Government

John Pierce Is Back, Baby, And, Uhhh, Colorful As Ever

And how dare you cast aspersions on his law clerk!

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John Pierce

After almost two weeks AWOL, attorney John Pierce reemerged yesterday at a hearing for one of the many Capitol Riot defendants he’s signed up to represent, despite never having tried a criminal case. He appeared before US District Judge Amit Mehta in a hearing for his client Stephanie Baez, who was recorded at the Capitol saying “I love the Proud Boys. I wanna find me a Proud Boy” and later boasting that she’d been inside the building.

In the brief hearing, Baez affirmed her continued wish to be represented by the fiery MAGA lawyer, despite his protracted absence and apparent lack of support staff to take over during his unavailability.

Pierce’s friends and associates offered multiple explanations for his failure to appear in court on behalf of the 18 January 6 clients (or possibly 15, or 16, it’s a moving target and Pierce himself seems to have lost count). He had COVID and was in the hospital on a ventilator. He had COVID but was not on a ventilator, and don’t you dare say he is! He was in a car accident, or possibly he was just dehydrated.

This week Pierce told NPR reporter Tom Dreisbach that “I will not be elaborating further on my personal medical issues,” adding later, “I have not taken any vaccination for COVID-19, nor do I plan to do so.”

Wherever he was, he wasn’t in court, and the Justice Department noticed, filing a Notice Regarding Defense Counsel John Pierce, Esq. which described Pierce’s January 6 clients as “effectively without an attorney, as Mr. Pierce currently cannot be contacted and Mr. Marshall cannot provide legal advice or services.”

Mr. Marshall is Pierce’s associate Ryan Marshall, a recent law school graduate currently under indictment in Pennsylvania for his alleged role in a guardianship fraud scheme. Prosecutors say that Marshall used his position as a clerk to get a judge to sign off on a defective guardianship document, and when investigators seized his phone, they found illegal recordings of court procedures on it, for which they added some more charges.

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As the government noted, “It is unclear if and when Mr. Marshall will be able to obtain a bar license, given that Mr. Marshall currently faces felony criminal charges in two cases in the Court of Common Pleas of Fayette County, Pennsylvania.”

Pierce is apparently furious that the government would besmirch the honor of his colleague by pointing out these true, accurate facts. In a response docketed yesterday after his appearance for Baez, Pierce wrote that he was “pleased to report that on Sunday, September 5, 2021, I was released from an LA-area hospital following a 12-day stay. I was not “missing” or anything of the sort” but would be unable to appear before the court until next week. He went on to appear in another hearing this morning before Judge Mehta.

Pierce failed to explain why he was unable to use his phone during his most recent hospital visit. And indeed, the Daily Beast reports that no patient by that name was admitted to Cedars-Sinai or the UCLA Medical Center during the period in question.

Pierce then went on to “especially thank Ryan Marshall, a young associate at my firm whose admission is pending.”

“As I learn for the first time about the confusion and intense media coverage that accompanied my hospitalization, Ryan clearly did an incredible job under immensely difficult circumstances with the limited information he had at the time,” Pierce wrote, in an apparent nod to the multiple, conflicting accounts Marshall gave to the court regarding his boss’s whereabouts.

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Pierce went on to castigate the government for its obstinate refusal to allow a non-barred attorney to practice law in federal court.

I do feel it is important to take issue with the way the DOJ characterized Mr. Marshall’s appearances in court. To the best of my knowledge, all of the judges that Ryan appeared before were made aware he is awaiting admission to the bar but nevertheless approved him to speak on my behalf for the purpose of explaining to the court my absence. I believe Mr. Marshall acted appropriately in explaining to the courts my absence and in ensuring that Pierce Bainbridge’s clients’ interests were fully protected at all times.

Moreover, in each instance where Mr. Marshall spoke in my absence, to the best of my knowledge, the DOJ was apprised of Mr. Marshall’s admission status and that he was working under my supervision.

Which is an interesting way to describe someone who is likely un-barrable and participating in both hearings and a reverse proffer negotiation on behalf of multiple federal criminal defendants. And can an attorney really claim to be supervising an associate when that attorney is somewhere that he can’t be reached by phone or email?

Ah, well. No harm, no foul, right?

John Pierce Represents More Capitol Riot Defendants Than Anyone. Should He? [NPR]

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

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