🚀 Read this insightful post from PBS NewsHour – Politics 📖
📂 Category: Austin Knudsen,montana
💡 Here’s what you’ll learn:
Billings, Mont. (AP) – The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a misconduct case against the state’s attorney general after he defied court orders in a dispute over a law that gives the governor more power over the judiciary.
A court-appointed panel found last year that Attorney General Austin Knudsen repeatedly attacked the integrity of judges in his defense of a 2021 law that allows the state’s Republican governor to directly fill vacant judicial positions. The committee had recommended suspending his license to practice law for a period of 90 days.
The justices ruled Wednesday that Knudsen violated the Code of Conduct for Attorneys, but said the panel violated his due process rights by excluding his expert witness from the case.
Knudsen had urged the Supreme Court to drop the case against him. He said in a statement on Wednesday that the compliant had been a distraction during his time in office.
“I appreciate the Supreme Court reaching a long-overdue conclusion to this frivolous complaint,” Knudsen said. “We have said that from the beginning, this was nothing more than a political ploy.”
Chief Justice Corey Swanson wrote that Wednesday’s order was a “public warning” about Knudsen’s misconduct. Swanson also said the widespread litigation in this case was “much worse” than the special caveat previously considered in his case.
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