Supreme Court Upholds Sanctions Against Donziger Over $9.5 billion Chevron environmental case

After winning a $9.5 billion verdict against Chevron in an Ecuadorian environmental lawsuit, a disbarred attorney convicted of contempt of court had his appeal denied by the Supreme Court on Monday.

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Due to his disobedience to the judge's order to turn over all of his electronic devices, the lawyer, Steven Donziger, received a six-month prison sentence.

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Using the justification that a federal district court judge exceeded his legal authority by designating three attorneys as special prosecutors to handle his contempt prosecution after the U.S. A Manhattan attorney declined to bring charges against him.

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Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, two conservative justices, dissented from the judgment and demanded that the Supreme Court accept Donziger's appeal.

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In his frank written dissent, Gorsuch opined that the judge's appointment of special prosecutors was a violation of the Constitution's separation of powers, which grants the administrative branch the authority to file criminal charges and the judicial branch the authority to interpret the law.

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In this nation, judges do not have the same authority as prosecutors to bring charges against persons who appear before them, according to Gorsuch.

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"What happened here is not acceptable," he continued.

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The other justices who voted to deny Donziger a hearing on his appeal did not, as is typical, provide a written justification for their choice.

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"I was glad to see that at least two justices of the United States Supreme Court believed the Dozinger prosecution was a constitutional disgrace and should not be repeated," said Ron Kuby, a lawyer for Dozinger, to Trade Algo.

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Requests for a response from a Chevron spokesperson were not immediately returned.

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The dispute is the result of a lawsuit accusing Texaco, a company that predated Chevron, of the decades-long river and rainforest pollution in the South American Amazon region.

In 1993, a group of Ecuadorians represented by Donziger launched a class action lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan against Chevron.

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Gorsuch stated in his five-page dissent that "the court relocated the action to Ecuador at the company's urging."

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Subsequently, Chevron regretted that decision, according to Gorsuch.

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A judge in Ecuador awarded the lawsuit's plaintiffs $9.5 billion from Chevron.

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Chevron then brought a lawsuit before a federal court in Manhattan and was successful in getting an injunction preventing the judgment's enforcement in any American court.

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Additionally, the business was granted a "constructive trust" over all the assets Donziger had acquired as a result of the Ecuadorian ruling.

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In a roughly 500-page decision from 2014, federal judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan stated that Donziger and Ecuadorian attorneys "corrupted" the action there.

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In addition to submitting false evidence, the attorneys, according to Kaplan, forced a judge to utilize an expert witness whose report was ghostwritten by a Colorado consulting business that Donziger paid, and then offered the Ecuadorian judge $500,000 "to find in their favor and sign their verdict."

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Donziger was required to turn over all of his electronic devices so that they might be photographed in order to carry out the hold that Kaplan had put on the assets received by Donziger in connection with the Ecuador verdict.

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Donziger was placed in criminal contempt of court by Kaplan when he didn't completely abide by that order, and the U.S. was given jurisdiction over the matter. Attorney's Office, which typically brings such cases to court.

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The Manhattan U.S. Attorney, however, turned down the case.

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Three attorneys were subsequently named by Kaplan as special prosecutors. Donziger was later tried, found guilty, and given a jail term.

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Donziger had opposed Kaplan's conduct, claiming that a judge had no right to interfere with a federal prosecutor's decision to not pursue a case.

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Even so, the United States. His conviction was upheld by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

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Justice Gorsuch pointed out in his dissent on Monday that the Supreme Court had "authorized the use of court-appointed prosecutors as a "last resort" in certain criminal contempt cases" in the late 1980s.

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Yet, a lot of people have criticized that choice, Gorsuch continued. The Constitution grants courts the authority to "act as a neutral arbiter in a criminal matter," not "the ability to punish crimes," as stated by members of this court.

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"Nevertheless much the district court may have believed Mr. Donziger deserved punishment, the prosecution, in this case, violated a fundamental constitutional promise crucial to human liberty," according to Gorsuch's opinion in the Chevron case.