Richard Polidi v. Michelle K. Lee, et al.

Whether the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a legal or declaratory remedy, consistent with Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, in an instance when the same individuals entrusted to enforce high ethical standards on behalf of a Federal bar commit acts and omissions in contravention to the Constitution and to the ethical standards they enforce and promulgate, where no other meaningful remedy has been available and the respondents have taken the position that none is cognizable wherein the petitioner may obtain the single document he has sought from the outset, where that document is known by the respondents to be necessary for the petitioner to defend himself in the ethics matter brought against him by that Federal bar authority, to be neither privileged nor confidential, and to be in their possession.

Whether a Federal ethics attorney simultaneously (a) is permitted to withhold evidence, known to be exculpatory, notwithstanding the disclosure mandate under Brady v. Maryland based on a rationale that the attorney is not functioning as a prosecutor because the matter is not criminal in nature, even if a liberty right to work in one’s field is placed at risk; and (b) is entitled to not only qualified immunity but absolute immunity, based on a rationale that the attorney is nonetheless functioning in a manner analogous to that of a criminal prosecutor; thereby eliminating a basic procedural safeguard in the ethics prosecution while simultaneously leaving the defendant without a remedy for the very misconduct that safeguard prevents, further enabling the continued withholding of the single necessary document.