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Owen Barcala Profile picture
Owen Barcala
@obarcala
NM commercial/water litigator. Trials, appeals, plaintiff, defense, you name it. Opinions are my own, not my employer's. #AppellateTwitter #LitigatorTwitter
Jun 10 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
The judge seems to have confirmed that the ex parte meeting occurred. He is now refusing to release a transcript of it, saying that disclosure would be an improper remedy. Steel is asking about certain statements and the court is saying it may be attorney-client privileged (???) Keep in mind, this witness is on the stand, so what may have happened that affects his testimony is important for the defense. Steel suggested that something was said along the lines of 'whether you go back to jail will depend on your testimony tomorrow'
Nov 3, 2022 • 24 tweets • 8 min read
Josh helpfully linked the order appointing the monitor The court rejected Trump's argument that they could only get an injunction if they showed irreparable harm—a municipality enforcing its laws need only show likelihood of success and equities in its favor
Nov 1, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Congratulations to Elon for paying about 3x the value for Twitter and in the process managing to make himself the public face of so many controversies that people will reject his attempts to make it more profitable out of spite The funny thing about this is, for how much damage this subscription model is likely to do to the active userbase, it seems like just a drop in the bucket

Twitter used to have interest expense of about $50M. With Elon's financing, it's now about $1B
Sep 22, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Dearie is serious about moving this thing—docs are to be reviewed, objected to, and decisions made on a rolling basis

Trump team gets the remaining docs on Sept 26 and must submit designations to the gov in three batches, each about a week apart, any disputes sent to Dearie And he's getting it all out of the way in one go. As to each doc, Trump must say if he's claiming: (a) a/c privilege, (b) w-p doctrine, (c) exec privilege that prevents exec review, (d) exec privilege that prevents review outside the exec, (e) presidential record, or (f) personal
Sep 21, 2022 • 27 tweets • 9 min read
That was . . . quick. And per curiam. I'm going to skip right to the good stuff—DOJ's likelihood of success on the merits. First, they essentially treat it as review of an order under 41(g), which is notable b/c Trump keeps saying that's premature. That is resolved with equitable factors
Sep 21, 2022 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
Any reporting that Dearie was in the tank for one side was obviously overblown, but my read of this transcript is that reports were right that this judge is taking classification issues very seriously Here's the bit about the government's prima facie showing potentially being the end of it if Trump decides not to advance declassification claims
Aug 12, 2021 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Missed this yesterday—Judge Mehta ruled in the fight over Congress's subpoena for Trump's financial records from Mazars. Congress can get docs re: GSA lease and foreign emoluments, but not personal or corporate financial records. "[The] asserted legislative purpose of bolstering financial disclosure laws for Presidents and presidential candidates does not warrant disclosure of President Trump’s personal and corporate financial records when balanced against the separation of powers concerns . . ." ImageImage
Jun 4, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The Barnes & Thornburg partner who signed the ludicrous Mike Lindell complaint is reportedly no longer with the firm—they say he "didn’t receive 'firm authorization' for the suit and the firm is immediately withdrawing as local counsel." law.com/americanlawyer… Non-lawyers may not understand how weird this is. Partners at big law firms do not take significant cases like this without approval—it can harm the business, tarnish the firm, and drag the other partners' reputations down with it (as you can see w/ the reaction already)
Jun 2, 2021 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
In light of DA Zappala Jr.'s ban of plea deals to clients of a defense attorney he doesn't like, I found a 1976 case in Oregon holding that very similar conduct was unethical - Complaint of Rook, 556 P.2d 1351 (1976) law.justia.com/cases/oregon/s… Rook's conduct differed a little. Rather than banning all pleas to clients of a certain lawyer, Rook refused to give pleas to two lawyers' clients that he gave to similarly situated defendants. It involved a number of defendants who were arrested in an Elks' Club for gambling
Jun 1, 2021 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
While everyone is dunking on the cringe references in the ConAgra opinion, I wanted to point out how the settlement agreement at issue is practically the embodiment of the problems with collusive class settlements ImageImageImage The class attorneys and ConAgra represented the settlement value was $95M, with a paltry $6.85 to the attorneys. In reality, ConAgra paid only $8M—$5.85 to the attorneys and only $1M to the class. Less than 0.5% of class members submitted a claim.
Nov 18, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Here is the new opinion denying a failed Republican candidate's attempt to invalidate 2,349 mail-in ballots in PA, and squashing another conspiracy theory about undated ballot envelopes democracydocket.com/wp-content/upl… The theory is that voters did not write a date on the outer envelope of the mail-in ballot, so the county cannot determine whether they were mailed before the election date and they cannot be counted.
Nov 17, 2020 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Incredible timing—during the break in the PA arguments, the PA Supreme Court reversed the Commonwealth Court's order requiring campaign observers to be permitted to be at least 6 feet from ballot processing Significant parts of Rudy's argument was premised on the idea that ballots must be thrown out b/c Republican observers weren't allowed to observe—I haven't seen this opinion, but odds are it casts some doubt on that theory
Jun 8, 2020 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
Wow, not only did MN Dept of Public Safety acknowledged that police officers slashed the tires of unoccupied cars, but at least one sheriff department said they deputies were ordered to startribune.com/officers-slash… I'm sorry, not "slashed the tires"—"strategically deflated the tires" with knives
May 12, 2020 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Has anyone ever seen a judge request amici in a criminal case? Sullivan notes that the local criminal rules don't even provide for amici.

Seems to suggest that Sullivan doesn't think DOJ is adequately representing the interests of the United States. This could give some explanation—shortly after Sullivan's minute order, Flynn's lawyers filed a Motion to Deny NotiCe of Intent to File Amicus Brief. They ask Sullivan to refuse to docket and summarily deny a Notice of Intent to File Amicus submitted y'day courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Mar 1, 2020 • 21 tweets • 11 min read
Whoa--court finds Ken Cuccinelli's appointment as acting director of USCIS is unlawful, sets aside his policies under the FVRA and APA

Looking for full opinion

Cc @steve_vladeck Great, @bradkjenkins posted it in a follow up tweet
Feb 28, 2020 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Federal judge in Idaho holds that BLM rule changes opening lands within federally-recognized sage-grouse habitat to oil & gas leases were procedurally invalid under the APA, voids changes and vacates leases washingtonpost.com/climate-enviro… Kudos to the WaPo for including a link to the decision, which is here biologicaldiversity.org/species/birds/…
Jan 27, 2020 • 21 tweets • 9 min read
Avenatti loses his bid to compel noted criminal defense attorney Mark Geragos (also known as Co-Conspirator 1) to testify at his trial assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6672… Geragos would absolutely plead the 5th if he were called, so Avenatti moved that the Court (1) pre-emptively hold that he cannot assert the privilege at trial or (2) compel the feds to give him immunity or dismiss the indictment
Jan 15, 2020 • 24 tweets • 11 min read
Avenatti was arrested last night for allegedly doing fraud while on release before his trial for doing all of the other fraud .@ncweaver posted the government's Motion for an Arrest Warrant and Order Revoking Pretrial Release against Avenatti
Nov 6, 2019 • 20 tweets • 7 min read
Good god—why would you ever lie about a death in the family to someone who has the power to jail you for contempt? This order concerns Richard Liebowitz, a notorious attorney for copyright trolls. He failed to appear on at a discovery conference on a case he filed
Nov 4, 2019 • 26 tweets • 11 min read
It was smart of Judge Marrero to rule on the substance of Trump's immunity claim in the Mazars subpoena case, abstaining under Younger—2nd Cir says Younger doesn't apply, but affirms his alternative holding on the merits The opinion gives a good summary of the background—NY DA started a grand jury to investigate whether NY laws were violated by hush money payments

Served a subpoena on Trump Org, which initially complied but "resisted" producing Trump's personal tax records
Jul 31, 2019 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
In all honesty, wtaf is this—the President is ordering the Secretary of the Navy to rescind awards to servicemembers b/c they were involved in a prosecution of one of his political supporters What is the message here? If you're in the military and take actions the President disagrees w/ for political reasons, you won't advance, awards will be stripped, and you'll get publicly trashed by the Commander in Chief