One of the most famous and misquoted lines from Shakespeare id, “First, let’s kill all the lawyers.” It’s the line Dick the Butcher says to Jack Cade in their plot to usurp the rule of law and overthrow King Henry V. What Dick the Butcher understood was that to destroy legitimate authority, lawyers as the defenders of legitimate authority would take them down. That’s assuming the lawyers have ethical standards and support justice.
About 30 percent of lawyers in the Nation’s largest law firm, the Department of Justice, have left their jobs. Pressured to violate the oath they took when admitted to the bar, which is to do justice, many resigned, others were fired because they refused to bring legal actions that were clearly illegal.
In the case of the “Broadview Six,” anti-ICE protestors in Minnesota arrested and charged with “conspiracy,” DOJ prosecutor Sheri Mecklenberg and six other DOJ lawyers resigned because of how they were told to prosecute them and more than 100 DOJ prosecutors signed a letter that raised serious ethical issues on the part of US Attorney Andrew Boutros and that’s just the beginning.
Prayer for the Day
Like the Psalmist, we cry to you, O God,
For those sworn to do justice have betrayed us;
Looking for prophets to call out injustice,
We ask where have they gone, O Lord?
Help us in these troubling times when laws,
Turned on their heads, are used against us.
In the name of the One who calls us to do justice,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
I can’t with a clean conscience defend actions by our clients that I cannot square with even the most tortured reading of the U.S. Code and Constitution.
From a resignation letter by a DOJ lawyer
They could have tried saying, ‘I want to get off this case—put me on other cases.” They sacrificed their jobs and, possibly, their careers to do the right thing.. The typical D.O.J. lawyer is fairly apolitical. They’re law nerds.
Stacey Young, former DOJ attorney, Civil Rights Division
I don’t feel like staying there is making a difference,” he told me. “I believe that the department now often acts like a criminal organization—and being part of it is just helping it achieve its aims.
Alexander Kristofcak, former DOJ attorney, SDNY
I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night my heart also instructs me.
I keep the Lord always before me; because God is at my right hand,
I shall not be moved.
Psalm 16: 7-8