A federal judge has ordered a veteran lawyer for Los Angeles County government to study legal ethics. U.S. District Judge George H. King directed Peter Glick, a principal deputy in the Los Angeles County counsel’s office, to complete 30 hours of “continuing legal education” in ethics, federal civil procedure, and civil rights law, says the Los Angeles Times.
King issued the order after Glick directed a court official to send a $70,000 legal bill to the plaintiff in a lawsuit against the county. The judge called Glick’s action “frivolous, unfounded, legally unreasonable and without factual foundation.” Earlier in the same case, King fined Glick $500 for filing – without checking with the plaintiff – a document that supposedly reflected factual matters agreed to by both sides.
The litigant is Leslie White, 46, a career criminal and jailhouse informant who rocked the county in the late 1980s by disclosing a scheme involving false confessions. He and other snitches had concocted “confessions” from fellow inmates and traded them to prosecutors and police in return for favors. White’s revelation embarrassed the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, where Glick worked then. A grand jury concluded in 1990 that county prosecutors had long tolerated suspected perjury by White and other informants to win murder cases.
The current case, White said, has roots that reach back to the first time he took on the legal establishment as a jailhouse informant. He admitted to lying under oath 12 times as a prosecution witness. White said he was “shocked, shocked, I tell you, that a federal judge would find that a government official associated with the district attorney’s office needs to go to school to learn legal ethics.” Imprisoned on a drug possession charge, White said he would file a complaint with the State Bar seeking Glick’s disbarment. Glick refused to comment.
Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-glick4apr04,1,1214098.story?coll=la-headlines-california