I’ve served as a law clerk for a judge who was the subject of several mandamus petitions, and I have never heard of the trial judge hiring a lawyer. But then again I have never seen an appellate court ask the trial judge to respond to the petition. Usually they ask the opposing party (procedurally called the “real party in interest”) to file a response.
It makes some sense. The judge probably hasn’t written a brief in years, and his law clerks have never written one other than in law school.
But I wonder who is paying the lawyer. Is he paying her out of his pocket, or is she working for free? I should hope the government isn’t paying her.
Of course, the fact that he is hiring a lawyer to advocate against a criminal defendant before his court—not to mention that he has already appointed another lawyer to argue against the defendant—just highlights everything wrong with what he has done. It is a fundamental element of due process in this country that the tribunal be impartial. Plainly, Judge Sullivan is not.
“Who pays?”
That’s a very good question.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find that someone pays, but that its “off the books,” but that the public story is that the “lawyer has volunteered out of a sense of public duty and justice,” because of “the egregious interference of Trump and Barr in the justice process.”
And, while that wouldn’t surprise me, it would surprise me if I ever found out the true answer.
Payments can be cleverly disguised. Family can be hired (Bidens). Or offshore benefits can accrue (Chinese Thousand Talents Program.)
Call me jaded and cynical.