85th Installment. California State Bar gives prosecutors free pass: From Philip Cline to Melanie J. Lawrence

kanBARoo court differs from most other judicial-system criticisms in declining to demand more prosecutions. Often critics respond to inequities in justice's administration by demanding prosecutions of the truly guilty, not just relief for the unjustly prosecuted. No doubt, one might derive satisfaction from reporting judges or gloating over their comeuppance, but this satisfaction comes at the expense of consistency and principle: advocacy of prosecution by a corrupt, oppressive, or incompetent agency contradicts the intended defense of due process. Only perpetration of crimes so great they overshadow the State Bar's defects—John Yoo is the only example that comes to mind—justifies supporting (never advocating!) state-bar prosecutions. kanBARoo court doesn't advocate prosecution even in the extreme case of Ronald N. Gottschalk or Melanie J. Lawrence. Nor did I report Lawrence's criminal misconduct to the State Bar as some advised; I refused even to report Kim and company to the police, as the state's prosecutorial authority differs from that of the state bar in its greater competence, not greater inclination to justice. Principled opponents of authoritarian oppression don't beseech the oppressive authorities!

Therefore, readers shouldn't interpret the following critique of failure to prosecute prosecutors as a demand for their prosecution. To avoid the misunderstanding of an important principle, I emphasize this caveat, even at the expense of the main message; but principles don't preclude publicizing and analyzing failures to prosecute, omissions laying bare the state-bars' mainsprings. With that caveat, I proceed with clear conscience to describe the California State Bar's astounding failure to prosecute prosecutors

Recently, the Northern California Innocence Project released a study of prosecutor misconduct staggering in demonstrating prosecutory bias. One fact stands out in this report: over the past decade, the State Bar has disciplined only six prosecutors for misconduct in prosecution. (Hat Tip to The Crime Report.) Business & Professions Code sections 6086.7 and 6086.8, subdivision (a), require judges to report misconduct that affects trial outcome, and mandatory "reported events" by judges produced approximately one thousand reports over the period studied, but of these, only six led to state-bar sanctions of prosecutors in criminal cases. For most practical purposes, we can justly say the California State Bar refuses to prosecute any prosecutor. (The only exception is the recent prosecution of four prosecutors, comprising the bulk of the six. This prosecution resulted from a power-struggle within the state bar that led to Chief Trial Counsel Scott Drexel's ouster and represented a crude attempt to appease the discontented state-bar defense establishment.)

The Mark Sodersten case shows how this refusal plays out, how the free pass given prosecutors is intentional rather than (somehow) merely negligent. Sodersten is one of the great success stories of the Northern California Innocence Project, which seeks exoneration for victims of the criminal-justice system who didn't commit the crimes charged. The California Court of Appeal freed Sodersten based on evidence the Innocence Project discovered proving he was the victim of withholding evidence by the prosecutor, who himself had interviewed the potentially exonerating witness, so there was no legitimate question about the concealment's willfulness. This prosecutor was a real fiend; can you imagine asking for the death penalty for a defendant who you know was convicted on falsified evidence? Since the evidence was exonerating, one can go so far as to say this prosecutor demanded the death penalty for someone he knew was innocent.

 
The California State Bar couldn't avoid opening an investigation of Philip Cline, then a Tulare County assistant district attorney, but it refused to find culpability, claiming insufficiency of evidence, a deficiency deterring the State Bar in no other prosecution. The free pass allowed this prosecutor to flourish: this attempted murderer is now district attorney for Tulare County.

Sodersten shows the California State Bar isn't merely lax about prosecuting prosecutors but actively resists finding prosecutors guilty. Opponents of the State Bar establishment have an interest in knowing why. One theory, advanced by the loyal opposition of the California State Bar establishment, the Association of Discipline Defense Counsel and its leader, David Cameron Carr. Carr, claims that the state bar is really a consumer-protection agency rather than an enforcer of ethical principles, implying that the disciplinary mechanism within government agencies adequately protects the public. The theory can't explain the intensity of resistance to prosecuting prosecutors; it explains at most a lack of emphasis on such prosecutions. Carr would have it that the State Bar doesn't consider prosecutorial misconduct important enough to prosecute, a premise that doesn't explain outright refusal to prosecute. The data also refute a theory I proposed, that the State Bar is unconcerned with prosecuting "government attorneys" because there's no money in it, the State Bar having an interest in the trust accounts of civil attorneys, as it retains the interest on these accounts. This too explains only lack of concern, not determined avoidance.

"Government lawyers" is a misleading abstraction. I haven't seen figures on prosecutions of other "government attorneys;" the record concerning public defenders would be particularly interesting. But even if the prosecution rates are low across the board for lawyers working for government, this 1) still doesn't explain active resistance to prosecution of prosecutors; and 2) doesn't explain why common sense and the obvious need for discipline for misconduct of the sort Philip Cline perpetrated doesn't compel making an exception to any rule exempting "government lawyers," since the imperatives that apply to prosecutors don't apply to other classes of "government lawyers." An unethical monster like Philip Cline is a moral threat whether or not he leaves government service. No client should trust such a creature; none should have to risk association with him.

Prosecutorial solidarity is the only tenable explanation I find for the State Bar's avid refusal to prosecute prosecutors. The State Bar, after all, effectively is composed of prosecutors, and the boundary between prosecutors in general criminal practice and State Bar "trial counsel" is porous, the State Bar the refuge of the most incompetent of the lot, not necessarily the most vile. The prosecutors in the State Bar have a stake in not seeing other prosecutors prosecuted because, in general, prosecutors often engage in misconduct, particularly State Bar prosecutors. While the State Bar has no shortage of hypocrisy, it knows its self-interest. Once prosecution of prosecutors becomes common, why wouldn't a public outcry demand prosecution of "trial counsel"? By all indications, serious misconduct by these bar prosecutors is a common occurrence, even the norm. Every prosecutor has an interest in such misconduct getting a free pass.

The evidence of State Bar misconduct is rife throughout its cases, but the most rigorously proven instance happens to have occurred in my State Bar case, where "deputy trial counsel" Melanie J. Lawrence actually destroyed documents to obtain dismissal of my petition for review. Precisely because the evidence is circumstantial, hence not dependent on testimony, the proof of her misconduct is airtight. Readers can verify this tolerance for misconduct by bar counsel all the way from the nefarious Judge Honn to an indifferent California Supreme Court. Lawrence and the attorneys representing the state bar consistently refused to address the charges of misconduct; with proof so clear, they determined to stonewall. While my briefs pounded away on the subject, the State Bar's briefs ignored my allegations. They needed to craft no arguments; they simply pretended my claims were absent. Subsequently, no investigation was opened, despite the proof I briefed.

While Philip Cline is district attorney of Tulare County, Melanie J. Lawrence continues in employment by the State Bar. The State Bar doesn't prosecute prosecutors for misconduct because, out of self-interest and empathy, it favors such misconduct.

KanBARoo Court. 13th Installment. The State Bar Gets Nervous

Pulling another trick out of the California State Bar's dirty bag, the Office of Chief Trial Counsel files another motion to enter default, notwithstanding my pending petition for review. The court (or “Hearing Department”) deserves blame for this frivolous motion, because the court emboldens the prosecutrix by mixing messages in orders. Judge Honn twice granted the substance of my motion or denied a motion I opposed. In each, the court pretended that the Bar prevailed.

The first installment treated one instance, a hearing where the court denied the Bar's motion to enter default and permitted me to file a motion for reconsideration. While upbraiding me in harsh generalities, the court granted my opposition’s substance. Yet, listening to all the criticisms directed at respondent, the prosecutrix did not carry away a cautionary message from her failed first attempt to take a stealth default.

In the second instance, the Hearing Department granted delay of my deposition until it ruled on reconsideration. Yet, in ruling in my favor, the Hearing Department styled its order a denial of my motion to continue the deposition notice. Again, Judge Honn ruled in my favor on the matter before him, while clothing the order in terms celebrating Deputy Trial Counsel's victory.

The court does not obfuscate orders merely to feed the prosecutrix’s ego. It intends respondent forgo taking encouragement. This is important because, for want of legal judgment, the Bar cannot count on weathering a litigation storm. Consider the frankly pathetic whining of Deputy Trial Counsel Melanie J. Lawrence, in trying to support her frivolous new motion for entry of default:

Trial in this matter is scheduled to begin December 17, 2007.If the regular time for response to this Motion is allowed, the deadline for a written response will be the same date the beginning of trial is scheduled. As it is, the State Bar has been severely prejudiced in trial preparation by the fact that no response to the NDC has been filed.

Ms. Lawrence's problem is that her astoundingly bad legal judgment wasted a lot of the Bar's precious time. Respondent filed a motion to dismiss on September 4, and the Hearing department noticed rejecting my immediately subsequent motion to reconsider on November 11. That's nine weeks for two motions, judicial transactions that should require only five. The State Bar lost its month because Ms. Lawrence refused to waive her right to proof of service. Proof under the circumstances was a purely technical requirement and one that the State Bar had already waived by accepting my document for filing. No court, not even the State Bar Court, could enter default on these facts:

1. Respondent files the document;
2. Five days pass; and
3. Deputy Trial Counsel only then informs respondent that he omitted a proof of service and she intends to take a default.

The prosecutrix behaved outrageously, and I admit it surprised me. She filed the motion and then spent weeks of valuable time waiting for the result. Why? She just did not know her motion stood not a chance. She believed she would prevail.

The Bar intimidates lawyers to suppress serious litigation, at cost to its attorneys' basic legal experience. What passes for litigation is quibbling about the time span for a suspension. Incidental errors also testify to the Bar's impoverished capabilities. While the prosecutrix wants the Bar to shorten time for responding to her motion, her motion can take at most a couple of days off the response deadline. Had the State Bar served its motion for default by overnight mail, it would have gained four days without court intervention.

Attorneys conducting a disciplinary defense against any of the state bar associations need to develop a case that challenges the State Bar on fundamentals, whether procedural or on the merits. The State Bar proves unequipped to deal with such challenge.

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kanBARoo Court, 5th Installment, Good Cop, Bad Cop at the State Bar

In prosecuting a State Bar case, the California State Bar's Office of the Chief Bar Counsel plays bad cop, and the Hearing Department of the State Bar Court plays good cop. These departments of the California State Bar work in concert. Not that they admit the complicity, but neither do they otherwise take any pains at concealment. Collaboration is evident from the timing of the court's processing of the papers: the way the Hearing Department expedites those matters and only those matters whose expeditious handling serves the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel.

A recent example. I was promised — more precisely, threatened with — expeditious handling of my motion for reconsideration of the State Bar Court's denial of my motion to dismiss the Notice of Disciplinary Charges. Eleven days passed after parties completed all filings. So much for expedited handling. Sometimes the opposite of expeditious handling serves the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel. Here, the State Bar Court aided that office to try to proceed to deposition before my motions tested the NDC. The court tried to give the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel the fishing expedition it wanted. If the Hearing Department decided it had to grant my motion to dismiss — the Rules of Procedure and at least six Supreme Court decisions directly require it — the Hearing Department would help the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel place another NDC in its stead. The Hearing Department would try to make sure the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel had the facts it needed, by allowing their collection before the case is at issue. The Hearing Department tries to minimize the respondent's rights, within the scope of reasonable minimization of the probability of reversal.

I had turned the legal tables on the State Bar, however, by basing my opposition to the motion to compel on the NDC's pendency. My opposition to the motion to compel arrived at the State Bar offices this Monday. That same day, the court issued its denial of my motion to reconsider. This rate of response is not a typical Hearing Department response rate; never, ordinarily, on the same day. I cannot explain timing so responsive, except where the Office of the Chief Bar Counsel pointed the Hearing Department to my connecting the two pleadings.

These observations may fall short of the standards for admissible evidence, but the prior question is: do the usual rules against ex parte communication actually govern the State Bar? To the contrary, do the judges of the Hearing Department regularly confer informally with State Bar counsel? Are they then violating any rule or statute; do they know it?

Besides the obvious nexus between these two departments of the State Bar Court, aspects of public policy that actually encourage ex parte communication between these departments provide another reason to doubt the State Bar feels constrained to avoid ex parte communication with Hearing Department judges. In Los Angeles, the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel and the Hearing Department of the State Bar Court reside respectively on floors four and five of one office building. Without knowing which, one must question either the wisdom or the intent of such propinquity. The physical arrangement alone bespeaks an enormous public-policy confusion and indecision regarding State Bar Court judges' independence from the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel.

An additional policy nexus between these departments of the State Bar — Hearing Department judges have been known to receive jobs as Chief Trial Counsel, the judges themselves seeking out the job change, because they consider the prosecutorial position a promotion. The Chief Trial Counsel is the quarterback of the State Bar team.

Decisional law construing administrative law guarantees an independent hearing in an administrative law court. The Supreme Court based that guarantee on its interpretation of relevant Government Code sections, which established standards for administrative law courts. The State Bar Court, similar in function to courts like those charged with disciplining physicians, has the trappings of an administrative court. However, the State Bar Count is not an administrative court; to the State Bar court, the laws governing administrative courts do not apply, and the decisional law interpreting those statutes does not apply. For the State Bar Court is a sui generis organization, from which status stems a considerable part of its mischief, as no well-construed body of law regulates it. Nowhere in the general appellate case law do you find any holdings imposing (or denying) the right of a State Bar Court respondent to enjoy freedom from bias by private communications from the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel. The Rules of Procedure of the State Bar Court expressly exclude the Government Code and the Code of Civil Procedure from applying to Bar case. A review court typically invokes those bodies of code in finding error due to ex parte communication.

In totality, however, the State Bar's governing law clearly bans ex parte communication with the judge, although no procedure is in place to effect that ban or even to reiterate it. For although the State Bar is charged with enforcing the Rules of Professional Conduct, in its own practice the Enforcement Division is particularly prone to ignore them. Rule 5-300(B) states that "A member shall not directly or indirectly communicate with or argue to a judge or judicial officer upon the merits of a contested matter pending before such judge or judicial officer … " We on the outside of the State Bar Establishment, however, have no way of knowing whether the State Bar often abides by this rule or regularly breaches it. From appearances, it not only breaches the rule but also is aware of the transgressions only to such a degree that it refrains from admitting them. The State Bar takes few pains to keep the collaboration opaque to inference.

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