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BigLaw attorneys who are ‘frequent practitioners’ in federal district can’t be admitted pro hac vice, judge says

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 04:13:28 +0000

Civil Procedure

BigLaw attorneys who are ‘frequent practitioners’ in federal district can’t be admitted pro hac vice, judge says

March 5, 2025, 3:45 pm CST

U.S. District Judge Mark T. Pittman of the Northern District of Texas. (Photo by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, PD US Courts, via Wikimedia Commons)

Two Baker & Hostetler lawyers won’t be able to represent a compounding pharmacy in a lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, at least for now, after a federal judge in the Northern District of Texas denied their application to appear pro hac vice.

Partner Andrew M. Grossman and associate Marc N. Wagner cannot be admitted pro hac vice because they are “frequent practitioners” in cases filed in the Northern District of Texas, said U.S. District Judge Mark T. Pittman of the Northern District of Texas in a March 3 order.

Law360 covered the decision, noting that pro hac vice motions “are common and usually regarded as an afterthought. They are rarely denied.”

A pro hac vice admission means that a lawyer has been admitted to practice in a jurisdiction in only one particular case, Pittman said. In the past year, however, Grossman submitted three such applications, while Wagner submitted four of them in the Northern District of Texas, including the applications in the case before Pittman.

The lawyers, Pittman said, are encouraged “to file applications to be admitted to practice in this court, and [this court] would happily welcome them as members of the bar.”

Grossman is licensed in Washington, D.C., and admitted to practice before nearly every federal appeals court. Wagner is licensed to practice in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.

Wagner and Grossman did not immediately respond to an ABA Journal email seeking comment. They are among six Baker & Hostetler lawyers who signed the Feb. 24 suit and among four who planned to seek pro hac vice admission in the case.

The suit challenges an FDA decision to remove the weight loss drug semaglutide from a shortage list, which meant that compounding pharmacies were no longer allowed to help satisfy demand. The plaintiffs in the suit are a compounding pharmacy and a trade association that represents compounding facilities.

Pittman appears to be a stickler for the rules. He previously dismissed a suit because of a missed deadline to file a certificate of interested persons and sanctioned two lawyers in a different suit for submitting declarations instead of notarized affidavits as he had directed.

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Man admitted to killing wife he claimed was missing: Police

homesafetytechpros — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 16:13:45 +0000

Background: Stephen Miller Sr. appeared on the news after claiming his wife went missing (WDHN). Inset (left): Stephen Miller Sr. (Dothan Police Department). Inset (right): Gloria Miller (Dothan Police Department).

An Alabama man pleaded with the public and appeared on the local news seeking help after his wife of 30 years went missing. Police now say he admitted to killing her.

Stephen Miller Sr., 64, first reported his wife Gloria Miller, 57, was missing on Feb. 24, according to a press release from Dothan Police. In the following days, the seemingly concerned husband appeared on local news, pleading for help and taking gut-wrenching phone calls in front of TV cameras. But behind the scenes, police said his story started falling apart. In a press conference on Feb. 26, the Dothan Police Department announced that Stephen Miller had been charged with murder after allegedly admitting to strangling his wife.

Stephen Miller initially told police that he had not seen his wife since Feb. 22, when he said that she “suddenly disappeared” from the couple’s home. Gloria Miller was reported as a missing person on Feb. 24, and her husband took to the airwaves to ask for the public’s help in finding his wife. He was joined by her family, who were seemingly baffled by her disappearance. Her brother, Sidney Whitaker, told WDHN, a local ABC affiliate, “This is not normal at all. She hangs around the house, she doesn’t venture away from the home, she pretty hangs around the house all the time.”

As the investigation into Gloria Miller’s disappearance began, investigators reportedly suspected foul play early on. Authorities stated that before Stephen Miller officially made the report, investigators found some of his wife’s personal property in the parking lot of a shopping center in their hometown. According to the police, “The investigation revealed Stephen was the person who placed the property at that location just hours before it was found and turned into one of the local businesses.”

When police questioned Stephen Miller about his wife’s whereabouts, he “admitted that on [Feb. 22] he and Gloria had a physical altercation during which time he admitted to manually strangling her until she was lifeless,” authorities said. According to Dothan police Lt. Ronald Hall, Stephen Miller then allegedly “loaded her body in the bed of his pickup truck, he took her down the road a few miles where he concealed her on the edge of the roadway.”

Hall said that Stephen Miller’s admission came about when “his facts were not adding up, and he basically knew that he had no choice.”

After Stephen Miller’s alleged confession, the body of Gloria Miller was found on Feb. 26, dumped in a dry creek bed in Alabama’s Geneva County.

Court records obtained by Al.com revealed a history of domestic violence complaints by the couple, including a Protection From Abuse (PFA) request by Stephen Miller in July 2024 that his wife had made threats against him and his family. He filed a second (PFA) request against her in January. Both requests were ultimately rescinded.

Stephen Miller was arrested and charged with murder. He is being held in the Houston County Jail on no bond.

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Florida man who admitted he stabbed woman ‘a lot’ sentenced

homesafetytechpros — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 21:39:05 +0000

Background: The America’s Best Value Inn in Bradenton, Fla. (WFLA). Inset: Steven Joseph Cozens (Manatee County Sheriff’s Office).

A Florida man who confessed to police that he stabbed his girlfriend “a lot” pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 60 years in prison.

Steven Joseph Cozens, 27, was arrested on Aug. 28, 2022, and charged with second-degree murder after the body of his 26-year-old girlfriend (who was only identified as “Jennifer” under Florida’s Marsy’s Law) was found wrapped in a sheet under the bed in a room at an America’s Best Value Inn located in Bradenton. Her body was found by the housekeeping staff, who called police. Cozens was read his Miranda rights after being found by police near the scene. According to reporting by WFLA, a local NBC affiliate, he confessed to police to killing his girlfriend, saying that he stabbed her “a lot.”

The physical confrontation between Cozens and his girlfriend, who were both living at the hotel at the time of her murder, occurred after the two had a verbal argument. Cozens then reportedly told police that he then stabbed her several times. He fled the hotel after trying to conceal her body but didn’t get that far.

Cozens was held in custody without bail, and he was indicted on Jan. 17, 2023, of first-degree murder. He was scheduled to stand trial on Dec. 16 but instead pleaded guilty on Dec. 19 to second-degree murder with a weapon. A judge sentenced him to 60 years in state prison with credit for time served. He has 30 days to appeal.

Assistant State Attorney Suzanne O’Donnell said in a statement provided to the press that “[d]ue to the excellent work of the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office Homicide Unit, the defendant was apprehended within hours of this murder and made a full confession. This sentence will not bring Jennifer back but hopefully it will provide some comfort to her family.”

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Florida who admitted to killing wife learns his fate

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 08:02:30 +0000

Timothy Upthegrove and Lori Upthegrove (Titusville Police Dept.) and the home where he killed her in 2017 (WESH screenshot)

A 59-year-old man in Florida will spend the remainder of his life behind bars for killing his wife, beating and stabbing the 51-year-old woman to death inside their home, hiding her body in the woods, and destroying evidence of his crime before later telling authorities that his wife was “in heaven.”

Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Court Judge Steven Henderson on Thursday ordered Timothy A. Upthegrove to serve a sentence of life in a state correctional facility for the 2017 slaying of Lori Upthegrove, authorities announced.

Before being sentenced, a Brevard County jury deliberated for about nine hours before finding Timothy Upthegrove guilty on one count each of first-degree premeditated murder, tampering with evidence, and failure to report a death.

According to court documents reviewed by Law&Crime, Lori Upthegrove’s family and friends, on Dec. 19, 2017, reported her missing to the Titusville Police Department. The following day, authorities found her car at a Days Inn motel in the 3700 block of Cheney Highway. The car had what appeared to be blood spatter on the front, back, doors, and at least one tire. Police also recovered “a significant amount of blood evidence” inside of the vehicle.

Timothy Upthegrove was found to be staying at the motel. When officers made contact with Timothy Upthegrove, they said his hands, arms, and knees were “covered” with lacerations and abrasions. Later, they recovered women’s clothing covered in blood and bloody towels inside a dumpster on the motel’s property.

During a search of the home the two shared in the 600 block of Cleveland Street, police said they found evidence that a violent crime had taken place in the garage, which included “significant amounts of pooling and blood spatter along with evidence that someone made an attempt to clean up the blood evidence.”

“Several items were located in the garage to include an axe stained with blood evidence, a hammer stained with blood evidence, and a hair clip found on the ground in the area of where most of the blood was concentrated,” police wrote in an affidavit.

Timothy Upthegrove was brought to the police station for an interview, where he admitted that he had been inside the garage and knew that there was blood inside and confessed to throwing the bloody towels and clothing in the motel dumpster.

“Timothy (Upthegrove) stated during an interview that Lori (Upthegrove) was in heaven and that things ‘got out of control’ between them while at the residence,” police wrote in the affidavit. “This argument would have occurred near the garage.”

As investigators continued to press Timothy Upthegrove about what happened to his life, he admitted that he had killed her during the argument that took place after he came home from a night of using illegal narcotics, prosecutors said. After the murder, he put her body in his car and drove out to a wooded lot on Bobbi Lane that was owned by a relative, where he hid her body in some tall grass. He eventually directed police as to where they could recover Lori Upthegrove’s body.

In court records, investigators noted that the Upthegroves had a history of domestic violence. In one particular instance in August 2017, Timothy Upthegrove told his wife she was “going to make (him) snap!” and then bit her face, leaving a “clear bite mark with teeth impressions” that police who responded to the scene observed. That case was still pending when he was charged with murder.

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