Geoff Speaks at Ninth Circuit’s Mid-Winter Workshop

On January 30, 2017, the Ninth Circuit’s Mid-Winter Workshop was held in Tucson, with eighty federal judges in attendance. Geoff participated in an ethics panel presentation, entitled “A Case Study from the Watergate Prosecutions – Lessons on the Perils of Ex Parte Communications.”

Geoff described some eight separate instances where Judge John Sirica had met privately with Watergate prosecutors to work out issues in advance of the trials – and the two other panelists, Circuit Judge Margaret McKeown and District Judge Anthony Guilford, discussed the propriety of such meetings and the ethical issues raised thereby.