This day in drug-using judges

Everything was awesome until one of them died of a cocaine overdose.

(Allegedly) Hit them and then sue them

Back in January, we posted about an incident in West Virginia where a lawyer named Stephen Sean Murphy allegedly attacked another lawyer named Scott Radman.  As one might expect in fisticuffs involving lawyers, the lawsuits have started. 

Hitting another lawyer in the courthouse is a bad idea.

Various media outlets in West Virginia are reporting that one West Virgina attorney has been charged with malicious assault for allegedly beating up another West Virginia attorney in the Marion County Courthouse. 

This day in drug-using prosecutors

1) Nicholas Athanasiou, a former prosecutor, allegedly accepted cocaine as payment for legal services. Thus begins a new era in alternative billing: the snortable hour.

2) Jason Cantrell, a current prosecutor, was arrested by the police officers he was talking to when he took his hands out of his pockets and a marijuana joint fell out. The incident occurred in the courthouse. To top it off, his wife is running for city council. She is concerned: “I love my husband unconditionally and am very concerned for his health and well-being, and for that of our family. I hope that this incident will encourage Jason to seek the professional help.”

Trading—and Sleeping—With the Enemy

As the ABA Journal reports, officials at the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission are seeking to disbar an Illinois attorney for smuggling Cuban cigars into the United States during the 1990s.

At first blush, this seems harsh. Yes, Cuban cigars are contraband under the "Trading with the Enemy Act" (co-sponsored by Rep. Julia Roberts, D-Hollywood). So the attorney certainly committed a crime. But jaywalking is a crime too. Moreover, this is a curious law that in modern times could be renamed "We Need Florida's Electoral Votes, And There Are Lots of Cuban-Americans There Act." As of 2008—when North Korea lost its "enemy" status—Cuba is the only country that comes under the law. So, in another sense, "Trading with The Enemy Act" is the perfect title for the law, because we have only one enemy now, and it is Cuba. Finally, it has always seemed odd to me that the U.S., capitalist dynamo that it is, has chosen to respond to the threat of Communism on that tiny Caribbean island by refusing to trade with it. Isn't it the capitalists who think trade is good and civilizing?

It does not seem like it was worth it.

To paraphrase Jane Austen: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that sometimes one wonders whatever happened to sexting attorney Kenneth Kratz.  Longtime Reader(s)™ may recall that Mr. Kratz is a former district attorney for Calumet County, Wisconsin who lost his job when it was revealed that he had propositioned a domestic abuse victim when she came to see him about her case.  After these revelations surfaced it turned out that other women had also been inappropriately approached by Mr. Kratz.

Helpful Hint: Do not bite state troopers.

The Supreme Court of South Carolina has suspended South Carolina lawyer Michael DuPree.  The suspension is the result of a fracas in which Mr. DuPree allegedly punched and bit a state trooper while Mr. DuPree was on vacation in Utah.  The Charleston Post and Courier has the story.

According to the Post and Courier, Mr. DuPree was a passenger in a car pulled over by a state trooper near Park City, Utah shortly after midnight March 22. The car was allegedly driving 5 miles per hour over the posted speed limit and failing to stay in one lane. Some people I know call those two things “driving.” But they do not live in the Park City area.

Today's lesson in law practice:

How not to leave a law firm.

Lawyers behaving badly

UPDATE 4.15.2012:

In its typically deliberative (that is slow) fashion, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has gotten around to imposing "reciprocal discipline" on attorneys Stephan Addison and Benjamin Butler, whom the Illinois Supreme Court previously suspended for 60 and 30 days, respectively. The court reluctantly agreed to impose the same discipline in Wisconsin. As usual, there are dissents.

As detailed in the original post below, both men pleaded guilty to the felony of second-degree reckless endangerment. The recklessly endangering conduct was having sex with a woman on the hood of a car, though the woman originally alleged a sexual assault. According to Butler's attorney, the felony is based on the peril of car sex: "Someone could've fallen off and gotten hurt." (Though one wonders, then, why the woman wasn't equally culpable.)

In dissent, Justice Roggensack argues that these brief suspensions are woefully inadequate punishment for the admitted conduct. As she points out, the reckless endangerment conviction rests on an admission that both Butler and Addison engaged in "conduct that creates an
unreasonable and substantial risk of great bodily harm" and that they were aware of the risk. She cites other cases in which Wisconsin attorneys were suspended for years for seemingly less serious conduct such as drug possession, mail fraud, or retail theft.

To be fair, both Butler and Addison appear to have suffered mightily for their criminal indiscretions. They are convicted felons. And they lost their high-paying big-firm jobs. But, at the end of the day, they remain lawyers.

Should attorneys marry their clients and misappropriate trust funds?

The State Bar Court of California says such conduct will get an attorney disbarred.  Ms. Lowney is, or perhaps more accurately was, an attorney practicing estate planning law in Pacifica, California.  The court has recommended that Ms. Lowney be disbarred for moral turpitude, failing to comply with the law by filing a false document, and maintaining an unjust action.

What did Ms. Lowney do?  Well, in 2000, Thor Tollefsen, an 81-year-old man, hired Ms. Lowney to help him plan his estate.  In 2002, Ms. Lowney prepared for Mr. Tollefsen a pour-over will and a revocable trust.  The value of the trust was $340,000.  The trust names some of Mr. Tollefsen's relatives in Norway as beneficiaries and successor co-trustees. 

By August 2005, Ms. Lowney—who was in her fifties—and Mr. Tollefsen became romantically involved.  Ms. Lowney promised Mr. Tollefsen that she would take care of him as he suffered from emphysema and terminal cancer.  Mr. Tollefsen then transferred to Ms. Lowney, as his attorney, the $340,000 for use in caring for him.  To accomplish this transfer, Mr. Tollefsen asked for and received permission from his relatives in Norway to transfer the money.  The relatives in Norway understood that any money left over at Mr. Tollefsen's death would be returned to the trust. 

Mr. Tollefsen's condition worsened and he agreed to marry Ms. Lowney at her request.  Because Ms. Lowney did not want Mr. Tollefsen's relatives or her own daughter (who was under 18) to find out about the marriage, she and Mr. Tollefsen arranged to have a confidential marriage.  (As an aside, I don't believe I have ever heard of a confidential marriage.  Some critics, for example this article, suggest that confidential marriages are favored by bigamists because the marriage records are under seal.)  One requirement of getting a confidential marriage license is that the applicants have to state they have been living together.  Mr. Tollefsen and Ms. Lowney falsely stated that they were living together.  They were married in early 2006.  Notably, Mr. Tollefsen refused to name Ms. Lowney as a beneficiary after their marriage.

By the fall of 2006, Mr. Tollefsen felt that Ms. Lowney was not doing a good job of taking care of him and complained to his relatives in Norway about her.  In January 2007, Mr. Tollefsen moved into a senior care facility.  He died before the month was over while on a weekend visit to his home.

After he died, Ms. Lowney transferred the trusts funds into three separate accounts and had Mr. Tollefsen cremated against his express wish to be donated to medical science.  Ms. Lowney also tried to remove Mr. Tollefsen's relatives as trustees of his trust despite the fact that she had no standing to do so.  After that removal was denied, she claimed she was Mr. Tollefsen's spouse and therefore entitled to a share of his estate.  When a trial court denied her claim that she was Mr. Tollefsen's spouse, Mr. Lowney appealed.  The California Court of Appeals was so troubled by her actions that it asked the California State Bar to decide whether a disciplinary action was needed.  The end result was the recommendation that Ms. Lowney be disbarred.

The order notes that Ms. Lowney practiced law for 32 years without being disciplined.  I am not sure what to make of this.  Are we to believe that Ms. Lowney's misappropriating client funds, making false statements, and pursuing bad faith litigation, were all her first brush with violating the rules of professional conduct?  If so, I guess Ms. Lowney believes in the maxim, "go big or go home." 

The order also states that Ms. Lowney must comply with Rule 9.20 of the California Rules of Court.  Rule 9.20 sets forth what steps a disbarred attorney must take in regards to notifying courts, clients, co-counsel,  and opposing counsel of the disbarment.  The rule also requires that the disbarred attorney file proof of compliance with the Clerk of the State Bar Court.  What penalty will Ms. Lowney face if she does not comply with the rule?  Disbarment, of course.  One might think that threatening a disbarred attorney with disbarment is an ineffective punishment.  But, I am sure the court knows what it is doing.

Inflammmatory stupidity loses again.

Now that the Obamacare oral arguments are over, America can get back to asking questions rather than listening to nine middle-aged/old people ask questions.  One question on the minds of many, whatever happened to Andrew Shirvell?  We did a fair number of posts about him in the fall of 2010 but since then we have not done any.