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Lin Wood Fails To Boot Judge In His Suit Against The Georgia Bar

He's just trying to prove how extremely not crazy he really is.

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(Photo by Apu Gomes/Getty Images)

The best way to prove that you’re totally competent is to refuse to take a psych evaluation. And if you really want to show ’em that you’re the compos-est mentis on the block, you sue the person asking you to get your head examined.

Just ask Lin Wood, the embattled attorney currently embroiled in litigation against 21 members of the Georgia State Bar’s Disciplinary Board, in both their individual and official capacities.

It’s been a wild year for Wood, who filed multiple suits seeking to overturn the election, opined that Vice President Mike Pence should face execution by firing squad, and floated a bizarre theory that Chief Justice John Roberts was a pedophile about to be brought down by Jeffery Epstein (who is still alive in this fever dream).

After Wood’s increasingly erratic behavior got him sued by his former law partners, the bar sent him a note in February saying, “Pursuant to Bar Rule 4-104, the Board hereby requests that you consent to a confidential evaluation by a medical professional” and threatening further action by the Board if Wood refused.

Spoiler Alert: He did just that. And then he sicced his thousands of followers on the members of the Disciplinary Board.

“I could use the help of an Army of Patriots due to the time limitation,” he said, sharing personally identifying information on Board members and asking for help tracking down links to Democrats or his nemesis, Dominion Voting Systems.

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Wood posted almost 1,700 pages of confidential Bar proceedings outlining his alleged professional misconduct on Telegram, after which he filed the instant suit alleging violations of his constitutional privacy rights, seeking an injunction against the Board, and demanding compensatory damages for all the pain and humiliation he suffered when he himself revealed the sealed investigation to the wider public.

At which point, Lin Wood found himself back in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten, Sr.

Judge Batten already had the pleasure of Mr. Wood’s company in December when the lawyer sued Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over voting procedures for the senate runoffs. In that case, the court dismissed Wood’s claims as “astonishingly speculative.” The judge was similarly unimpressed by Wood’s legal work on the Georgia tentacle of Sidney Powell’s cracked Kraken, which was also dismissed in short order.

In his own motion seeking to disqualify Judge Batten, Wood admits that he was never sanctioned for his conduct in either of the above suits. Nevertheless, because the Bar makes mention of Wood’s behavior in the Kraken case, Wood insists that he must now depose Judge Batten to prove how extremely not crazy he really is.

“Plaintiff L. Lin Wood, Jr. intends to call Judge Batten as a material witness and testify in the State Bar of Georgia disciplinary proceedings and in this case,” he writes in his motion for judicial disqualification, adding later that “Plaintiff is in dire need of issuing Judge Batten a witness subpoena in this matter, but cannot do so, at this time, due to Judge Batten’s delay in recusing himself.”

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Unfortunately, he’ll have to wait a bit longer. Or perhaps a lot longer, since Judge Batten denied the motion, noting that “information learned in court proceedings is not grounds for recusal” and making it entirely clear he has no intention of testifying as a witness in this case.

Further, the Court agrees with Wood’s assertion that it never sanctioned Wood for inappropriate or unprofessional conduct or otherwise took action or filed a complaint that would call Wood’s professional conduct or mental stability into question based on Wood’s 2020 cases in this Court. This obviates the need for the undersigned to testify as a witness.

Finally, nothing in the Court’s handling of Wood’s earlier cases would lead to impartiality, prejudice, or bias that would require recusal. The motion to expedite is denied as moot.

Can’t you just hear the eye roll?

Lin Wood v. Paula Frederick, et al. [Docket via Court Listener]

Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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