Some insight into the Nottingham Scandal

Some insight into this Denver Post story:

Many in Colorado’s legal community, I suspect, are quietly enjoying Hon.  Edward Nottingham‘s fall from grace.   Most lawyers know him as a petty tyrant (described by one appellate advocate I know as keeping a thesaurus of insults in chambers for order writing).  He berates attorneys and litigants alike.  In addition to being needlessly caustic, he was so pampas that, according to reports, he thought that his own conduct would forever remain beyond accountability  –surely no one would ever question His Majesty’s internet usage?  At least not until it became exposed through his own nasty divorce case. (Makes you wonder about all the other secrets that we will never learn about, by way of such illumination).

I know of a recent Nottingham case in federal court: 

(1) First, the case was speciously decided against the humble pro se plaintiff by a federal magistrate (a former Colorado district judge), Michael J. Wantanabe, who is a speaker for one of the defendants’ lobbying groups (click here).

(2) Then, the article III judge, Edward Nottingham, rubber-stamped Wantanabe’s recommendations to dismiss the case. Nottingham was in such a rush to dismiss that case, that he adopted the magistrate’s bogus recommendations before the time for objecting had run. When plaintiff filed his [timely] objections, Nottingham claimed he couldn’t figure out how and didn’t have time to parse through a digital brief, which was filed pursuant the court’s electronic filing guidelines (click here).  Perhaps, he didn’t have time, because he was too busy downloading porn? (Click here).

(3) Then, Nottingham’s rubber-stamp decision was affirmed by the Tenth Circuit, which never read either the plaintiff-appellant’s briefs of the defendants’ briefs. We know this, because it was the only way the panel could’ve affirmed dismissal for want of jurisdiction with prejudice.  (They corrected this on a Petition for Rehearing but, without admitting that they never bothered to read the briefs). (Click here).