in an expedited fashion in the first place because of Plaintiff’s imminent deployment. The Court modified its schedule to accommodate this request, and in fact held the hearing during the lunch break in an ongoing jury trial.

I'm sure that other trial's participants, especially the jury, were just so pleased to have the proceedings delayed for this nonsense.

And for another thing,

[i]f counsel had carefully read the Court’s order, she would have understood that the Court dismissed the Complaint based upon abstention principles [i.e., not on the merits of her argument, but because the court could not, under established legal precedent, interfere with a military deployment order]. Furthermore, competent counsel would have understood that the Court was required to address abstention prior to ruling upon the motion for a temporary restraining order.

In English, if there's a legal roadblock in the way, that is, if some other branch of the government has priority to make a decision regarding the lawsuit, then a court is not allowed to decide a case on its merits. This is called checks and balances. Here, the court decided that there was ample legal precedent showing that courts are not allowed to interfere in military deployment decisions. There are at least 2 reasons. First, the military has its own system of review. Second, the slippery slope: do you really want every disgruntled grunt to have recourse to the federal courts when he disagrees with a superior officer's order?

Also, in English, the judge just called Taitz a trained monkey who clearly skipped the week of Con Law where they studied justiciability.

Last comment, I'm tickled to see that the judge says pretty much what I said the other day when Taitz compared herself to Nelson Mandela:

Although the First Amendment may allow Plaintiff’s counsel to make these wild accusations on her blog or in her press conferences, the federal courts are reserved for hearing genuine legal disputes and not as a platform for political rhetoric that is disconnected from any legitimate legal cause of action.

But wait! It gets curiouser and curiouser: a document has come up that purports to be a letter faxed to Judge Land from Plaintiff Rhodes. In it, she appears to state that Ms. Taitz filed the emergency request without plaintiff's permission, and plaintiff, actually, "[does] not wish for Ms. Taitz to file any future motions or represent [her] in any way in this court." According to this document, plaintiff "[does] not wish to proceed" in the lawsuit but is on her way to Iraq.

Hat tip to the Native Born Citizen blog's Rhodes v. McDonald archive for providing links to the court records.