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The NY Times article says the judge appointed the law firm, not Chevron as this article claims. After the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York d
by WillPostForFood 5y ago
The NY Times article says the judge appointed the law firm, not Chevron as this article claims.
After the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York declined to prosecute the case, Judge Kaplan took the rare step of appointing a private law firm, Seward & Kissel, to prosecute Mr. Donziger in the name of the U.S. government
- sacred_numbers 5y agoIt may have been a judge that appointed the firm, but it's kind of suspicious that he would appoint a firm that had previously represented Chevron to represent the US Government. That seems like a pretty big conflict of interest.
- jahewson 5y agoThat’s not a conflict of interest - the prosecution is supposed to be “against” the defendant.
- cgio 5y agoMaybe so, but on behalf of its client, the government? The court? Not on behalf of someone else who is not paying. Hard to imagine there was no other law firm that would take this job, and if not then that’s one more negative sign for validity of prosecution, right?
- 6510 5y agosee the interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKbpptFKaXc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKbpptFKaXc
- woodruffw 5y agoThe judge’s selection is the conflict of interest, not the prosecution itself. Selecting a private firm that’s financially entangled with the aggrieved party to discharge the duties of the Department of Justice is extremely unusual and concerning.
- r00fus 5y agoI've never heard of this kind of thing happening before. I wonder how close Kaplan is to Chevron.
- jahewson 5y agoIt’s very rare for a disbarred lawyer to spend 7 years ignoring court orders. Kaplan is really pissed off and wants consequences.
- DeathArrow 5y agoI find it weird that in the US law system a private company can prosecute someone. What's next? Hiring private judges and juries?
- hellbannedguy 5y agoIn certain parts of the USA we have judges who were never lawyers.
- soco 5y agoNot that surprising when you remember the private prisons.
- useragent86 5y agoIt can't. The NYT article says: > After the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York declined to prosecute the case, Judge Kaplan took the rare step of appointing a private law firm, Seward & Kissel, to prosecute Mr. Donziger in the name of the U.S. government. So the real problem here is people not reading the article, jumping to conclusions, and spreading misinformation in the comments (on HN?!). And probably the SDNY being too biased to enforce the law against a lawyer who cheated in a case against an oil company. Anyone who's been following the SDNY in the news for a while shouldn't be surprised about that.