Lawyer who spoke out after fellow lawyer shot himself during trial gets suspension overturned
A Louisiana lawyer who criticized the prosecution of another lawyer who shot himself during trial should not have been suspended from federal court practice for speaking out, a federal appeals court has ruled.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit ruled (PDF) in a First Amendment challenge on Monday that a federal court’s local rule was unconstitutional as applied to lawyer William Goode, the Advocate reports.
Goode told journalists that his friend, lawyer Barry Domingue, was innocent and the government’s case was “made up.” Domingue and another lawyer, Daniel Stanford, were both being tried on conspiracy charges related to their advice to a synthetic marijuana business.
Goode spoke with reporters in April 2014 after Domingue shot himself, before a mistrial was declared in the case. Domingue died in the hospital. Stanford was later tried and convicted on drug and money-laundering charges, according to the Advocate.
Acting sua sponte, a federal judge scheduled a show-cause hearing and the Western District of Louisiana suspended Goode from practicing in the federal court for six months. The district court found that Goode had violated a local court rule that barred lawyers associated with the prosecution or defense from giving interviews or making statements related to an ongoing trial. The only exceptions allowed such lawyers to quote from or refer to the public record without additional comment.
The chief judge who imposed the sanction found that Goode had helped Stanford prepare for the case, and had passed notes to both Stanford and Domingue during the trial. As a result he was associated with the case, the chief judge found.
A 5th Circuit decision in 1995 said a court may impose a gag order on trial participants if the restricted speech presents a substantial likelihood of prejudicing the court’s ability to conduct a fair trial. The local federal court rule applied to Goode doesn’t incorporate a substantial likelihood standard, though the chief judge found the standard was satisfied, the 5th Circuit said.
Assuming the finding is true, counsel representing the district court failed to establish the local court rule is narrowly tailored and and failed to show it is the least restrictive means available to achieve its goal, the appeals court said.
“As applied to Goode,” the 5th Circuit said, “the rule acted as a complete bar on any speech ‘relat[ed] to the trial or the parties or issues in the trial’ and disseminated through public communication during the pendency of the trial. Appellee has failed to demonstrate how such an expansive rule is narrowly tailored.”
Goode told the Advocate that he wasn’t trying to influence the jury and he had asked one reporter to delay publishing a story until a mistrial was declared. “I was just trying to help my friend. … I wanted to explain that Barry Domingue did not kill himself because he had done anything wrong,” Goode told the Advocate. “Barry killed himself because he couldn’t take the pressure of the case.”
