If it becomes obvious to a judge during the course of a trial that one of the attornies is incompetent to perform the work, does the judge have any legal obliagtion to takes steps to make the trial more “fair”. An example: in a criminal trial, the prosecution moves to introduce some evidence that the judge knows should be excluded under some legal precedent. The defense doesn’t object to it to it. Does the judge have any obligation to make an un-asked-for ruling on behalf of the defense.
Would these obligations, if any, be different in a capitol case, or in a civil case?
Does a judge have any obligation to report an incompetent attorney to the local Bar Association, or some other disciplinary body? Do opposing attornies have any similar reporting duty?
Aside from any specific legal obligation in a given jurisdiction, is there a gerally accepted canon of ethics for judges that speaks to this issue? If so, can you provide a link?
I was recently in a courtroom in DC and the judge gave a very strong reprimand to a young lawyer. She was appearing as court-appointed in defense of some guy who had been in jail for a couple of months. They guy was not present. The judge started asking questions. Whay was he not present? Why was he in jail? It seems he had been in jail for a couple of months waiting to get a psychiatric evaluation. The judge said that was illegal. Why hadn’t she (the lawyer) got him out? She had no good answers and you could tell she was way over her head. She probably was fresh out of law school. The judge was giving her a reprimand and she was apologetic but had no good excuse. The judge went into a spiel about constitutional rights etc. Finally he said he wanted to talk to her supervisor. The woman was clearly not up to the task and the judge gave her a very hard time about it.
Do you know what the judge did about the defendant? Very glad to hear about a guy like that. I wonder, though, whether he is an exception or the rule.
I got to thinking about this when I came across a story about new trials ordered in death sentence cases because of incompetent defense in the original trial, and I wondered what the degree of responsility the original trial judge might have.
I don’t want to pursue this latter question here, which is more an issue for IMHO or GD. I’d rather stick to the factual. So a judge can at least lecture the lawyer… can the judge order the lawyer replaced? Or declare a mistrial? Must the judge taken action in the face of blatant incompetence?
Judges reprimand lawyers for their behavior in the courtroom all the time, but that’s all it is. A verbal reprimand from the guy who’s your boss today, but maybe not every day. Still, not many lawyers like pissing off judges, because you will probably keep ending up int heir courtrooms and they will remember you.
Anyone can complain to the Bar if they feel a lawyer is incompetant, or an asshole, or has not lived up to his/her legal obligations.
Quoted from yojimboguy’s OP- “An example: in a criminal trial, the prosecution moves to introduce some evidence that the judge knows should be excluded under some legal precedent. The defense doesn’t object to it to it. Does the judge have any obligation to make an un-asked-for ruling on behalf of the defense.”
Nope. And probably wouldn’t anyway. If my lawyer isn’t up to speed and it’s a criminal trial, an error like that might result in a reversal on appeal.
Judges exclude evidence sua sponte (on their own motion) all the time. I don’t know if there’s a specific standard they’re supposed to follow, however.
You should consider the possibility that the judge was the incompetent one. It’s not uncommon for some judges to make totally unreasonable requests and to get things totally wrong. In such a situation, many or most lawyers just suck it up rather than argue and piss off the judge further.
Anyway, I don’t have an answer for the OP. It’s an interesting question though. My instinct is that once a lawyer has passed the bar and been sworn in, he or she is presumed to be competent. If judges started booting or replacing attorneys who they deemed incompetent, it would open up a whole 'nuther can of worms.
Believe me, it was pretty obvious to anyone who was there she did not have a clue. The judge is one of the best judges I have seen in a long time. He asked her, in the two months she had been defending this guy, how many times had she met with him? Answer: zero. It all went tlike that. She was very obviously over her head and had no good answers. Even a layman could see that.
The judge made some phone calls personally, from the bench, and demanded the man be brought to his presence the next day as it was impossible to do it the same day.
I was very impressed with the judge. His name was Morrisson and looked like Santa Claus, with a bigm, white, beard. He had photographic memory and in closing arguments in one case grilled one side pointing out at all their contradictions. I thought to myself that side had obviously lost the case but then the other side made their closing arguments and the judge did the same thing and pointed out contradictions which would have escaped most people. I was impressed. Believe me, there was someone incompetent in that courtroom, and it wasn’t the judge.
The judge is supposed to be a neutral party. Although he can exclude evidence on his own motion, in general, he is required to takes steps as a neutral tribunal, not as an advocate for either side.
And he must consider that the move to admit the evidence may have some strategic purpose. Perhaps the evidence, although potentially excludable, will somehow help the accused’s theory of the case, and so his lawyer stays silent for a good reason - in that case, the judge will actually be sabotaging the defense strategy by stepping in and admitting it.
Of course, that sort of planning is… let’s just say rare. Admittedly, most cases of seeming incompetence are, in fact, actual bungling.
Theoretically, there is relief available to the accused who is convicted after an incompetence performance by his counsel: an appeal based on inadequate representation. But the reality is that in order to win such an appeal, the accused must reach a fairly high bar. He must show two things: first, that the lawyer’s performance fell below an objective standard of performance; second, that but for the specific failures, the outcome of the trial would likely have been different.
In other words, it’s not enough to show that your lawyer fell asleep during a key prosecution witnesses’ direct testimony. You must also show that, if he had been awake, he could have said or done something that woul dhave changed the outcome of the trial.
This is a tough row to hoe.
The same rules apply to any criminal case, and were defined in a case called Strickland v. Washington. I don’t know what the rules are on the civil side; I suspect that it comes down more to a new malpractice claim against the lawyer rather than a rehearing of the original matter, though.
Certainly a judge has an ethical obligation to report seriously flawed practice to the local disciplinary authority, which varies form jurisdiction to jurisdiction.