Can Judges’ “Inherent Power” Be Used To Punish Lawyers?

A federal judge in Texas this week took extraordinary actions against Justice Department lawyers he felt purposefully misled him, potentially setting up the Supreme Court to reconsider judge’s “inherent power.” In 1991 the Court heard Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., and ruled 5-to-4 that “inherent power” won out over limited and specific grants under congressionally-approved rules for federal courts. But the Court warned that “Because of [their] very potency, inherent powers must be exercised with restraint and discretion.” In that case, the judge used the power to charge a misbehaving lawyer and his client with legal fees. Compare that to Judge Andrew S. Hanen, who this week called for every Justice Department lawyer to undergo ethics training. The judge claims that 100,000 deportation deferrals were processed before he put a legal stay on the practice, despite assurances from government lawyers that no such action would be taken before the court got a chance to review the case. Hanen fired back, demanding the ethics courses for lawyers and also personal information for each of the 100,000 illegal immigrants who benefitted from the deferrals. “Judge Hanen has not spelled out the sources of the power he has exercised,” Constitutional literacy advisor Lyle Denniston, writes for the National Constitution Center, “but it is a fair bet that his order will be tested in court, to see whether ‘inherent powers’ reach as far as he has presumably assumed that they do.”