In a rare move, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday reprimanded a former assistant Illinois attorney general and fined her $1,000 for failing to file required documents in an appeal.
Appeals Judge Frank Easterbrook branded Lisa Hoffman’s conduct “wretched,” and the court gave Hoffman, who now works as the supervisor of appeals for DuPage County State’s Atty. Joseph Birkett, two weeks to appeal the $1,000 fine.
Hoffman handled the appeal of a June 2002 federal court ruling that threw out the murder conviction of an 11-year-old boy. Hoffman’s reprimand accompanied a Tuesday decision by the appeals court that affirmed U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer’s ruling.
The appeals court took Hoffman to task for violating “one of our most important rules,” which requires that opinions from other courts be filed. Hoffman failed to file an Illinois Appellate Court ruling that upheld the boy’s conviction.
The federal appeals court said the transgression “goes to the heart of this court’s decision-making process” and the rule that gives the judges “at our fingertips, the materials we consider most important.”
On Tuesday, Hoffman said, “I have the utmost respect for the court and its rules. The omission … was unintentional. At oral argument I apologized to the court for the oversight and I remain apologetic.”
The defective filing occurred before Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan took office. Gary Feinerman, solicitor general for Madigan, said, “The attorney general understands the court’s frustration with the failure to follow the rules and will do her utmost to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”