Judge recommends disbarment for Del Norte DA

Judge recommends disbarment for Del Norte DA
By Amy Yarbrough
The California Bar Journal
Official Publication of the State Bar of California
May 2013

Noting that for 20 years he had “repeatedly violated his ethical and professional duties,” a State Bar Court hearing judge has recommended Del Norte County District Attorney Jon M. Alexander be stripped of his law license.

Alexander [bar # 129207], 64, was also placed on involuntary inactive status as a result of Judge Lucy Armendariz’s April 4 disbarment ruling.M Armendariz found Alexander culpable of communicating with a defendant without her attorney’s consent, withholding evidence from the defense and acts of moral turpitude. The disbarment does not go into effect until it is approved by the California Supreme Court.

It was the first time in recent memory that an elected district attorney was the subject of a disciplinary trial. According to published reports, Alexander was suspended without pay by the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors following the decision.

In her ruling, Armendariz wrote that Alexander’s misdeeds were aggravated by the fact he refused to acknowledge his wrongdoing, and that he had failed to uphold his duties as a district attorney.

“Respondent’s misconduct frustrated the administration of justice,” she wrote. “His abuse of his prosecutorial power has negatively impacted the reputation of the district attorney’s office and the public’s trust in the justice system.”

A controversial figure who overcame methamphetamine addiction and other personal struggles to win the district attorney election in 2010, Alexander had a string of State Bar disciplinary problems prior to the case that now threatens his law license. In 1996, he received a private reproval for failing to abide by agreements that were made in lieu of disciplinary prosecution, and for two misdemeanor convictions for driving with a suspended license. In 2003, he received a six-month actual suspension for failing to return unearned fees to a client and for the unauthorized practice of law while he was suspended for not paying his bar dues.

Alexander then received a 60-day actual suspension for misconduct in four matters, including failure to perform services competently, failure to communicate with clients, engaging in the unauthorized practice of law and engaging in an ex parte communication with a judge in a criminal case in order to influence the sentence. He was still on probation for this disciplinary action in 2011, when the conduct that triggered the current case against him occurred.

In the current case, Alexander was initially charged with seven counts of misconduct in three matters, although Armendariz found him culpable in only three of the charged counts. She found that he had talked with a defendant privately in his office about her drug case, despite knowing that the woman had an attorney. During the conversation the defendant recanted statements she made at the time of her arrest, in which she implicated her co-defendant and admitted to Alexander that the drugs at issue in the case actually belonged to her. Alexander failed to tell the defense attorneys about the conversation and did not share the woman’s incriminating statement with her co-defendant’s lawyer until after he learned their conversation had been tape-recorded.

During Alexander’s misconduct trial, 31 witnesses testified on Alexander’s behalf, attesting to his good moral character and extensive community service, much of it to help others struggling with substance abuse problems. Although Armendariz said that testimony carried some weight, she noted that Alexander’s community service had already been considered a mitigating factor in his third State Bar discipline case.

“The court finds that these character witnesses represent a demonstration of respondent’s good character attested to by a wide range of references in the legal and general communities. But they invariably dismissed respondent’s misconduct as either insignificant or not at all unethical,” she wrote. “Many did not comprehend its egregiousness.”

Lawyers who commit fraud on behalf of clients should be disbarred

Usually lawyers get disbarred for simply stealing clients' funds. When this happens, usually only a few victims are harmed.

The more serious problem is unethical lawyers who harm the justice system by committing fraud ON BEHALF OF their clients. Justice is perverted; the system harms the innocent in case after case. Too many judges look the other way when lawyers commit frauds in the courtroom.

The story below discusses a case in which a lawyer who committed fraud on behalf of his client was disbarred. However, I suspect it was a powerful individual or organization that pushed for justice, not the judge involved.

The story below fails to mention San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis' position on the California State Bar Board of Governors. [See story at bottom of this post.]


Critics: DA should prosecute problem lawyers
The office says State Bar standards are different

After a trial late last year, the State Bar Court of California concluded that Carlsbad lawyer Patricia Gregory improperly withdrew more than $112,000 from client trust funds.

A judge recommended Gregory for disbarment in March, and the attorney is fighting the decision. She is not eligible to practice law while the review process runs its course.

Gregory has not been prosecuted, nor have several other attorneys who faced such findings from the bar. Critics say the District Attorney’s Office should act in such cases, but the staff says there are many complicating factors, such as different standards of proof and the need to set priorities.

Others who have not been prosecuted:

•Todd Smith, a Carlsbad attorney, wrote checks on a client trust fund for personal use. State Bar records do not specify how much Smith took from his client. He stipulated to the State Bar that he wrote checks on his attorney-client trust account for his own use multiple times.

•Former attorney Steven Weisenberg was disbarred in 2004 after the State Bar Court found that he sent papers that appeared to be a court order to a title company. Weisenberg “engaged in an elaborate and highly deceptive scheme in an effort to obtain for his clients the results they desired, and in doing so, he committed a serious act of fraud,” Judge Richard A. Honn wrote.

•San Diego lawyer Todd Hilts took more than $8,800 from one of his clients, according to State Bar records. “By misappropriating at least $8,848.69 belonging to (his clients), respondent committed an act involving moral turpitude, in willful violation” of state law, the bar court found...

The District Attorney’s Office rejects any suggestion that it shies away from prosecuting lawyers who commit crimes while performing legal work.

Damon Mosler, who oversees the division that prosecutes lawyers, police officers and public officials, said the standard of proof in State Bar Court is lower than in Superior Court. He said certain cases are better suited to a regulatory venue.

“If there is misconduct by lawyers in their capacities as lawyers, generally we rely on the State Bar to be the investigating agency,” he said...

Luwain Ng of Carmel Valley retained Gregory for divorce proceedings and is now suing her former lawyer.

“I tried to file a police report and they did not want to take a report,” Ng said. “They said ‘Take it directly to the district attorney.’ Then I got a letter saying this is a State Bar matter and they are not going to pursue it.”...

Denise Doll has been homeless off and on since she hired Gregory to perform various legal work in 2007.

She received a pair of settlements in cases Gregory handled and assumed the money was being held in the attorney-client trust fund...

Doll provided The Watchdog a voicemail left for her by prosecutor Jeff Dort, who said he was rejecting the case because he would need police reports, bank records and documents compiled by the bar before he could make a decision about prosecuting Gregory...

The State Bar refers a small number of cases to the District Attoney’s Office for prosecution -- perhaps two a year, Mosler said. A State Bar spokeswoman said the office does not track referrals to county prosecutors...



Five elected to bar board
California Bar Journal
August 2006

Five attorneys, including San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, were elected to three-year terms on the State Bar’s Board of Governors.

Should Bush lawyers be disbarred?

Bush Lawyers' Disbarment Sought
Huffington Post
NEDRA PICKLER
May 18, 2009 AP


WASHINGTON — A coalition of liberal groups filed petitions Monday seeking disbarment of Bush administration attorneys linked to memos on harsh interrogation techniques of detainees.

Complaints were filed against 12 individuals, including former attorneys general John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales and Michael Mukasey and former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, said a member of the groups. The complaints filed with bar associations in the District of Columbia and four states _ New York, California, Texas and Pennsylvania _ say their licenses should be revoked for "moral turpitude."

"These lawyers misused their license to practice law to provide legal cover for the war crime of torture," said Kevin Zeese, executive director of VotersForPeace.US and a board member with VelvetRevolution.US, the two groups leading the effort.

Memos by the Bush Justice Department contended that waterboarding _ a form of simulated drowning _ as well as sleep deprivation and other extreme techniques were legal under U.S. and international law.

The other attorneys who are targets of the campaign are:

_ John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Stephen Bradbury, who worked in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel

_ Ex-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith

_ Former Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington

_ Pentagon lawyer William Haynes

_ Former deputy White House counsel Timothy Flanigan

_ and Alice Fisher, former director of the Justice Department's Criminal Division.