Opinion ID: 164183
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: An Important Issue Separate From The Merits Of The Underlying Action

Text: 15 We next consider whether the order (1) resolves an important issue (2) that is completely separate from the merits. Deters, 143 F.3d at 581. Disqualifying the entire USA's office from representing the government raises important separation of powers issues. United States v. Silva-Rosa, 275 F.3d 18, 22 (1st Cir.2001) (finding that disqualification of government attorneys can trigger weighty separation of powers concerns). These concerns are undoubtedly jurisprudentially important. United States v. Whittaker, 268 F.3d 185, 192 (3d Cir.2001) (finding that an order disqualifying a United States Attorney's office from a criminal prosecution is a jurisprudentially important issue). Mr. Bolden admits as much in his brief. 16 In judging separability, we consider whether such disqualification orders are so enmeshed in the factual and legal issues comprising the underlying action, see Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 469, 98 S.Ct. 2454, 57 L.Ed.2d 351 (1978) (internal quotation marks omitted), that interlocutory review will force an appellate court to consider the same or similar issues more than once, Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 311, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995). We conclude that, on the whole, orders disqualifying an entire United States Attorney's office are separate from the underlying issues. 17 In reaching this conclusion, we are strongly influenced by the fact that we can only rarely — if ever — imagine a scenario in which a district court could properly disqualify an entire United States Attorney's office. Indeed, [t]he disqualification of Government counsel is a drastic measure[,] Bullock v. Carver, 910 F.Supp. 551, 559 (D.Utah 1995) (citing cases), and even where it is shown that an Assistant United States Attorney is subject to a conflict of interest, the proper remedy [generally] is to remove that individual, not all of the attorneys in the district, from the case[,] Crocker v. Durkin, 159 F.Supp.2d 1258, 1284-85 (D.Kan.2001). Thus, because disqualifying an entire United States Attorney's office is almost always reversible error regardless of the underlying merits of the case, a reviewing court will rarely have to delve into the underlying claim to conclude that the disqualification was unwarranted. 18 The Supreme Court's rulings in Flanagan and Koller, which held respectively that a civil plaintiff and a criminal defendant may not challenge disqualification orders on interlocutory appeal, are inapposite. Here, the district court disqualified the prosecutor—indeed the entire USA's office. Such an order implicates separation of powers concerns that were not at issue in Flanagan and Koller. See Whittaker, 268 F.3d at 196 n. 6 (noting separation of powers concerns in disqualifying an entire United States Attorney's office, but reversing the disqualification on other grounds). 19 Further, the unique nature of the separation of powers concerns that are relevant to this appeal renders the prejudice-related separability concerns of Flanagan and Koller inapplicable. The Flanagan and Koller Courts held that the parties could not immediately appeal their disqualification orders, in part, because a court could not determine the propriety of the order without considering whether the parties suffered prejudice, which requires consideration of the underlying merits of the case. See Flanagan, 465 U.S. at 268-69, 104 S.Ct. 1051 (finding that the disqualification appeal and the underlying dispute were intertwined); Koller, 472 U.S. at 439, 105 S.Ct. 2757 (finding that an order disqualifying individual attorneys in a civil case was not directly appealable, in part, because such a review would likely require an examination of the merits of the underlying litigation). In contrast, the current appeal — and most appeals from the disqualification of an entire United States Attorney's office — will raise separation of powers injuries that will allow a court to evaluate the order without reaching the issue of prejudice. 20 Despite these considerations, Mr. Bolden urges us to find that, in this case, the issue of the government's representation is inextricably intertwined and entangled in the merits of Mr. Bolden's claims. This argument, however, overlooks that the Court has consistently eschewed a case-by-case approach to deciding whether an order is sufficiently collateral. Cunningham, 527 U.S. at 206, 119 S.Ct. 1915. Every appeal that has considered the disqualification of an entire United States Attorney's office has found the disqualification issue to be entirely separate from the merits of the underlying case. See Whittaker, 268 F.3d at 192 (the [disqualification] order unquestionably resolves a jurisprudentially important issue completely separate from the merits of the dispute concerning whether Whittaker committed mail fraud); United States v. Vlahos, 33 F.3d 758, 761 (7th Cir.1994) (holding that the disqualification order is an issue completely independent of the merits of the action); United States v. Caggiano, 660 F.2d 184 (6th Cir.1981) (finding that the disqualification order was separable from, and collateral to the merits of the main proceeding) (internal quotations omitted). Thus, even if the issues in the underlying dispute in this case were to overlap with the disqualification order, an issue we do not reach today, we find that on the whole such orders would satisfy the separability requirement. 21