Today in terrible lawyering, with Orly Taitz!

Orly Taitz (another friend of our favorite media outlet, WorldNetDaily) appeared in court again last week, and I do not understand how she has not been disbarred in every state.  She's best known for filing approximately three hundred motions attempting to obtain Obama's birth certificate, and now that that's been released she's also attempted to obtain his school records, Social Security info, and basically anything else that might have his name and a birthplace on it.  She's also a really, really terrible lawyer, by pretty much any standard of lawyering you might want to pick.  For example, back in October, she filed a sprawling suit about...something, which seems to involve defamation, voter fraud, and candidate ineligibility for office in several apparently unrelated cases.  It was described by one named defendant (also, helpfully, a lawyer) as follows:

It appears that she has now filed, or tried to file, yet another lawsuit, and that this one has my name in it. At least, she has filed paperwork that is partly a challenge to the California results, mostly another iteration of the Obama charges, and in one small part accuses me of defamation for the post above. (I've asked her if there is anything in it that isn't an accurate statement of fact, and will let you know what I hear.) There is a document that is labeled a "complaint," that is, although so far as I can tell it has never actually been filed in any court, and I am named as a defendant along with 31 others, ranging from the President, Nancy Pelosi, and both candidates for the California Senate seat, to various state officials, Chris Matthews of "Hardball," the U.S. Postmaster General, and the "John and Ken Show" on KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles.

In summary: she filed some paperwork, which might be a lawsuit, against some election results, several individuals, and one radio show.  Her named defendants include the Postmaster General, Chris Matthews, this random lawyer, and the President.  Unfortunately, there were some errors, as our lawyer friend details:

It's a real challenge to list all the mistakes Orly made in this case in a reasonable number of words, and this doesn't even include the original state case, but here goes, to the best of my knowledge (quotations are from the court's order):

• After some initial proceedings in state court, which were not to her liking, she removed her own case to federal court.

• She filed a notice of removal in the state court, but not in the federal court.

• Instead, she filed a "First Amended Complaint" in federal court, which was not the same as the complaint she filed in state court. (If you're removing a case, it has to be the same case.)

• Actually, no one is really sure what she filed: "Perhaps some confusion is due to the fact that the manually filed First Amended Complaint had 'First amended complaint' crossed out. Someone wrote 'Notice of Removal' in pen above the crossed-out text, which then became the document’s title in the docket."

 I'm not 100% clear on what this means (but, to be fair, I don't think Orly is either).  It sounds like Orly, in an attempt to remove a previous complaint, accidentally entitled her new complaint "Notice of Removal".

• She did not file whatever this was electronically, as the court's rules require.

• Because of the handwriting issue, when the court ordered her to go back and file "Docket #1" electronically, it meant the complaint but she thought it meant the notice of removal, which is what she filed electronically, thus having successfully confused everybody including herself.

• And what she filed was the notice she had filed in state court—meaning she never did file an actual federal notice of removal or an electronic copy of her new complaint.

• In the meantime, she was trying to serve this bogus complaint on the defendants; as far as I know, she did not serve any of the 29 defendants correctly.

• "At least one Defendant has reported that the paper copy of the complaint he received, which is the only copy to which he has access, is missing pages."

No, seriously, I'm an actual lawyer!  Look at these serious-looking lawyer papers I'm holding!

I didn't really mean to go so in-depth into Orly's previous failed efforts, but that list of items was too fun.  Anyway, the point of referencing that whole article was that it notes that Orly is now a cool 0-158 in her birther cases.  Now, in case #159, Orly is going after Occidental College, in an effort to compel them to release President Obama’s college records.  This case was unusual for Orly in that the opposing counsel actually showed up; generally, her filings are so ridiculous that opposing lawyers can just let the judge throw them out.  In this case, the counsel for Occidental called Orly up and concisely presented his defense ahead of time:

“It is the college’s position that your application is without merit, frivolous, and warrants sanctions.”

Orly responded to this with a blog post:

This snooty attorney called me and stated that he intends to appear tomorrow and oppose my motion  to compel production of Obama’s application to Occidental college, and seek sanctions because it is frivolous.  I told him that I will be seeking sanctions againsty [sic] him for committing treason, for obstructing justice and filing a frivolous opposition.

"You're calling me frivolous?  No, YOU'RE frivolous!  Also, being a lawyer for someone I disagree with is treason now.  Boom, you've been lawyered."

I told him that evidence submitted in the case shows Obama having Indonesian citizenship, forged birth certificate, forged selective service certificate and a forged /fraudulently obtained Social Security card. 

I filed an afidavit 

Oh come on, Orly, you're supposed to be a lawyer.  At least make an effort.

from Sheriff Arpaio to this extent.  His opposition represents obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting elections fraud and treason.

I'm pretty sure this is just gibberish.  If anyone can produce a definition of "extent" that makes sense in this context or figure out who "his" in that sentence refers to, please let me know.

He followed up with en e-mail, where he tried to intimidate me again.

Intimidation?  He accused you of filing a frivolous suit.  For doing that, you accused him of TREASON.

I know a lot of Obama’s people will be there and our left to Lenin lying media as well. It would help to have my supporters there.  Can someone get in touch with Trump. He was willing to to pay Obama $5mil for these records, maybe he will be willing to donate to my work and help me out. I think he might be interested in being in court.

It's funny because Trump probably would be interested if it would get him on the teevee.  Also, it's funny because this is the same shit you were doing four years ago, when a few people may have actually cared, and your supporters are all gone because you haven't produced a shred of evidence and all of your cases get thrown out of court for being wrong wrong wrong wrong.

Things didn't get much better for Orly when she got to court, as the judge threw the suit out and fined Orly $4,000 for wasting everyone's time.  She continued to protest and attempted to introduce a folder of new "evidence" after the decision was handed down, to which the judge responded, "“You should know that evidence is not stuff printed from the internet.”  Which: that's news to me, but at least I don't go around telling people I'm a lawyer.  Orly's opposing counsel was quite pleased with the result:

“He let Ms. Taitz have her say in court and then he ruled appropriately,” Botterud said. “It’s always good to find a judge that follows the law and does the right thing.”

Ms. Taitz was less enthused:

“The judge did not give a damn about this country,” she wrote on her blog in response to the ruling. “Sadly he is not any different from all the other judges. I am yet to see one single judge who gives a damn about this nation. I feel like I am in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.”

Yes, Orly, Nazi Germany happened because some people couldn't see someone else's birth certificate.