A lawyer dubbed the 'Christmas lawyer' has revealed he is being disbarred after criticizing the judge who banned one of the world's most spectacular festive displays at his Idaho home.
Jeremy Morris attracted thousands of visitors to his home outside Hayden with a monumental exhibition featuring a living nativity scene, a camel and 700,000 light bulbs.
But he also drew the ire of his neighbors and the attention of Apple TV+, where the fight was featured in the 2021 documentary “Twas the Fight Before Christmas.”
The attorney blasted federal Judge B. Lynn Winmill as “corrupt” and a “hateful anti-Christian fanatic” after he overturned a unanimous jury verdict and ordered the lights turned off.
Now Morris says he has been driven out of the state and is being disbarred by the Idaho State Bar for “standing up for Christmas.”
Jeremy Morris' home outside Hayden was decorated with hundreds of thousands of lights to anger his neighbors, who threatened him with a lawsuit
He infuriated neighbors who accused him of ignoring HOA rules that require lighting to be “restrained.” The fight received international attention and was the subject of the Apple+ TV show 'Twas The Fight Before Christmas
Thousands of visitors from places as far away as Canada made the pilgrimage to the house every year
“This particular judge tried to cancel Christmas,” Morris said Fox news.
“It's no different than what King Herod did 2,000 years ago when he tried to stop the very first Christmas.”
The lawyer drew hundreds of visitors to his first Christmas exhibit in 2014, shortly before moving into the Kootenai County home.
Eager to repeat his success, he wrote a letter to his new area homeowners association (HOA) informing them of his plans for next Christmas.
“I contacted the HOA and just said, 'Hey, look, we're going to do this thing. Maybe you have some ideas.
“I'm thinking about maybe doing shuttles because there are no sidewalks. What do you think? In a very cordial way.'
But his new neighbors were unimpressed and wrote back a warning about offending 'non-Christians' and the likelihood of attracting 'possible undesirables'.
The HOA also pointed to covenants that require lighting in the neighborhoods to be “limited” and “excessive brightness” to be avoided.
“I realized that if I didn't fight back, and I'm a lawyer, who would?” Morris said.
“I found myself in this position to actually take a stand before Christmas. And so I became the lawyer who actually fought for Christmas and saved it.”
The lawyer said he realized he was 'in this position to actually take a stand before Christmas'
A large Christmas sleigh completes the look of the Kootenai County home
Morris quickly made enemies among his community who accused him of obsessively documenting their own violations of HOA rules
Morris rejected the objections and found his home the center of international press attention when he defied a legal letter threatening a lawsuit if he did not remove the lights within ten days.
Thousands of people from as far away as Canada and news crews from all over the world turned out over the course of five evenings to see the exhibition, which raised money for children's charities.
But the conflict escalated the following year when Morris accused neighbors of harassing visitors and even trying to stage an accident as shuttle buses passed by.
He claims that neighbors were determined to stop his display by any means necessary and that someone even threatened to 'take care of him'.
He fought back by suing the HOA in January 2017 for religious discrimination in violation of the Fair Housing Act.
Morris described it as a “Miracle on 34th Street in the modern era,” when the jury unanimously found in his favor and ordered the HOA to pay $75,000.
But neighbors portrayed Morris as an extremist bully who secretly recorded their conversations and obsessively documented other HOA members' alleged rule violations to build his case.
When they appealed the decision, Judge Winmill overturned the judgment and ordered Morris to pay the HOA's legal fees of $111,000.
He said the secret recordings showed him behaving in an “aggressively confrontational” manner and permanently banned Morris from hosting a Christmas show without the HOA's permission.
The case now awaits a decision from the 9th Circuit, but in 2021, Morris filed a judicial misconduct claim against Winmill, alleging that the judge unfairly suppressed the testimony of the majority of his witnesses.
Now he has revealed that his public criticism of the judge has left his career hanging by a thread, after he received a letter from the Idaho State Bar warning that there was “probable cause to proceed with formal charges” on under the Idaho Professional Conduct Code.
This rule prohibits a lawyer from making statements “with reckless disregard of their truth or falsity regarding the qualifications or integrity of a judge.”
Morris has left his home and moved out of state, but claims the ongoing case is making it difficult for him to find a job.
“I found myself in this position to actually take a stand for Christmas, and so I became the advocate that actually fought for Christmas and saved it,” Morris said.
The HOA told Morris it was concerned the Christmas display would offend “non-Christians.”
Carol sings a live nativity and a real camel, adding to the authenticity of the exhibition
“The law says that even as a lawyer in this country, I don't lose the freedom of speech to speak about things, especially corruption,” Morris told Fox News.
There will be no Christmas light show at his new home this year, but the 'Christmas lawyer' has vowed to return next year with an 'even bigger, epic display' and says he has 'zero' regrets.
“I'm so proud of the stand I took and the opportunity I gave for people who hate me, who hate my family, who hate my beliefs, to turn the other cheek,” he said.
'I would do it again.'
