Judicial Notice (07.29.23): A Date With Destiny

Hunter Biden's plea deal collapses (with a cameo from Latham), Trump faces a superseding indictment, and other legal news from the week that was.

Hunter Biden, leaving federal court after his unfortunate hearing (photo by Mark Makela via Getty Images).

Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at davidlat@substack.com. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking on the button below. Thanks!

Thanks to everyone for the congratulations and good wishes on the arrival of the newest member of our family, Baby Chase. I’m happy to report that we made it back home to New Jersey from Colorado without incident and that both Chase and our amazing surrogate Holly are doing great.

As you’d expect for the parent of a newborn, I had a quiet—and sleep-challenged—week. I didn’t go out much. I did show up in the pages of the New Yorker, quoted in Sheelah Kolhatkar’s great profile of top trial lawyer Alex Spiro, but Kolhatkar interviewed me months ago (because that’s how long New Yorker profiles take to write and fact-check). Spiro doesn’t speak much to the media, but he did go on the record for the New Yorker—and my Original Jurisdiction podcast. And speaking of the podcast, check out the fun episode I just posted featuring me and Zach, arguing as only a married couple can—over such scintillating subjects as originalism, Chevron deference, and the major-questions doctrine (because that’s our idea of pillow talk).

Now, on to the news.

Lawyer of the Week: Kathleen Hartnett.

Kudos to the publicist who achieved the impressive feat of getting Kathleen Hartnett, co-head of Cooley’s appellate practice, profiled by two prominent legal journalists in the same week—Ross Todd, for the American Lawyer, and Jenna Greene, for Reuters. But this publicist did have good material to work with: Hartnett’s two-decade, pro bono representation of—and friendship with—her client, Nakia Roy.

The representation began in the early 2000s, shortly after Hartnett finished clerking for Justice John Paul Stevens, and culminated earlier this month, when Hartnett won a new trial for Roy based on faulty jury instructions. As a practical matter, this will probably mean no retrial at all, since the government can’t locate certain witnesses—not surprising, 20-plus years later. As Hartnett told Todd, “There is some lesson here for the skeptical-at-times lawyers to just really keep it up and not give up. Fight like your life depended on it.” Congratulations to Hartnett on sticking with her client for decades, through ups and downs—and prevailing in the end.

In memoriam: D.C. lawyer Jonathan Cuneo, noted for representing plaintiffs in major class-action and antitrust litigation, passed away at 70. May he rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Judge Maryellen Noreika.

One of this week’s two biggest legal stories was the collapse of Hunter Biden’s plea agreement (at least for now). You’ll find a million conflicting opinions on what went down on Wednesday. But even though commentators can’t seem to agree on anything, there appears to be bipartisan consensus on one matter: the confident and capable performance of the trial judge, Judge Maryellen Noreika (D. Del.).