An Atlanta lawyer representing a former deputy who was fired after supporting his boss’s political opponent has been sanctioned by a judge for using legal citations that didn’t exist.
E. Earle Burke, who has practiced law since 1990, must attend a six-hour training course on either employment law or legal research and writing, U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee ordered last week.
Boulee imposed the scathing recommendation issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas, who questioned whether Burke used artificial intelligence when writing the federal filing.
Salinas said the attorney presented three quotations that did not exist. Burke also “cited a non-existent case, and misstated the law at least three times,” she said.
For the next year, Burke is required to include a sworn statement with every document he files in Georgia’s Northern District verifying that he “has personally checked all citations and quotations” to ensure accuracy.
The court gave him six months to submit proof of attendance for the six-hour continuing legal education course.
Burke never responded to a January 2025 order in which Salinas demanded an explanation for why his response included the made-up quotations, court records show. He also didn’t respond on his client’s behalf to the magistrate judge’s report and recommendations, a preliminary filing to which parties can then submit objections before the court adopts the ruling as official, court records show.
“This filing contains several misstatements of law, non-existent quotations from cases, and at least one case citation that does not appear to exist,” Salinas said in her order.
Burke was given a week to explain whether he used AI to help prepare his client’s brief, but he never responded. That led to Salinas taking the rare step of recommending sanctions against him for making “misstatement and misrepresentations.”
In an email, Burke told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Tuesday he was unaware the court had issued a show-cause order or issued a ruling in the lawsuit. He is a solo practitioner who owns his own law firm.
In the underlying case, the attorney was representing a former Fulton deputy in a lawsuit against Sheriff Patrick Labat.
Credit: Ben Hendren
Credit: Ben Hendren
William Parker said he was fired from the sheriff’s office after openly campaigning for Labat’s opponent during the sheriff’s 2024 reelection bid. That firing violated his First Amendment rights, he argued in the case. He also alleged age discrimination on the part of the agency.
But retaliating against a sheriff’s deputy for supporting a political rival is not a violation of the First Amendment, the 11th Circuit has held. The court has ruled that “political loyalty is an appropriate requirement for the job” given the “closeness and cooperation required between sheriffs and their deputies.”
And Parker’s legal filings never included any specific allegations pertaining to age discrimination, the court found.
Salinas granted the sheriff’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, saying it contained claims that appeared to be frivolous. But she also took it upon herself to recommend sanctions against the attorney who failed to respond to her order, taking a rare step of initiating the sanctions without a bid from the opposing party.
“The judge’s ruling in this case speaks for itself, and Sheriff Labat is pleased that he has been vindicated,” a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
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