Kari Lake’s attorney Bryan Blehm could be blocked from litigating election contests in 2024 if the state presiding disciplinary judge rules in line with a recommendation from the State Bar.
After Presiding Disciplinary Judge Margaret Downie found Blehm violated rules of attorney conduct by claiming to the Arizona Supreme Court that it was an “undisputed fact” that more than 35,500 ballots were inserted into the 2022 election count, the State Bar recommended a six month and one day suspension.
The recommended sanction would require Blehm to file to reinstate his law license.
As part of the reinstatement process , which requires attorneys suspended for more than six months “must show by clear and convincing evidence that the lawyer has been rehabilitated and possesses the moral qualifications and knowledge of the law required for admission to practice law in this state in the first instance” in order to practice law again.
Downie will issue a ruling within 30 days. If she were to grant the Bar’s recommendation, the six month and one day suspension would take effect 30 days from the ruling date, which stands to stretch Blehm’s potential suspension into December.
Blehm failed to appear in front of a disciplinary panel May 21 to determine how aggravating and mitigating factors should weigh on the final disposition of his disciplinary action. But in a video posted to X he claimed the State Bar’s recommended sanction “isolates and keeps out the most active MAGA attorney in the entire state” ahead of the 2024 election.
The hearing on sanctions follows Downie’s ruling granting a portion of the State Bar’s motion for summary judgment and found Blehm violated four ethical rules forbidding attorneys from making false or misleading statements, and engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation, and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, for his statements in Lake’s election contest.
The State Bar voluntarily dismissed a second count dealing with claims Blehm made on social media about federal government agencies having improper influence over the courts and the bar.
In her ruling, Downie widely relied on the state Supreme Court order granting sanctions against Lake, Blehm and co-counsel Kurt Olsen, which is by-and-large based on the rules of attorney ethics.
“Sometimes campaigns and their attendant hyperbole spill over into legal challenges. But once a contest enters the judicial arena, rules of attorney ethics apply,” the state Supreme Court order read. “Although we must ensure that legal sanctions are never wielded against candidates or their attorneys for asserting their legal rights in good faith, we also must diligently enforce the rules of ethics on which public confidence in our judicial system depends and where the truth-seeking function of our adjudicative process is unjustifiably hindered.”
Downie noted the state high court based its sanctions decisions on an ethical rule holding attorneys shall not “make a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal or fail to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer.”
The Supreme Court found Blehm knowingly made an “unequivocally false” representation and wrote in their ruling “Although Lake may have permissibly argued that an inference could be made that some ballots were added, there is no evidence that 35,563 ballots were and, more to the point here, this was certainly disputed by the Respondents. The representation that this was an “undisputed fact” is therefore unequivocally false.”
The state high court also quoted a separate ethical rule directing attorneys to avoid misleading the court by false statements the lawyer knows to be false.
In an advocacy memo prepared by the State Bar on sanctions, Bar counsel Hunter Perlmeter wrote Blehm had “acted knowingly, and his conduct caused actual injury by expanding the proceedings before the Supreme Court, and potentially serious injury had the Supreme Court accepted his false statements and erroneously concluded that 35,563 unaccounted for ballots were added to the total count at the third party processing facility.”
The memo referenced American Bar Association Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions, which hold suspension to be appropriate when a lawyer “knows that false statements or documents are being submitted to the court or that material information is improperly being withheld, and takes no remedial action, and causes injury or potential injury to a party to the legal proceeding, or causes an adverse or potentially adverse effect on the legal proceeding” and “knowingly engages in conduct that is a violation of a duty owed as a professional, and causes injury or potential injury to a client, the public, or the legal system.”
The filing references disbarment standards, too, and noted the same could be applicable to Blehm “given the extent of potential harm.” The Bar alleged aggravating factors in Blehm’s case to have dishonest or selfish motive, a pattern of misconduct, multiple offenses, refusal to acknowledge wrongful nature of conduct and bad faith obstruction of disciplinary proceedings.
That references a counterclaim Blehm filed against the State bar claiming they attempted to censor him and damage his reputation. Perlmeter noted the counterclaim was “not authorized under the rules,” and Blehm “articulated no legal basis” on which to pursue it.
He acknowledged Blehm’s key mitigating factor, a lack of prior discipline, “carries less weight when a lawyer refuses to acknowledge the wrongful nature of his conduct.” Blehm did not file or lodge any mitigating factors to the court, according to court spokesman Alberto Rodriguez.
Blehm’s case is the first from the round of bar complaints associated with 2022 election cases to come in front of the Presiding Disciplinary Judge, standing to create some precedent in how similar discipline cases dealing with election lawsuits are handled going forward.
Attorneys Andrew Parker, who served as Lake and Finchem’s counsel in a federal suit to ban tabulation machines, and co-counsel Kurt Olsen, who, with Blehm, represented Lake in her election contest, have upcoming hearings too, according to the office of the PDJ. Parker and Olsen have an in-person hearing scheduled for June 25 to 27, and Olsen is due separately for a Zoom hearing on July 9.
Downie will issue a decision in Blehm’s case within 30 days.
Copyright © 2024 BridgeTower Media. All Rights Reserved.
Most Popular
Comments / 0