 |
| Mark Schnee listens to testimony during the trial of Lorenzo Young and Trenton Barnes for the 2013 murder of Kelly Hunnewell. Schnee represents Young. 11/13/2014 tglantz@thestate.com |
A Columbia lawyer has been disbarred by the S.C. Supreme Court for numerous legal ethical violations, including making false statements in court, not showing up for hearings, mishandling client money and failing to provide competent representation to clients.
Mark Schnee, who has handled cases in state civil and criminal court, lost his license to practice law Wednesday in a high court opinion signed by all five Supreme Court justices.
It is rare for the Supreme Court to disbar a South Carolina lawyer. Even in seemingly egregious cases, the Supreme Court’s sanctions often involve long suspensions of a law license.
Schnee not only committed “numerous instances of misconduct,” he deceived clients, judges and the judicial disciplinary body investigating his transgressions, the high court said in an 11-page opinion. He also had prolonged periods where clients could not get in touch with him, the high court wrote.
Schnee is a 2006 graduate of the University of South Carolina Law School and was admitted to the bar that year, according to the S.C. Bar, the statewide lawyers’ association. Over the years, Schnee has been appointed to defend indigent clients in a number of criminal cases. Schnee also worked for several years with the Richland County Public Defender’s Office.
Schnee could not be reached for comment.
In recent years, Schnee was appointed to be a lawyer for 35 indigent clients in criminal cases and paid a total of $32,100 in tax money in advance for providing their defense. But in fact, Schnee did not do defense work and now has been ordered to repay the money, the opinion said.
In one example of misconduct cited by the high court, Schnee created “a false story about being a whistleblower in a federal investigation in an attempt to be relieved from his appointed cases and avoid returning the unearned fees,” the high court said.
Schnee also has been involved in a number of high profile cases and has had several well-known clients, including former Columbia police chief Randy Scott after Scott faced drug charges. Schnee also represented one of the defendants charged in the 2013 slaying of Columbia bagel maker Kelly Hunnewell.
In its opinion listing Schnee’s offenses, the high court said its disciplinary arm originally began investigating allegations against the lawyer in 2017. In 2018, the court was going to suspend Schnee for three years when it received a fresh set of allegations alleging numerous more instances of legal misconduct.
Until it received the new set of allegations in 2018, the high court said it was only going to impose a lesser sanction of a three-year suspension for Schnee’s first set of infractions because he had expressed remorse and because his house had burned down in 2012 and destroyed all his legal papers.
In Wednesday’s opinion, the justices said they were disbarring Schnee because of all charges against him in the last three years. Justices said Schnee admitted all the 2017 allegations and did not contest the later allegations against him, the opinion said. Schnee’s failure to contest the later misconduct allegations means the Supreme Court will regard those charges as “(having) been admitted,” the Supreme Court said.
Among the examples the Supreme Court cited in disbarring Schnee were:
▪ After being appointed to represent a mentally ill client, Schnee failed to meet with the client for a total of more than two years and also failed to take several actions vital to her case. Schnee also “lied” to a state judge about having submitted a crucial order in the case and about work that he had done but did not do.
▪ In 2016, after several taxi owners paid Schnee $3,000 to represent them in a dispute with the Columbia Metropolitan Airport, Schnee filed a civil lawsuit. But after the airport got the case transferred to Lexington County (the location of the airport), Schnee “stopped communicating with his clients,” the opinion said.
In 2014, Schnee was one of a team of lawyers who successfully represented Occupy Columbia activists who camped out on State House grounds to protest Wall Street corporate influence in politics. After 14 activists were arrested, Schnee and other lawyers representing them filed a lawsuit against the State of South Carolina and reached a $192,000 settlement. Activists had claimed their civil rights to peacefully protest were violated and that the government had not specific rules against camping out.
Schnee has also attracted attention for unusual legal stands he made.
Once, in a Richland County murder case case involving a home invasion, Schnee represented an intruder who had shot and killed the man whose property he was on. Schnee tried to claim the killer-robber was eligible for immunity from prosecution for murder because he had shot and killed his victim in self defense.
But in a 2013 opinion, State v. Isaac,
the State Supreme Court ruled that Schnee’s client, Greg Isaac, was not
eligible for a “stand your ground” defense because Isaac was the
intruder and the law was not designed ‘‘to protect intruders and
[afford] any immunity or protection to intruders or those who might
enter the dwelling of another to commit a criminal act.’’
No comments:
Post a Comment