An
Alabama attorney’s appeal of his disbarment for letting clients lie in
court and for allowing another disbarred lawyer do legal work for his
law firm, was rejected Monday by a federal judge.
“This court does not have the power to review and reweigh evidence that was presented to the bar’s disciplinary panel almost a decade ago, and it certainly has no authority to reverse the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision to affirm the bar’s decision,” Judge Liles C. Burke of the Birmingham-based U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama said.
Only U.S. Supreme Court decisions can bind state courts, the judge said, citing a 2003 opinion from the 11th Circuit. Liles sits in Huntsville.
Carl Michael Seibert of Huntsville was disbarred in 2011 for “intentionally engaging in unethical and illegal conduct on behalf of a bail bonding company,” Burke said.
Seibert alleged in his defense in 2011 that he had been the target of “hostile plans and conspiracies” from a local district attorney’ s office. Since then, he’s sought on “multiple occasions” to have the ruling overturned, Burke noted.
Here, his “specific factual allegations are difficult to discern because the complaint is rambling at times and is somewhat disjointed,” the judge said.
While Burke noted several claims, including that defendant Jeremy McIntire, the state bar’s prosecutor, “knew that the other allegations were false but continued with the prosecution anyway,” he said, any discussion of the claims and the defendants’ defenses, including immunity, don’t warrant discussion because the court lacked jurisdiction.
The case is Seibert v. McIntire, 2020 BL 127093, N.D. Ala., No. 5:19-cv-1619-LCB, 4/6/20.
“This court does not have the power to review and reweigh evidence that was presented to the bar’s disciplinary panel almost a decade ago, and it certainly has no authority to reverse the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision to affirm the bar’s decision,” Judge Liles C. Burke of the Birmingham-based U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama said.
Only U.S. Supreme Court decisions can bind state courts, the judge said, citing a 2003 opinion from the 11th Circuit. Liles sits in Huntsville.
Carl Michael Seibert of Huntsville was disbarred in 2011 for “intentionally engaging in unethical and illegal conduct on behalf of a bail bonding company,” Burke said.
Seibert alleged in his defense in 2011 that he had been the target of “hostile plans and conspiracies” from a local district attorney’ s office. Since then, he’s sought on “multiple occasions” to have the ruling overturned, Burke noted.
Here, his “specific factual allegations are difficult to discern because the complaint is rambling at times and is somewhat disjointed,” the judge said.
While Burke noted several claims, including that defendant Jeremy McIntire, the state bar’s prosecutor, “knew that the other allegations were false but continued with the prosecution anyway,” he said, any discussion of the claims and the defendants’ defenses, including immunity, don’t warrant discussion because the court lacked jurisdiction.
The case is Seibert v. McIntire, 2020 BL 127093, N.D. Ala., No. 5:19-cv-1619-LCB, 4/6/20.
Full Article & Source:
Alabama Federal Court Tosses Ex-Lawyer’s Appeal of Disbarment
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