Rick Martin speaking before Judge Rosemarie E. Aquilina.
A Michigan judge on Friday ordered the arrest of a man who planned to provide legal representation to a defendant charged with flouting pandemic restrictions because the man wasn’t licensed to practice law in Michigan or any other state.
Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie E. Aquilina, who presided over the high-profile sentencing of disgraced former U.S.A Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar in 2018, laid into Rick Martin while holding him in contempt of court for unauthorized law practice.
Martin had previously filed documents with the court indicating that he would be appearing as “assistance of counsel” for Marlena Pavlos-Hackney despite having no formal legal education whatsoever.
The phrase is an apparent reference to the Sixth Amendment. Martin’s group says that’s the real term lawyers should go by.
“Note: the Constitution refers to lawyers as ‘Assistance of Counsel’ in Amendment 6,” his website reads.
Pavlos-Hackney, the owner of Marlena’s Bistro and Pizzeria in Holland, Mich., was arrested after repeatedly ignoring several cease and desist orders and refusing to comply with state’s dine-in ban. According to a report from local news outlet MLive.com, Pavlos-Hackney was taken into custody early on Friday morning after she did not turn herself over to authorities on a bench warrant issued earlier in March.
But before Aquilina was able to delve into the restaurant owner’s case,…
