Tagged: inherent powers

“The fraud-upon-the-court doctrine originated in Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. v. Hartford-Empire Co. There, a patent attorney for Hartford wrote an article lauding a Hartford product as an advance in the field and arranged to have the article printed in a trade journal under the name of an ostensibly disinterested expert, and the circuit court relied in part on this Article in granting relief to Hartford. Almost ten years after the final judgment, Hazel-Atlas gained ‘indisputable proof’ that the article was fraudulent and commenced suit seeking to set aside the prior judgment…”

The Supreme Court granted relief to Hazel-Atlas. The Court identified a general rule dating before the establishment of the United States that permits courts to devitalize judgments when justice demands, and explained:

This is not simply a case of a judgment obtained with the aid of a witness who, on the basis of after-discovered evidence, is believed possibly to have been guilty of perjury. Here, even if we consider nothing but Hartford’s sworn admissions, we find a deliberately planned and carefully executed scheme to defraud,not only the Patent Office but the Circuit Court of Appeals. Proof of the scheme, and of its complete success up to date, is conclusive.

Since Hazel-Atlas, the circuit courts have struggled to establish the doctrine’s contours. The classic formulation, which originated with Professor Moore, holds that the doctrine embraces that species of fraud “that does, or at least attempts to, defile the court itself, or that is perpetrated by officers of the court so that the judicial machinery can not perform in the usual manner its impartial task of adjudging cases.” However this doctrine is defined, it is now recognized (although obliquely so) in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

While Hazel-Atlas was a civil case, its decision is no less applicable in the criminal context. As the Seventh Circuit has unequivocally explained:

The fact that this case involves a fraud perpetrated upon the court during the criminal sentencing process rather than during a civil proceeding, such as in Hazel-Atlas, does not change the result. It is the power of the court to correct the judgment gained through fraud which is determinative and not the nature of the proceeding in which the fraud was committed.

Source: Joseph J. Anclien. Broader Is Better: The Inherent Powers of Federal Courts. 64 NYU Annual Survey of American Law 37, 77-79. 2008.

“In a third case, the Supreme Court disciplined an attorney when he failed to respond to communications from the Court clerk regarding a pending case. It should be emphasized that these very few cases of attorneys disbarred by the Supreme Court directly under the ‘conduct unbecoming’ standard all involved behavior that would be considered unprofessional by practically every attorney, such as ignoring court orders or official inquiries.”

This article further supports that that dumb white bitch Cynthia Rapp lied to me when she stated that the Supreme Court “does not entertain motions to disbar attorneys based on individual requests, we act only upon written notification from a state that an attorney has been disciplined.”

Source: Analysis: Federal Law of Attorney Conduct. “Structure of Federal Rules Governing Attorney Conduct in Supreme Court.” Moore’s Federal Practice – Civil. 2015 (citing K. Tucker, Disbarment and the Supreme Court of the United States, 37 Fed. B.J. 37, 43-44 (1978)).

In Chambers, “Justice White, writing for the majority, found that the inherent power of federal courts to impose sanctions is not displaced by federal sanctioning rules and statutes. Justice White distinguished the inherent power as being both broader and narrower than the express sanctioning authorities. The inherent power is broader in that it can address abuses of litigation not covered under the Rules of Civil Procedure or the statute. At the same time, the power is narrower in the sense that it requires a finding of bad faith where, for example, rule 11 only imposes an objective standard of reasonable inquiry for the assessment of sanctions. The Court noted that the inherent powers are also acknowledged in the Advisory Committee Notes for rule 11, reflecting Congress’ intention that the inherent powers not be displaced by the Federal Rules. The Court also declared that federal courts may invoke their inherent powers even though the bad faith conduct could also be sanctioned under the Rules.”

Source: Jennifer M. Treece, Finding Limitations on the Federal Courts’ Inherent Power to Sanction: Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 27 Tulsa L. J. 717, 720-721 (1991).