![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/08\/Benchslapped-01-300x241.jpg?resize=300%2C241&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
<\/figure>\nEvery seasoned litigator knows sometimes you have a bad day in court, but this is really, really bad. Because whatever fresh hell is currently unfolding inside the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the District of New Jersey, where the vibes are so rancid that a federal judge literally had a prosecutor shown the door mid-hearing, is off the charts.<\/p>\n
At a sentencing hearing this Monday, Judge Zahid Quraishi had some questions about the utter chaos going on with the leadership of the New Jersey U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Enter Supervisory AUSA Mark Coyne, who was in the courtroom to support another prosecutor but, and this is key, had not filed a notice of appearance. Quraishi made it crystal clear that Coyne could sit there and pass notes like a middle schooler avoiding eye contact during algebra, but speaking was off-limits.<\/p>\n
But since Above the Law is writing about it, you know he spoke anyway.<\/p>\n
You see, Judge Quraishi was asking about the role of Alina Habba. You\u2019ll recall Habba was installed as interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. And when her interim appointment expired, the court declined to bless any effort to make her permanent without that pesky constitutional step known as Senate confirmation. The Trump admin\u2019s response? What if we just\u2026 call her something else? And made her Acting U.S. Attorney. But the vibes-based leadership role was also rejected by courts that determined Habba was illegally holding the position. But instead of, say, appointing someone legally and going through that Senate approval process, the powers that be pivoted to what can only be described as a three-raccoons-in-a-trench-coat approach to governance, installing Philip Lamparello, Jordan Fox, and Ari Fontecchio as a trio that is now collectively running the office. Which\u2026 was also determined to be illegal by Judge Matthew Brann, sitting by appointment from the Middle District of Pennsylvania (though that decision was stayed, pending appeal).<\/p>\n
That loaded history is what motivated Coyne to speak, despite being told not to. And the judge did *not* take kindly to having his instructions ignored. \u201cYou didn\u2019t file a notice of appearance. You don\u2019t get to blindside the court and do whatever it is you guys want to do,\u201d Quraishi said. \u201cSo if you continue to speak, you can leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not taking the rebuke with grace, Coyne continued speaking.<\/p>\n
The judge then called for security and instructed Coyne to leave. To his credit, Coyne eventually took the hint and exited without needing to be physically escorted out.<\/p>\n
The judge didn\u2019t just eject Coyne, but he made clear he has serious concerns about the legitimacy of the people running the office. He has now refused to proceed with sentencing until the leadership trio appears in court and explains themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going to answer my questions about who is running the office and how,\u201d Quraishi said.<\/p>\n
And if that weren\u2019t enough, Quraishi delivered a line that should make every career prosecutor in New Jersey want to crawl under their desks: \u201cGenerations of Assistant U.S. Attorneys had built the goodwill of that office for your generation to destroy it within a year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oof.<\/p>\n
The DOJ\u2019s response to the debacle is a typical Trumpian nonstatement, saying prosecutors remain empowered to \u201caggressively enforce our nation\u2019s laws and keep people safe.\u201d You know, it\u2019d probably be easier for NJ prosecutors to do that if the administration would actually put an appointee up for confirmation\u2026 like the Constitution requires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every seasoned litigator knows sometimes you have a bad day in court, but this is really, really bad. Because whatever fresh hell is currently unfolding inside the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the District of New Jersey, where the vibes are so rancid that a federal judge literally had a prosecutor shown the door mid-hearing, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":146345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Benchslapped-01-620x497-fRPN3T.jpg?fit=620%2C497&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}