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Judge Lynn Norton's Judicial Misconduct

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Judge Lynn Norton Has Multiple Counts of Judicial Misconduct Complaints Against Her in the St. Luke's Case Against Ammon Bundy and Diego Rodriguez

May 19th, 2023

The Ada County court system is famous for being corrupt and for being a place "where justice goes to die." That has certainly proven to be true in this lawsuit where corrupt judge and serial violator of the Constitution, Lynn Norton, presides over the case. We have already detailed her corruption here, exposed her lawlessness here, and shown her wickedness here.

It has now come to the place where the corrupt and wicked judge Lynn Norton will have judicial misconduct complaints filed against her with the Idaho Judicial Council. The two very specific complaints that will be filed against her are below.

Obviously, judicial misconduct complaints must be about real violations of law, ethics, or judicial standards and not just "sour grapes" on behalf of somebody who did not like the results of their case. Unfortunately, in Judge Lynn Norton's case, she has very evidently demonstrated herself to be completely unethical, biased, and willing to break laws and rules in order to execute harsh judgment against Ammon Bundy and Diego Rodriguez:

1. Judge Lynn Norton refused to obey Idaho Civil Rules and Procedure Rule #55 and put Ammon Bundy in jeopardy of his life, liberty, and property by breaking this law/rule.

Ammon Bundy made an intentional decision to ignore the lawsuit and accept the default judgment which would be awarded against him when the lawsuit was initially issued.

This might be difficult for some to understand, but it really comes down to one simple factor—COST. If you've never been involved in a lawsuit, you have no idea how expensive they can be. Not just "expensive" but totally cost-prohibitive for the average citizen. This is how and why lawsuits are now used as a weapon to either silence or to attack political opponents.

In this case, law firms were quoting between $200,000 - $500,000 to defend Ammon Bundy and Diego Rodriguez. And that's just the financial cost, which doesn't include the emotional cost and the personal bandwidth needed to give to the lawsuit. At the time, Ammon Bundy had 100% of his attention focused on his gubernatorial campaign, so he had two options:

1. Spend $200k - $500k to prove your innocence and essentially end your gubernatorial campaign so you can focus your energy on a lawsuit.

2. Ignore the lawsuit and pay $50k.

Those are and were the two options Ammon was presented with. When you understand how lawsuits actually work, all of the sudden Ammon's decision makes a ton of sense. Also, it's important to remember that after you win a case like this, YOU NEVER GET YOUR MONEY BACK. If you spend $200k defending yourself in a fraudulent lawsuit, you don't get that money back. For some reason, people are under the false impression that you get your money back, but you don't! That money stays in the bank account of the attorneys who defended your case.

Ammon made this decision because the initial lawsuit only asked for $50k (which is still a ridiculously high amount of money), and because he knew that Idaho Rules of Civil Procedure #55 requires a judge to automatically issue a default judgment when the accused/defendant in a case refuses to respond or participate. Here's the rule:
Stacks Image 551
Corrupt Judge Lynn Norton has ignored this rule completely putting Ammon in jeopardy of losing his life, liberty, and property. And there can be no mistaking what this rule says—the court must order entry of the party's default. There are no other caveats or requirements. It doesn't say that the Plaintiff has to make special requests, that the defendant has to file certain paperwork, or that any other action must take place. It plainly states that if the defendant has "failed to plead or otherwise defend" that "the court must order entry of the party's default."

This is the rule binding Judge Lynn Norton. She has to obey it. To disobey this rule is judicial misconduct. Yet, she chose to ignore this rule and allow the Plaintiffs to modify their complaint 4 times, and she then issued multiple orders against Ammon including a fraudulent order of "Contempt of Court." These orders have caused great harm to come against Ammon and have even created the environment in which Ammon could face severe physical harm, up to and including his own murder by overzealous police officers.

2. Judge Lynn Norton knowingly and intentionally issued an unlawful order against Diego Rodriguez, and then used that unlawful order as her basis for issuing financial sanctions against him which would force him to pay over $5,400 in attorney's fees to Holland and Hart law firm.

In order for a judge to have jurisdiction over someone in a court case, the person who is being sued must first be properly "served." To be "served" means that you have been given the paperwork that lets you know you are being sued and that you must now legally respond to the lawsuit. Until you have been served, the case cannot begin, and the judge has no legal jurisdiction over you.

In order to put things in proper perspective, you must understand the important dates associated with this case. The case was first filed on May 11th, 2022. Since Diego Rodriguez lives in Florida, they were not able to easily serve him. However, Idaho statute provides for legal service to be made by simply publishing notice in a newspaper for 4 consecutive weeks. Holland and Hart did publish notice in an Orlando newspaper and the final publication was on August 17th, 2022. Diego then had 21 days to respond which meant that he had until September 7th, 2022. This means that, legally speaking, Diego was not under jurisdiction of the Idaho court until September 7th, 2022, because he had not been legally "served" until that date.

Nevertheless, Judge Lynn Norton issued an order against Diego on July 12th, 2022, demanding that he respond before August 5th, 2022. In order to make it easier to understand, take a look at the following chart:
May 12th, 2022
Lawsuit Filed
July 12th, 2022
Unlawful order issued by Judge Lynn Norton against Diego Rodriguez (because he had not yet been "legally served").
August 5th, 2022
Date that Judge Norton demanded that Diego Rodriguez respond to the July 12th order which he never received.
September 7th, 2022
Date that Diego Rodriguez was actually "legally served."

The most important thing to note and understand is that Judge Lynn Norton had no jurisdiction over Diego Rodriguez or Ammon Bundy until they had been legally served. This didn't happen for Diego Rodriguez until September 7th, 2022. Any orders issued by Judge Lynn Norton against Diego before September 7th, 2022 are therefore completely unlawful.

In short, a judge may not issue orders against parties in a lawsuit when they have not yet been legally served. That is illegal, unethical, and immoral. Yet Judge Lynn Norton did it anyway. And the most amazing part is that she acknowledges the fact that this order was never sent to Diego Rodriguez in the first place, as you can see in the certificate of service page from the order itself:
Stacks Image 539
Judge Lynn Norton plainly acknowledges that NO SERVICE was made to either Ammon Bundy or Diego Rodriguez because apparently there was no address on file at the court for either of them. Well, that means that this order was fraudulent and grounds for judicial misconduct.

However, to add insult to injury, Judge Lynn Norton used this fraudulent order as her basis to issue an additional fraudulent order a few months later which would then require that Diego Rodriguez pay over $5,400 to Holland and Hart for "legal fees." You can see below from the actual response from corrupt Judge Lynn Norton that she is demanding that Diego pay these fees to Holland and Hart simply because Diego did not respond to the previous order issued on July 12th, which we've already demonstrated was a fraudulent and UNLAWFUL ORDER:
Stacks Image 545
As you can see here, everything that corrupt Judge Lynn Norton references in her rulings were before September 7th, 2022. Therefore none of it is lawful. She has admitted that the first order was never served to Diego Rodriguez or Ammon Bundy. It is acknowledged that the order was issued without jurisdiction since Diego had not been legally served yet, and yet it was still used as the premise to issue an additional order to force Diego to pay over $5,400 in legal fees to Holland and Hart law firm.

We will leave it to you to determine WHY this corrupt Judge, Lynn Norton, of Ada County Idaho has done such unlawful, evil, and wicked things. But it certainly begs the questions:

  • How many other innocent people has she done this too?
  • How can anyone have any hope for justice in a courtroom like this?
  • What does this kind of corrupt behavior do to the reputation of the Ada County court system and the judicial system overall?
  • How long has corrupt Judge Lynn Norton been getting away with this?
  • Will there be any consequences for corrupt Judge Lynn Norton?

More Articles Exposing Judge Lynn Norton's Corruption:

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