And you are an attorney or a judge?
All I said and I’ll say it again, the judge has a responsibility to review everything submitted to his court.
That should be obvious.
And I just explained why your assertion is not true. He cannot, just because of his black robe, open cases to his own inquiries. He’s a TRIAL judge. His job is to facilitate the settlements of disputes between parties brought before him. When those disputes between the parties are settled, his job STOPS! He is not permitted to look into why or how they ended. . . Or the motives of the parties involved in ending them. In this case it was the government vs. Flynn. Those two parties now agree that, based on newly uncovered evidence AND bad behavior of the previous prosecution team hiding exculpatory evidence of that fact, no crime was committed. Since there is no longer a dispute, there is nothing for this judge to mediate.
The most he can do is refer suspicions of questionable dismissals to the District Attorney for investigation of malfeasance. HE can’t investigate on his own initiative! He cant step down from the bench and appoint a new prosecutor to seek new charges. He CAN appoint an attorney for a defendant. . . If there is none.
But there’s a reason why his circuit is calling him on the carpet to explain his actions which are completely outside the normal canons of a trial judge’s powers. He’s gone one step beyond what they ordered him to do. They told HIM to explain himself by filing briefs on the legal grounds he’s basing his extraordinary behavior on. It’s not an adversarial procedure. . . But HE hired a criminal defense attorney to argue for him.
That implies he hasn’t got a sound legal foundation for his behavior that he can brief. He should be able to cite pertinent cases and law that has not been superseded by later case rulings that somehow supports what he did, that he knew, when he did it, not found ex post facto.
Every attorney I know, and I’ve talked to several (my God son is an attorney admitted to the SCOTUS bar), say the panel is NOT going to like that. It’s not in the order they gave him; they didn’t tell him to get someone to do your homework for you! It’s in the same vein of him bringing in an Amicus into the trial! He’s doubled down! This should have been a battle of briefs and legal citations with him showing in law what Is his legal justification for not doing his statutory duty under judicial standards and circuit rules. He’s thumbing his nose at the circuit panel.
Judge Sullivan has ZERO evidence, except hearsay from the newscasters he watches that there is any untoward political pressure brought on the prosecution’s dismissal decision. Such hearsay should have no weight in any court of law!