In person, Jonathan Mitchell is polite and even soft-spoken. But he's also relentless — even when he knows he's about to exasperate a federal judge.
"Are you a Texan?" U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Lane asked from the bench, on a recent morning in late April, after Mitchell's clients had failed to show up for a scheduled deposition. "What part of courteous lawyering is this?"
Mitchell was inside a federal courtroom in Austin for a discovery hearing in a book-banning case from tiny Llano, Texas. He is defending local officials who've been sued over the removal of public library books after conservative activists deemed them offensive. Local library patrons are challenging the removal on First Amendment grounds.
Judge Lane asked why Mitchell's clients hadn't shown up. Mitchell, who grew up in Pennsylvania and whose law firm is based in Austin, said he believed the other side hadn't followed all the rules, and he was simply acting in his clients' best interest by advising them not to appear.
Lane told Mitchell the whole thing had been a waste of the court's time, before adjourning the hearing.
"I can understand his frustration," Mitchell said in an interview later that day. "But I also hope he understands where I'm coming from."
Katherine Chiarello, a lawyer representing the library patrons in Llano in their lawsuit challenging the books' removal, described the judge's interaction with Mitchell as "unprecedented."
"I have never been yelled at by a judge like that," Chiarello...
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