Government attorneys want Sierra Pacific lawyers off Moonlight wildfire case

In the years-long legal brawl over the 2007 Moonlight wildfire that torched Plumas and Lassen counties, government attorneys have asked a Sacramento federal judge to kick the lawyers defending Sierra Pacific Industries off the case for alleged unlawful and unethical tactics. Lawyers who handled the recent declaration of a former assistant U.S. attorney who once represented the government in its civil lawsuit against Sierra Pacific are guilty of “egregious professional misconduct,” U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner and his staff allege in a motion filed Monday. In his declaration, the former assistant U.S. attorney, E. Robert Wright, described what he perceived as questionable inner workings of the U.S Attorney’s civil division and how he bucked a practice of withholding evidence that the law required be turned over to the opposition. Wright, now retired, said he suspected he was removed as the government’s lead counsel in the suit against Sierra Pacific because of his insistence on honesty. The Moonlight fire started on Sept. 3, 2007, on private property in Plumas County and spread into neighboring Lassen County. It turned 65,000 acres, including 46,000 acres of national forestland, into a moonscape, and burned for more than two weeks before it could be suppressed. The government’s suit, which was settled more than two years ago, sought compensation for fire-related damages from timber giant Sierra Pacific and, to a much lesser extent, other defendants. The government’s motion this week to banish Sierra Pacific lawyers from the suit claims that Wright’s declaration is “replete with protected work-product, privileged attorney-client communications, and client confidences and secrets.” Every lawyer involved in the document’s creation and public disclosure knew it represented a blatant violation of the State Bar’s rules of professional conduct, including Wright and defense lawyers who merely read it, the motion asserts...more 

 

I don't know the particulars on this case but checkout the following:

Hundreds of Justice Department Attorneys Violated Professional Rules, Laws, or Ethical Standards An internal affairs office at the Justice Department has found that, over the last decade, hundreds of federal prosecutors and other Justice employees violated rules, laws, or ethical standards governing their work. The violations include instances in which attorneys who have a duty to uphold justice have, according to the internal affairs office, misled courts, withheld evidence that could have helped defendants, abused prosecutorial and investigative power, and violated constitutional rights. From fiscal year 2002 through fiscal year 2013, the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) documented more than 650 infractions, according to a Project On Government Oversight review of data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and from OPR reports. In the majority of the matters—more than 400—OPR categorized the violations as being at the more severe end of the scale: recklessness or intentional misconduct, as distinct from error or poor judgment. The information the Justice Department has disclosed is only part of the story. No less significant is what as a matter of policy it keeps from the public. As a general practice, the Justice Department does not make public the names of attorneys who acted improperly or the defendants whose cases were affected. The result: the Department, its lawyers, and the internal watchdog office itself are insulated from meaningful public scrutiny and accountability.

And we should all remember the Senator Ted Stevens case:

Report blasts prosecutors in Ted Stevens case Federal prosecutors knowingly concealed exculpatory evidence and allowed false testimony to be presented at trial in their overzealous pursuit of criminal charges against the late Sen. Ted Stevens, a scathing new report by a special investigator finds. Stevens was charged in July 2008 and later convicted on seven counts of failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in improper gifts. The longest serving Senate Republican in U.S. history, he lost his reelection that November, ending a legendary political career that had begun before Alaska was even a state. “The investigation and prosecution of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens were permeated by the systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence which would have independently corroborated Senator Stevens’s defense and his testimony, and seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government’s key witness,” Schuelke wrote in the summary of his report. It came after more than two years of review, including interviews of all the members of the elite DOJ team handling the case, all of whom worked for the Public Integrity Section.