Federal judge withdraws order requiring ethics training for Justice Department lawyers
A federal judge who ordered ethics training for as many as 3,000 Justice Department lawyers for alleged misrepresentations has withdrawn the sanction after finding the misstatements were inadvertent.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen changed his mind in a decision on Thursday that also found the federal government does not have to turn over personal data on immigrants who got three-year work permits in violation of his court order, report Politico and the Washington Times.
Hanen is presiding in litigation by 26 states seeking to block President Obama’s 2014 deferred deportation program. Hanen issued an injunction blocking the program in February 2015.
Hanen had imposed the ethics training sanction last May after finding that Justice Department lawyers made misrepresentations concerning the implementation date of President Obama’s deferred deportation program. Hanen said then that lawyers from Justice wrongly said the program hadn’t gone into effect even though even though the government had already expanded deportation deferrals from two to three years for more than 100,000 immigrants.
In the new opinion, Hanen criticized the government for not presenting affidavits or declarations before his original sanctions decision in support of its claim that the misstatements were inadvertent. That evidence was filed more than a year after the original sanctions order, Hanen said. “Had the government come forward with this evidence sooner,” Hanen said, “all concerned would have been spared a lot of work and anxiety.”
Although he is lifting the sanction, Hanen criticized what he termed the Justice Department’s “current haphazard approach to ethics standards,” citing “a staggering number of cases at Main Justice involving ethical misconduct.” He cited reports by the department’s ethics watchdog that found 132 ethics violations over a four-year period.
Related article:
ABAJournal.com: “Supreme Court splits 4-4 in challenge to Obama’s deferred-deportation program; injunction remains”
