"The Worst Behavior This Court Has Ever Observed of a … Litigant"

That's what Judge Liles Burke's opinion in Germany v. Slater (that's Germany the person, not the Federal Republic) promises:

Over the past 17 years, this judicial officer has served as a municipal judge, a state district judge, a state appellate judge, and, now as a United States district judge. What follows is a description of the worst behavior this Court has ever observed of a pro se litigant, or for that matter, any litigant.

Does it deliver? You be the judge.

Comments

[John F. Carr]

There are different categories of misbehavior. I remember reading an article about a defendant who tried to strangle his attorney with his own necktie.

[Drbusybody]

With the lawyer's own necktie, I think you meant.

[Drewski]

Man Who Stabbed His First Two Lawyers With a Pencil Stabs Another Lawyer With a Pencil: https://www.loweringthebar.net/2011/11/man-who-stabbed-his-first-two-lawyers.html

[Syd Henderson]

I bet he does that to all his lawyers. It's tradition.

[Frank Drackman]

I think I know what Mr. Germany looks like before I even Google his Mugshot.

[dwb68]

No, honestly, doesn't deliver.

The worst examples of behavior never make it to a 20 page order.

[David Nieporent]

Exactly. The fact that the court had to expound at that great length to justify his decision reflects the fact that it wasn't that terrible. If, e.g., Germany had gotten violent in the courtroom, it could've been a one paragraph ruling.

[Calliope]

Seems like the court could have shut that down a lot earlier rather than dragging that out as long as it did. Not a lot of sympathy for the judge.

[OtisAH]

I think you see that level of leniency and deference in many pro se cases.

[Krychek_2]

Yes and no. In Florida the courts give lip service to leniency and deference toward pro se plaintiffs, and they will get extensions that lawyers wouldn't. On the other hand, if you're a pro se plaintiff, the court will look for every opportunity to dismiss your case early and often. I was once in a courtroom in which a judge told a pro se plaintiff that she doesn't allow pro se plaintiffs to take discovery. Obviously she should be reversed whenever she does that, but the practicalities are that that specific issue won't often make it to the court of appeals.

I myself have been a pro se plaintiff; as a pro se plaintiff I'm a three time winner at the US Court of Appeals. But I also have a law degree and understand the rules. And, I've been appalled at just how badly pro se plaintiffs are sometimes treated even when they're members of the bar. I once filed a request to default a defendant who hadn't responded to the complaint. Had I been represented by counsel, the clerk would have immediately entered a default. Because I was proceeding pro se the magistrate had to review it first; the magistrate sat on it for three months during which time the defendant finally answered. In my district, pro se plaintiffs are not permitted to electronically file, even though it places them at a procedural disadvantage since it takes longer for them to send and receive pleadings, and even though it creates more work for the clerk's office, just to remind pro ses they are second class citizens.

So as with everything else, there are two sides to every story.

[OtisAH]

Good note.

[David Nieporent]

I was once in a courtroom in which a judge told a pro se plaintiff that she doesn’t allow pro se plaintiffs to take discovery.

Are you sure? I find it hard to believe that someone would announce such a policy in open court. Are you sure it wasn't something like "I don't allow pro se plaintiffs to take discovery until after a mediation session" or something like that? Because that actually sounds defensible.

[Krychek_2]

I'm sure. The plaintiff was a father whose ex, in violation of a court order, had taken their child and fled the state, and he was trying to find them. On the theory that the Department of Revenue would know where they were sending the child support payments, he sent the DOR non party discovery as to their whereabouts . For various reasons I couldn't represent him but I ghost wrote his pleadings and coached him from the sidelines.

The DOR flatly refused to comply with discovery and when he brought a motion to compel, the judge told him that since he was pro se she would not compel discovery. That she said so in open court is an indication of her confidence she had that the Court of Appeals would never look at it. And she was right; under state law it was a non-final, and therefore non-appealable, order.

[apedad]

contumacious: adjective (archaic)

(especially of a defendant's behavior) stubbornly or willfully disobedient to authority

[Life of Brian]

Ouch. Apparently someone needs to read yesterday's post about plain-language summaries.

[apedad]

HA!

The guy's full name is Hilton Germany and when I did a Google search, the results were for Hilton Hotels in Germany (Berlin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Köln, etc.)

[Michael P]

Frank D was probably disappointed to see so many Aryan faces in his search results.

[Frank Drackman]

Yeah, I'm a Jewish Nazi, Leck mich

[SRG]

MR. GERMANY: Okay. That’s fine.
MORGAN FREEMAN V/O: But it was not fine.

[Currentsitguy]

MORGAN FREEMAN V/O: I don’t know how he could stand it, but Hilton Germany crawled through 4 hours of court testimony to freedom….

-Hilton Germany and the Courtroom Redemption

[tkamenick]

I can see how a pro se litigant would be very frustrated by the other side getting to constantly refer to Germany's criminal charges but Germany not getting to talk about the result (that they were dismissed). I can also see them not really understanding that fine distinction. I'm (tentatively) thinking the judge went overboard on the motions in limine (seems like it was really hard for Germany to tell a coherent story), but I can see how the judge got to that point with Germany's pretrial crap.

[ducksalad]

I agree with that first sentence. As a non-lawyer, it seems to me both the police-defendants and the judge quite intentionally wanted the jury to believe that a criminal was arrested but not know that the charges were dismissed. As a juror, I would think the fact that the DA saw little merit in the charges was quite relevant to the credibility of cops. And that’s exactly why the lawyers don’t want me to know it.

And yeah, I understand the mincing, smirking argument that for the purposes of excessive force, it’s irrelevant whether he was actually guilty of a crime. “Cops cannot gratuitiously beat up the guilty or the innocent. Therefore, haha!, it’s no problem to make the jury think you’re guilty!” If that argument was sincere, the judge could have also suppressed any mention of evidence of the criminal charges.

[Noscitur a sociis]

And that’s exactly why the lawyers don’t want me to know it.

Well yes, that’s part of the concern—although if you let someone who’s likely to draw that conclusion onto the jury in the first place, you’re not off to a great start.

[Jmaie]

"As a juror, I would think the fact that the DA saw little merit in the charges was quite relevant to the credibility of cops'

First blush, as a juror I might have concluded (had I been allowed to hear the full story) that charges were only dropped due to Mr. Germany moving away. This could in turn limit any inference regarding the defendant's credibility. I would also have noted that charges dismissed =/= found innocent.

That said, I can certainly understand the plaintiff's frustration with the procedural requirements, in his place I would consider it unfair to have that information precluded.

Regarding whether this is the worst courtroom behavior ever, let me quote from the Big Bang Theory:

Leonard: “Howard, I appreciate the effort, but this is like, the worst date of my life.”
Wolowitz: “Seriously? I was once robbed by a pre-op transsexual I met on JDate, and that didn’t even crack my top 10.”

[CindyF]

The Court was more than patient with Mr. Germany. He refused to listen or try to understand the rulings of the judge. It's obvious he had also refused to listen to his previous attorney. He was wasting the time of the court, the defendants and their counsel, and the jury.

Good for the judge in finally having enough of the nonsense and dismissing his case.

[David Nieporent]

I mean, I wasn't in the courtroom and am just reading it on paper, but that didn't seem particularly bad. Not good, but not remotely delivering on the teaser. If that's the worst behavior the court has ever seen from a litigant, the judge must have lived a pretty sheltered existence.

The judge, frankly, seemed pretty thin-skinned. Look, I know judges don't like it when litigants show emotion, but the judge whining that the guy was making faces seemed over the top.

And, oh, the guy kept saying that he wasn't found guilty. Fine, I get that it's legally irrelevant, but it's not like it's a violent outburst. Why the judge kept calling attention to it rather than just using a curative instruction, I'm not sure. (Judges have no trouble deciding that much more egregious violations by prosecutors can be solved with curative instructions.)

[David Nieporent]

To be clear, I'm not saying dismissal was inappropriate — particularly the shenanigans with the statement of damages. I'm just saying that this seems like routine malfeasance by a pro se party, not worthy of being called "the worst ever."

[Jmaie]

IANAL, are there circumstances where the court might appoint council (in lieu of dismissal) when a pro se litigant proved unable to proceed in a reasonable manner? Over the litigant's objection, I should add...

[David Nieporent]

Courts typically do not have authority to appoint counsel in a civil case. They can request that pro bono counsel volunteer, but not require it.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Yeah, even if you exclude people who committed outright crimes in the course of their cases, this wouldn’t be the worst pro se litigant I’ve seen in the last couple weeks.

Maybe there’s a higher standard of practice in Huntsville?

[OtisAH]

I dunno if that’s his birth name but it’s brilliant. Go ahead, try to Google him.

Anyway, I’ll bet any pro se sovereign citizen behaves worse. But it’s not a contest.

“But it was not fine.”

Lastly, it’s quite a pickle. Germany has a right to be heard in court. But intellectually and behaviorally he clearly lacks the faculties to argue pro se in court. And it also *appears* unlikely that he could have secured and retained counsel. And the defendants have a right to a fair trial.

It seems as if acquittal was the likely outcome. But what if someone with Germany’s deficiencies has a solid case but cannot understand or comport themselves with the proceedings well enough to get to a decision? I guess this is another entry in the “worst system possible except for all the others” logbook.

EDIT: I just thought to look up “pro se in British law” but found only entries regarding the U.S.. Is pro se unique to the U.S.?

[Life of Brian]

I dunno if that’s his birth name but it’s brilliant. Go ahead, try to Google him.

Tried it. Google returns what is pretty clearly his Twitter page in the second hit of "Hilton Germany" Alabama. Pinned tweet:

HELP ME GET JUSTICE WHILE I'M ALIVE

DISABLED COMBAT VETERAN WHO CALLED THE POLICE ENDED UP GETTING ASSAULTED BY POLICE OFFICERS

Third and eighth hits are a document from this very lawsuit, and fourth, sixth, and seventh hits are local news stories about it.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The terminology, maybe, but certainly not the concept.

https://www.gov.uk/represent-yourself-in-court

[Drbusybody]

That pro se litigant would have to go a long way to top the Waukesha Christmas parade murderer who recently acted as his own lawyer in a very long trial and was almost daily banished to a remote courtroom by the judge, who is now a candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme court. She sentenced him to six consecutive life terms plus about a thousand years.

[Zarniwoop]

The presiding judge is no longer a candidate; she lost in the primary and is not on the April 4 ballot.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

"Worst ever" is an overstatement, at least for the federal district courts overall. As mentioned above, sovereign citizens are much worse. Not because they are any better on the law, but because they are generally well prepared to play their unique game interminably, thus wasting much more of the court's (and everyone else's) time. An oldie but a goodie:
https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb571/2012abqb571.html

[Syd Henderson]

So can Germany appeal? I'm sure the appeals court would like to hear from him.

[ReaderY]

If this is the worst that this judge has encountered, he might have had a relatively easy career. Even the telephoned threat to defame the plaintiff’s lawyer’s character probably pales in comparison to an actual threat of violence. It’s not like litigants haven’t bad-mouthed opposing counsel to judges (or in press releases) before.

I was wondering if the judge might have been better off letting this plaintiff have his way more. If he wanted to insist that what the video clearly shows never happened, perhaps he should have been allowed to do that. It might hqve helped the jury evaluate his credibility regarding the 30 seconds the video didn’t show. Similarly, if he wants to insist that he wasn’t found guilty at his trial, a curative instruction (the court had found probable cause for the arrest on summary judgment notwithstanding the later disposition) would probably have been sufficient.

In general, his arguments and behavior in the court were relevant and it might have been best if the judge hadn’t worked so hard to focus the jury and keep them from seeing them. Evidence of extreme contumaciousness, argumentativeness, insistence on descriptions of events clearly contradicted by other evidence, etc., may, far from being irrelevant or making the trial fundamentally unfair, have assisted the jury in evaluating the plaintiff’s credibility and character, and hence the truth not only of what the plaintiff claimed the police did, but of what the police said the plaintiff did.

I think allowing the jury to hear what the plaintiff wanted to say would not have rendered the trial unfair. The judge might have been better off allowing it and letting the jury see the plaintiff’s character and credibility for itself, rather than constantly coming down hard and sanctioning the plaintiff.

After all, as the judge noted, the police were reasonable in inferring from the 911 call that the plaintiff had intended to kill his wife. Allowing the jury to see the plaintiff handling a disagreement in his own way might have helped rather than prejudiced the jury’s assessment of the events of that night.

[ducksalad]

“I think allowing the jury to hear what the plaintiff wanted to say would not have rendered the trial unfair.”

True, but why would the cops and the judge want a fair trial when they can have a dismissal instead.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If this is the worst that this judge has encountered, he might have had a relatively easy career.

You think? It appears this judge inherited his life, never escaped the backwaters, and was named a judge before he would have had a chance at partner in a real law firm. Likely some politics in the mix. To call him a minor leaguer would unfairly disparage some strong AA and AAA ballplayers.

[John F. Carr]

I know a lawyer who was trying to convince a judge that municipal traffic enforcement shocked the conscience, allowing him to bring the case as a federal civil rights violation. The judge was not shocked. The city was acting illegally, but cities do that.

Calling the case above "worst" is like calling municipal corruption and misbehavior shocking. What's special about the pro se plaintiff is he had a lawyer for long enough to get past the first hurdles. By the time he was pro se the trial had reached the stage where he had to interact with the judge a lot.

[SRG]

I think we can assume that the judge will not give this Hilton a good Yelp review

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

This reminds me of the lawyer who begins a presentation with “this is an extremely simple and straightforward case, your Honor,” then devotes 80 pages or 45 minutes to explaining precisely how simple and straightforward it is.

I got as far as “Germany, apparently unhappy with the Court’s warning, began to make faces, shake his head, and laugh in a disrespectful manner.” The part of me that had to watch those damned flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz through interlaced fingers was too afraid to see what might come next.

Maybe this is an officious backwater judge, promoted to the bench while still green, who hasn’t been more than a few yards from the turnip truck yet.

[Lasciata]

Hell, I've seen antics ten times this bad in small claims court.

[Drbusybody]

Here is his Twitter profile (with photo)
https://twitter.com/germany_hilton?lang=en

[Bill Poser]

There was a case during the height of Covid in which the defendant was a man accused as I recall of assaulting his now-ex girlfriend. She had received an order of protection requiring him to stay away from her. He was out on bail and the trial was conducted by video. The eagle-eyed prosecutor noticed details of the video that suggested to her that the defendant was testifying from within his ex’s house. She called the police who checked and found that the defendant was indeed at his ex’s in violation of the court order. The trial was continued due to the arrest of the defendant for violating the order and possibly also for witness intimidation.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Yep.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/virtual-court-hearing-takes-turn-after-prosecutor-spots-assault-suspect-n1260698

[Bill Poser]

That's the one.