A Courageous Judge And Brave Lawyer

By John J. Duncan Jr.
duncanj@knoxfocus.com

From 1969 to 1988 I was devoted to the law – first as a law student at George Washington University, and then as a lawyer and judge in Knoxville. Through all the years since, I have maintained my law license and still have great interest in legal cases and court opinions. Thus, I was greatly impressed and even fascinated by the recent developments in two of the highest profile cases now going on in this country.
I have read many thousands of opinions by the Supreme Court and lower courts, and articles by and about lawyers. I know that I have never read a stronger, more detailed and more intelligent attack on the abuse of federal power from the White House on down, than the opinion written by a Chief Federal District Judge in Louisiana.
Judge Terry Doughty wrote a stirring, patriotic opinion, appropriately issued on July 4th in the case of Missouri vs. Biden, a case brought by two states and several prominent individuals alleging violation of their rights to free speech by the Biden Administration and several federal agencies, including the Justice Department, the FBI, the CDC and others.
The case involved a very successful collusion by the government, social media companies, and partisan groups like the Election Integrity Partnership to silence opposition to Covid 19 vaccines, lockdowns, and masking, opposition to the 2020 election, opposition to the policies of government officials in power, and statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true.
The judge wrote that the “Plaintiffs have presented substantial evidence of their claims that they were the victims of a far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign.”
He also said: “The United States government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’.”
The key point of his decision said: “It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature. This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of view-point discrimination of political speech. Americans citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country.”
Judge Doughty’s opinion was 165 pages long, and you could almost get a law school education from reading it. However, most law professors are so far to the left politically now that they will either ignore it or attack it in very sarcastic, elitist ways.
They should read the quote from President Harry Truman cited in the opinion: “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one place to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”
I also know that I have never read a stronger attack on any judge than has been going on over the last several weeks by former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz against the judge in the Donald Trump case in Washington.
Dershowitz has been all over YouTube and various news and opinion shows saying he “cannot imagine a worse judge” to try the D.C. case against Trump than Judge Tanya Chutkan. He pointed out that she was a member of a highly partisan Democratic law firm that once included Hunter Biden and that the judge has an obvious major conflict of interest.
Dershowitz also said, “This judge sounds like she is doing the work of the anti-Trump, get Trump faction.” He also said the judge should recuse herself from the case and that it should be transferred to some other court since 96% of the people in Washington voted against Trump making it the most anti-Trump district in the country.
Dershowitz pointed out that the prosecution has turned over 12.8 million pieces of paper to the defense and that if everything was read, Trump’s lawyers would have to read approximately 70,000 pages a day. He said any lawyer who agreed to try this case on the March date the judge had set would be committing malpractice. He added that it is unethical to go to trial so unprepared and that he would tell the judge he was refusing to go to trial – even if it meant that he (the lawyer) would be held in contempt of court.
Dershowitz also said the judge’s statement that the government had a right to a speedy trial shows ignorance of the Constitution because only the defendant can exercise the right to a speedy trial. He said Chutkan needs to go back to law school.
He said because this may be the most important criminal case in the history of this country, it needs to at least have the appearance of fairness. His opinion: “Justice cannot be done on this case by this judge.”
This is especially significant not only because Dershowitz has one of the most impressive legal resumes in this nation, but also because he says he is a liberal Democrat who has twice voted against Trump and will do so again if Trump is on the ballot.
Dershowitz lives part of the year on Martha’s Vineyard. He said he has been banned from the book fair and library there and even his own synagogue because of his public defense of Trump.
Even though he has represented some of the worst, most heinous criminals in the past, he has never received such hatred as he has because of his statements about this case.
Even though one of the first things a beginning law student is told is that everyone is entitled to be represented by a lawyer, Dershowitz has even been targeted by the 65 Project, a group of elitist lawyers trying to go after and even disbar any lawyer brave enough to represent Trump.
There has never been anything even close to the hatred liberal elitists have for Donald Trump.