People v. State

Jeff Gamso crosses over into my jurisdiction today with a post titled Indiana Wants To Be Ohio, about an Indiana Supreme Court disciplinary ruling issued last Friday, In the Matter of Patrick K. Rocchio. The pseudonymous Strike-Lawyer summarizes and comments on Jeff’s post thusly:

Jeff Gamso has been doing a lot of posting lately, which is good, he’s a good writer.  Today he revisits what he has termed the “Mark Gardner Rule”, which has to do with lawyers not criticizing judges, because if they do they’ll be disciplined by the attorney disciplinary committees or tribunals or star chambers or whatever it is they call them in whatever jurisdiction.  The occasion for Jeff’s post is that another lawyer had breached this rule, one Patrick Rocchio of Michigan or Indiana, or something.

Now, my own criticism of what Mr. Rocchio supposedly did has more to do with the poor aim of the invective, not the invective itself.  The best argument to have made to the disciplinary committee and the court . . . is that  chicken shit disciplinary charges are visited only upon independent, private practitioners like Rocchio.  Never upon big firm lawyers.  Never upon government lawyers.  Never, ever upon prosecutors.  Indeed, government lawyers can commit huge violations without a peep from the disciplinary committees.

It’s the way lawyer “discipline” functions all over the country.  There is only a small – and shrinking – pool of attorneys that are even eligible to be disciplined, although in theory of course all lawyers are subject to the rules.  But it just isn’t true.

To justify their existence, then, disciplinary committees must increasingly target that small group of lawyers for smaller and smaller “violations”. The inevitable result is that independent practitioners, in addition to meeting the other formidable demands of providing quality representation to individuals, must regularly fend off time consuming “ethics” probes from the disciplinary committees over chicken shit allegations.  That’s exactly what the Rocchio matter was, and that’s why he got mad.

He was right and the disciplinary committee and the referee and the court were all wrong.  But he’s the one who’s going to get a black mark and whose “career”, whatever that is, is going to be damaged.

The supreme court noted that but for Rocchio’s “conduct during the disciplinary process” it would have only imposed a public reprimand or an even lesser sanction for the underlying minor “violation.” But after hearing what Rocchio had to say about her and the other players in the disciplinary process, the hearing officer had recommended that the supreme court suspend Rocchio from the practice of law in Indiana for at least one year without automatic reinstatement. (The phrase “without automatic reinstatement” is a big deal.) The majority of the supreme court concurred with her recommendation but found a period of 180 days without automatic reinstatement to be “sufficient.” (Even the lone dissenter would have imposed a 30 day suspension without automatic reinstatement.)

Compare the disposition of Rocchio’s disciplinary matter with another Indiana Supreme Court disciplinary ruling issued the same day, In the Matter of Heather McClure O’Farrell, and especially with the dissent of the Chief Justice and another Justice, who instead of the public reprimand imposed by the majority would have imposed a period of suspension without automatic reinstatement, apparently because the respondent’s attorney had vigorously argued that the facts she had stipulated to did not constitute misconduct and had thereby demonstrated that she was “unrepentant.”

Now, contrast both of these disciplinary opinions with a third disciplinary opinion issued by the Indiana Supreme Court just yesterday, In the Matter of the Honorable William E. Young, Judge of the Marion Superior Court, and with one of the things the Honorable Judge did to richly deserve sanctions:

Throughout 2009, Respondent engaged in a practice of imposing substantially higher penalties of $300 to $400 in fines, plus court costs, against traffic-infraction litigants who exercised their right to trial and lost, as compared to those who pleaded guilty and waived their right to trial. Indeed, in one instance, when a traffic-infraction defendant came before the bench and was trying to decide whether to admit or deny her infraction, Respondent stated, “I’m a great listener but sometimes I’m very expensive.”

Respondent admits he engaged in this practice in part because he believed the litigants on whom he imposed the higher fines should not have pursued trials, and in part because he wanted to discourage other litigants from exercising their constitutional rights to trials.

By agreement of the Honorable Judge and the Commission which brought the disciplinary action against the Honorable Judge, which the supreme court accepted, the Honorable Judge was suspended from office without pay for a mere 30 days with automatic reinstatement. But in a separate opinion concurring in the result, the Chief Justice, apparently without intentional irony, wrote:

I would expect that in the absence of a settlement, this case should have resulted in a lengthier suspension. The per curiam understates the willfulness of the Respondent’s conduct and the damage it has done to the public standing of the judiciary. Fortunately, the overwhelming number of Indiana’s judicial officers strive demonstrably toward a much higher standard.

Needless to say, that last sentence quoted above from the Chief Justice’s opinion is just that — an opinion.

The Chief Justice concludes:

Still, as in other litigation settings, there is much to be said for the benefits of settlement, so I have joined in approving the agreement tendered by the parties.

I sure wish the supreme court had approved the agreement I made with the Indiana Disciplinary Commission for an “administrative reprimand” in my old disciplinary case, and that the Chief Justice hadn’t then dissented from the supreme court’s approval of the agreement I subsequently made with the Commission for a private reprimand, on the grounds that he believed the sanction to be “inadequate.”

Follow