On Friday, the California State Bar Court’s three-judge Review Department came to the same conclusion as a hearing judge over a year ago and recommended the disbarment of President Trump’s former lawyer, John Eastman. (98-page decision and five-page concurrence here; news release here.)
Saying that “[i]n a democracy nothing can be more fundamental than the orderly transfer of power that occurs after a fair and unimpeded electoral process as established by law,” the Review Department concluded disbarment is “the appropriate discipline . . . when an attorney, who has sworn to uphold the laws and constitutions of the State of California and the United States, attempts to actively undermine the results of an election to the most powerful office in the United States with the goal of delaying or invalidating the lawful installation of his client’s electoral opponent and thereby keep his client in office.”
Eastman can ask the Review Department for reconsideration. He has 15 days to do so. (Rules of Procedure, 5.158(A).) If, as is likely, the Department’s opinion is not reconsidered, Eastman can seek California Supreme Court review of the disbarment recommendation. Under Rules of Court, rule 9.13(a), his petition for review is due 60 days after the recommendation is filed with the court.
In the unlikely event Eastman himself doesn’t ask for further review, the matter would end up in the Supreme Court anyway. All recommendations for disbarment automatically go to the court, which can choose what to do regardless of what Eastman does.
As with any case other than a death penalty appeal, the Supreme Court can deny review. (Rule 9.16(b).) Unlike other cases, however, a denial “is a final judicial determination on the merits” and is followed by the filing of the State Bar Court’s recommendation “as an order of the Supreme Court.” (Ibid.)
After any unfavorable California Supreme Court action, Eastman can seek U.S. Supreme Court review.
Eastman currently remains not eligible to practice law in California, his status since March of last year.
Related:
Former justices join call for State Bar disciplinary investigation of former president’s lawyer
