Partington v. Houck

In August 2012, we filed an amicus brief with the ACLU of Hawaii in this D.C. Circuit appeal involving the suspension of a Hawaii lawyer from practice before the Navy-Marine Corps military courts. A visiting district judge had ruled that the lawyer was not entitled to due process before being suspended; our brief demonstrated that this was error. (There are other issues in the case that we did not address.) The Court heard argument in December 2012 and in July 2013 agreed with us that the lawyer had been entitled to due process, but concluded that he had received all the process he was due—a point we had not disputed. The lawyer’s petition for rehearing was denied, as was his petition for a writ of mandamus filed in the Supreme Court.