Mr Justice Brian Cregan imposed the sanction over the behaviour of Martina Burke, a teacher, and Ammi Burke, a trained solicitor, at a hearing on February 20 where they engaged in 'shouting and roaring at the top of their voices' to the extent they had to be removed by gardaí.
After the LAPD response to a 2020 protest outside the mayor's mansion led to an excessive force lawsuit, attorneys representing the Police Department insisted they had turned over all relevant evidence. But then lawyers for the plaintiffs - activists from Black Lives Matter-L.A. - found footage recorded on the officers' body-worn cameras showed them tapping out messages on their phones, apparently sending texts to other LAPD officials that were never handed over.
The firmly worded order out of Manhattan singles out two DOJ officials who retweeted President Donald Trump's televised remarks on Friday and Saturday. "He shot someone in the back as clear as you're looking at me," Trump had said of Mangione in a Fox interview. "He shot him right in the middle of the back - instantly dead. This is a sickness." Trump's remarks, posted on the White House-affiliated X.com account Rapid Response 47, were then reposted by DOJ spokesman Chad Gilmartin and by Brian Nieves, a chief of staff at Main Justice.
When combing over a document submitted by two defense lawyers from the firm Cozen O'Connor, district judge David Hardy found at least 14 citations of case law that appeared to be fictitious, Reuters reported. Others were misquoted or misrepresented. After being confronted, the two defense lawyers soon pleaded guilty: one of them had used ChatGPT to draft and edit the document. Where other judges have sanctioned lawyers for committing similar sins, judge Hardy offered a humiliating ultimatum last week that's borderline cruel and unusual.
