By a long tradition (and I’ve actually been doing this long enough for it to qualify as a “tradition”), the first December column is the first of two annual “looks backward” at the past year’s legal highlights — or, as is usually the case, low-lights. So, without further ado:
• Back in 1975, the renowned CBS newsman Charles Kuralt did one of his “human interest” stories about an Iowa farmer who built a 58-foot yacht . . . in his Dubuque barnyard, far from any ocean. He then had to figure out how to drag or truck the sizable boat to the nearest body of water for launching.
Well, in that spirit, last January, a member of the Iowa Legislature introduced a bill to protect Iowans from shark bites — even though, like ocean-going yachts, there are no sharks in Iowa.
Actually, that’s not entirely true: his bill was prompted when someone was bitten by an 18-inch (yes, that’s “inch” — not “foot”) bamboo shark at an Iowa zoo. The bill would have added sharks to the list of “dangerous and wild animals” that it is illegal to pet, harass, etc.
According to the Des Moines Register (which had way too much fin -er, fun — with this story), the bill “sunk,” but even though it “went belly-up,” it might “resurface” in the future.
• I have wanted to (and probably will again) take an entire column to discuss this next topic, but 2025 was the year that lawyers (at least) learned the limitations of relying on Artificial Intelligence, i.e., aka, A.I. — which according to American’s illustrious Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, is pronounced like the longtime steak sauce, A1. (And that story, in turn, brought back memories of the days when, for some reason, typewriter keyboards didn’t have a numeral “1,” so people had to use the lower-case “L,” i.e., “l,” in its place . . . .)
I’m sorry, where was I? Oh yes, steak sauce.
Or rather, A1. Or AI. (Which still look too much alike.)
Anyway, there was an explosion of court cases this past year in which judges threatened to fine, or did fine, attorneys who submitted legal arguments that included either nonexistent court cases or statutes, or court cases or statutes that flatly didn’t support the propositions for which they were cited. In some cases, the judges also threatened to report the attorney(s) involved to their State Bar Associations, putting their law licenses at risk.
In one Colorado case that got a lot of publicity because it involve Mike Lindell (aka, the “My Pillow Guy”), the judge stated in his initial ruling that, during a hearing, one of Lindell’s attorneys was asked whether he “would be surprised to find out that the citation [to a specific court case] did not exist as an actual case.” The attorney apparently hemmed and hawed and couldn’t really explain where the case came from, except to suggest he had unintentionally filed a “draft.”
Oh yes. As any lawyer knows, you always insert entirely fake court cases or statutes in a draft written legal argument — as, you know, a “placeholder.”
Well, one of Lindell’s two attorneys eventually ’fessed up that 1) he used AI to prepare the brief and 2) didn’t actually check to make sure that the cases were accurate . . . or existed at all. The judge fined Lindell’s attorneys $3,000 apiece. But the rules that you never, ever mislead a judge have been in place for a long time, so with more and more people and lawyers relying on AI as a handy shortcut, well, this isn’t the last time this topic will come up.
• Finally, speaking of fake things (and this story likely got the most extensive coverage of any legal matter all year) the Justice Department tried to indict a fellow on a felony charge of assaulting a federal office after he threw a sandwich at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.
Now, it has been a common saying for decades that federal grand juries are such rubber stamps that will give the prosecution anything it asks for, that a federal grand jury will “indict a ham sandwich.” Except that, in what became something of a pattern this year, the grand jury actually refused to indict the fellow who became known as “the sandwich guy.”
And proving that, despite that long-lived meme, a federal grand jury would not, in fact, indict a (thrown) ham sandwich! Justice prevailed!
So the Justice Department had to bypass the grand jury and instead file misdemeanor charges itself instead. And then the trial jury acquitted him, too!
Expect sandwich-related crimes, at least against ICE personnel, to increase.
Frank Zotter, Jr. is a Ukiah attorney.
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