A former judge in Chicago has been disbarred after he was accused of
trying to kiss a police officer, asking a court reporter about the cost
of sex, and making demeaning remarks about a prosecutor.
The former Cook County, Illinois, judge, Judge Mauricio Boris Andres Araujo, was disbarred by the Illinois Supreme Court in a Jan. 17 order.
Araujo did not participate in ethics proceedings initiated by the
Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission. The
allegations were deemed to be admitted.
A Sept. 30, 2022, report by the IARDC hearing board said these allegations were deemed admitted:
• Araujo tried to kiss a Chicago police officer on the lips in
2016 when she tried to obtain a signature on a warrant. He also grabbed
her hand and said, “Touch my butt.” He also “made lewd comments” to the
officer on another occasion.
• On two occasions in 2011, Araujo “approached a female court
reporter in a suggestive manner when they were alone in a courthouse
elevator and asked how much money it would take for the court reporter
to have sex with him.”
• In 2018, Araujo made demeaning remarks about a prosecutor after she
appeared before him in a first-degree murder case. He was unhappy that
the prosecutor, a former law school classmate, had not congratulated him
on his promotion to a new courtroom and had not said hello to him. He
called a different prosecutor into his chambers and began to discuss the
perceived slight. Araujo used the B-word when referring to the
prosecutor and said, “Maybe it’s because I didn’t have sex with her. Or
maybe it’s because I did have sex with her.”
The hearing board said Araujo’s interactions with the police officer
and court reporter constituted battery and assault, and his
inappropriate sexual remarks constituted conduct prejudicial to the
administration of justice.
Araujo had no prior discipline, a mitigating factor. But the hearing
panel cited several aggravating factors, including that Araujo abused
his position of authority, demonstrated a pattern of misconduct, acted
with selfish motives, showed no remorse, and failed to participate in
the ethics proceeding.
Araujo had been transferred to administrative duties in September
2018 after a complaint by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office. The
Illinois Courts Commission had also charged Araujo with ethics
violations and concluded that he committed misconduct. He retired from
the bench in 2020, a month before the Illinois Courts Commission entered
written findings.
Araujo told the Chicago Tribune in 2018
that he didn’t think that he used the B-word to describe the prosecutor
and didn’t think that he made the remark that implied they may have had
sex. He also said the prosecutor’s failure to acknowledge him did not
upset him.
The IARDC has no contact information for Araujo on its website. He
did not immediately respond to an ABA Journal request for comment sent
to an email address listed in an IARDC document.
A
former Indiana superior court judge received a lifetime ban from
holding judicial office after the state’s High Court ruled that he
engaged in misconduct while in office by commingling his court duties
with his political campaign.
Patrick Miller was a judge for the
Adams Superior Court when he hired an unnamed employee for the county
drug court in 2015. After he announced his 2020 campaign for reelection,
the employee worked on Miller’s campaign while in the courthouse and
during her regular hours. Miller never explained that there were rules
about working for the court while working on a campaign, or about
working on a campaign while in the courthouse.
Miller also
discussed providing a campaign sign to a defendant while wearing his
robe and seated at the bench, and later did so. Miller nevertheless lost
his reelection bid.
Miller and the Indiana Commission on Judicial
Qualifications agreed that the misconduct violated multiple rules,
including a rule prohibiting judges from using court staff in a campaign
for judicial office.
Because Miller had been publicly
repirmanded for an earlier infraction, his sentence here was enhanced,
and it was agreed that the lifetime judicial service ban and another
public reprimand was appropriate. Miller was also taxed costs of $1,497.
The Supreme Court of Indiana approved the discipline Jan. 21.
Miller represented himself.
Chief Justice Loretta H. Rush wrote the unanimous opinion.
(WXYZ) — A controversial former assistant attorney general can no longer practice law.
The
7 Investigators first revealed how Brian Kolodziej was at the center of
a case where a police officer, Sean MacMaster, and his step-father said
they were falsely accused of molesting the officer’s daughter.
Attorney General Dana Nessel dismissed the charges
against the men after Kolodziej’s misconduct in the MacMaster case came
to light. The career prosecutor was also later convicted of willful
neglect of duty of a public officer for having a relationship with a sex
assault victim in a separate case in Isabella County.
The state Attorney Discipline Board issued the notice of disbarment Wednesday.
MacMaster is now suing Koloziej, alleging the former assistant AG violated MacMaster’s constitutional rights in several ways including malicious prosecution and excessive pretrial punishment with 151 days in jail without bond.
SUMNER COUNTY, Tenn. (WZTV) — Even though he had at least 127 victims, it took years to bring Hendersonville’s Andy Allman to justice.
Why
did it take so long? Partly because Allman is a lawyer and he is
convicted of robbing people with a pen, paper and smile. But for many of
his victims, it would have been better to have been robbed at gunpoint.
Back
in early 2017, FOX 17 News packed the station with Allman’s alleged
victim. Horror story after horror story. At the time, Allman’s law
license was merely suspended but had been under investigation since
2014. A secret investigation. His clients had no idea who they were
hiring.
Allman is accused of stealing Cathy Brown's entire inheritance:
$230,000. Much of that money was supposed to go to her nephew Baylor
Bramble, the Murfreesboro teen horrifically injured in a high school
football game.
Andy Allman (Sumner County Jail)
Cathy
Brown created a whole group of Allman victims, that’s how we all met.
FOX 17 News started putting the pressure on the board of professional
responsibility to do something significant and finally, in 2018, he was
disbarred.
“That took longer than it should have for sure. I
really think your story prompted that to happen. I yelled, fussed, sent
letters complaining, didn’t get anywhere but when your story broke it
put pressure on them to disbar him. They had a stack this big of
complaints and they hadn’t done anything about it until then,” said
Brown.
The board of professional responsibility that oversees
lawyers says it just took time, there were so many complaints from so
many people and everything had to be thoroughly investigated.
Meanwhile, the criminal charges percolated. After being arrested for
the Bramble theft, Allman was charged with 18 counts of felony theft in
Sumner County.
Kevin Dycus hired Allman to put his late wife’s insurance policy in his son’s name, the $106,000 disappeared the next day.
“I
guess I was just naïve and expected he’s going to go to jail that day.
Andy’s knowledge of the legal system he was able to game it for some
time,” said Dycus.
He would hire and fire lawyers, and get delay
after delay. Finally, Sumner County Judge Dee Gay said enough, we are
going to trial. Allman represented himself in Sumner County.
The jury found him guilty of 18 counts of felony theft—a possible but improbable 81 years in jail.
The
victims are thrilled, but they will not get back any of the $1.1
million owed them, and it’s actually more. Noreen Gibbons didn’t just
lose her legal fees, she lost her case, she missed all the deadlines,
she says she lost more than a million dollars by hiring Allman, who at
the time was in big trouble with the board of professional
responsibility. But again, it was a secret investigation.
“He
shouldn’t even have had his license to practice law when I hired him. It
had already been established that there were multiple complaints and
there was no way of knowing that,” said Gibbons.
During the trial, it came out how quickly Allman converted the client's money into his money.
It
was just enlightening to see how fast the money would go in and how
quickly it would go into Andy’s trust and then dispersed into personal
finances, business expenses, european vacations, almost 20 thousand
dollar engagement rings, an Alaska trip, boats, clubs,” said Kevin
Dycus.
Brown still waits for her justice in Davidson County and her opportunity to address Andy Allman.
“I
don’t know if I even have words that I want to say to him. He caused
delays in my nephew’s treatment. Caused duress on our whole family. He
tore my whole life apart. I lived with such guilt for so long that I
chose him for my attorney and he betrayed me,” said Brown.
I spoke with the prosecutor in the case Thomas Dean. He wrote:
This
victory belongs to the victims. They testified and had to endure cross
examination by Mr. Allman himself. Each of them honestly demonstrated
the painful circumstances of their cases. All withstood the travail of
testifying and being cross examined by someone who they once trusted as
their attorney. Their testimony was the lynchpin to our success. The
thanks, handclaps, and hugs from the victims after a hard-fought verdict
like this one are the things a prosecutor remembers and cherishes long
after the details of a trial fade from memory.
DENVER, CO - JANUARY 13: Colorado Supreme
Court Justice Brian Boatright stands at the podium in the Senate as he
swears in senators at the start of the first legislative day of the 73rd
General Assembly at the Colorado State Capitol on January 13, 2021 in
Denver, Colorado. (Photo By Kathryn Scott)
Colorado's Commission on Judicial Discipline initiated six corrective
actions against judges in 2020 — the same number as the prior year —
ranging from mild concerns about the handling of cases to illegal
behavior that resulted in a Supreme Court censure.
The commission released its annual report,
which includes specific details about judges who received public
discipline, and only general, non-identifying information about
circumstances involving private sanctions. The majority of complaints
about judges were for issues the commission could not resolve because
they pertained to evidence, court procedures or law, and not official
misconduct.
Of the two cases meriting public discipline, the first
involved former Weld County District Court Judge Ryan L. Kamada, who
the state Supreme Court censured in December
for obstructing a federal drug investigation and improperly disclosing
information about cases. In one instance, Kamada texted friends that a
woman in a divorce proceeding would be "free game tomorrow night." Last
month, a federal court sentenced Kamada to little over a year in prison for his interference in the drug operation.
In the other instance of public discipline, the commission reported
that it commenced formal proceedings against former Baca County Court
Judge Debra M. Gunkel in December. She had violated the terms of her
deferred sentence for impaired driving by picking up a second DUI
conviction.
The report revealed that the state Supreme Court
initially rejected a proposed resolution to Gunkel's disciplinary case,
without noting what the proposal entailed. But her case was not resolved
until May of this year, when the justices accepted her resignation and censured Gunkel.
There
were three instances of private discipline meted out to unnamed judges.
The commission reprimanded one judge and placed them into a counseling
program after the judge exhibited a "pattern of personal conduct with
staff in the close quarters of the courthouse [that] adversely affected
the work environment."
In another circumstance, a judge delayed
issuing a decision for nearly three years in a complex case that
involved a 19-day trial with 46 witnesses.
"The Commission
determined that the intensity and complexity of the litigation were the
primary cause of the delay, but that the judge, nonetheless, should have
resolved it more promptly," explained the disciplinary report.
Finally,
the commission twice reprimanded a judge for their "insensitivity in
using racial and ethnic terms" and problems handling administrative
tasks.
The commission dismissed two cases that did not amount to
provable violations, but nonetheless registered its concerns. The
commission encouraged one judge to seek the help of a retired senior
judge in managing their docket when, as in the case at hand, the judge
only was able to issue two orders in 20 months in a parental dispute.
Frequent legal motions, changes in court staff and the COVID-19 pandemic
were the sources of the delays.
Another judge received encouragement to better explain the nature of
their communications with a magistrate, after the father in another
parental dispute complained about improper discussion between the
district court judge and a magistrate who also happened to be a witness
on behalf of the mother.
In total, the commission received 199
requests for evaluation of judicial conduct in 2020. The executive
director ultimately dismissed 190 of those because they involved the
conduct of non-judges, did not reasonably relate to judicial misconduct
or had no provable violation.
"The disruption of the judicial
branch’s management of hearings and trials during the COVID-19 pandemic
prompted several complaints about delays and the occasional difficulties
in connecting with remote hearings by video and in managing the
proceedings," the report noted. "These situations were unavoidable and
did not involve judicial misconduct."
In 2019, there were 221 requests for evaluation,
of which the executive director dismissed 211. That year, discipline
included two public actions, two instances of private discipline and two
cases being dismissed while noting the concerns of the commission.
The
judicial discipline process, which by and large takes place out of the
public's eye, came under scrutiny earlier this year after The Gazette and The Denver Post reported
that the Judicial Department awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to a
former employee allegedly in exchange for her silence about instances
of misconduct within the judiciary. A committee of legislators and
executive branch officials is charged with selecting a firm to perform an independent investigation.
The
Commission on Judicial Discipline dates to 1967 and monitors the
judiciary's compliance with the canons of judicial ethics. Pursuant to
the state constitution, the process remains confidential until the
commission files a disciplinary recommendation to the Supreme Court at
the end of formal proceedings.
"A significant number of the
complaints made in the judicial discipline process are in fact
somebody's effort to call attention to a case that turned out in a way
they didn’t agree with. Those cases have to be winnowed out," former
Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis told Colorado Politics in February. She
added that a person might turn to human resources if they want a
judge's problematic behavior to stop, while the judicial discipline
process may be best reserved for "conduct that is reprehensible and which leads the complainant to want to see that person disciplined or taken off the bench."
In
addition to dismissing the charges and doling out public or private
reprimands, discipline could also include removing a judge from office,
suspension without pay, or measures "necessary to curtail or eliminate
the judge's misconduct."
Besides Gunkel, the only judge subject to
public censure during 2021 so far is former Arapahoe County District
Court Judge Natalie T. Chase, who offered her resignation in April
after admitting to using the N-word in front of court employees and
ordering her staff to perform her personal tasks at work, among other
incidents.
Topeka — A three-attorney panel unanimously recommended the Kansas
Supreme Court disbar an attorney for knowingly making false statements
to juries during two high-profile trials and for misleading claims about
her prosecutorial misconduct to justices of the state’s highest court.
Jacqie Spradling, who more recently worked as an attorney in Bourbon
and Allen counties, landed before the disciplinary panel after the
Supreme Court overturned the 2012 double-homicide conviction of Dana
Chandler in Shawnee County and the Kansas Court of Appeals overturned a
2017 guilty verdict against Jacob Ewing in a sex-crime case in Jackson
County. Spradling was lead prosecutor in both cases.
Chandler is awaiting retrial on first-degree murder charges, and Ewing accepted a plea deal in May to avoid another trial.
“Based on the deliberative pattern of serious misconduct and the
serious injury that followed, the hearing panel unanimously recommends
that the respondent be disbarred,” the report submitted to the Supreme
Court said. “From all the evidence presented, it appears that the
respondent concluded that Chandler and Ewing were guilty of the crimes
charged and she adopted a ‘win-at-all-costs’ approach.”
The report obtained Friday by Kansas Reflector was submitted by
panelists John Larson, Darcy Williamson and William Jeter for
consideration by the Supreme Court. The panel said the issue wasn’t that
Spradling engaged in an isolated incident or made an inconsequential
mistake in the heat of trial. The panel said the Iola resident
“knowingly and intentionally” engaged in a “deliberative pattern of
serious misconduct.”
In addition, the panel determined Spradling’s handling of the two
criminal cases “undermines the confidence in the judicial system and
caused serious injury to the administration of justice.”
Members of the Supreme Court, who hold final authority in
disciplinary cases involving attorneys, will issue a decision based on
the panel’s 78-page report.
The state disciplinary administrator’s office in Kansas that
investigated complaints about Spradling’s behavior as a prosecutor
proposed that her license to practice law be indefinitely suspended.
Spradling, however, told the disciplinary panel that she shouldn’t be
disciplined at all.
Spradling had been dismissive of allegations of wrongdoing until she
testified at the disciplinary panel hearing in December. During that
under-oath appearance, she conceded to having “failed in these cases” to
uphold the ethical duties of a prosecutor. She begged the hearing panel
to accept her assertion that her work as an officer of the court was
defined by a “protectiveness, a loyalty and a belief in justice.”
“When these cases were overturned, it was very difficult because I
had let the system down. I had let the victims down and I had denied the
defendants a fair trial,” Spradling said.
As of Friday, Spradling was employed as the Bourbon County attorney
in Fort Scott. Allen County attorney Jerry Hathaway said Spradling
resigned from her position Friday as assistant county attorney for Allen
County.
“With regard to the recommendation of the disciplinary panel, I was disappointed,” Hathaway said.
The Supreme Court laid the foundation for advancement of a
disciplinary case against Spradling in 2018 when the justices overturned
Chandler’s convictions in the Topeka slayings of Mike Sisco, Chandler’s
ex-husband, and his fiancee, Karen Harkness. The Supreme Court said
Spradling’s conduct in the Chandler case illustrated how a compulsion
for courthouse victories could subvert a prosecutor’s duty to guarantee a
person’s fair-trial rights.
Supreme Court Justice Dan Biles summed up Spradling’s tactics in the
Chandler trial: “Taken as a whole, this prosecution unfortunately
illustrates how a desire to win can eclipse the state’s responsibility
to safeguard the fundamental constitutional right to a fair trial owed
to any defendant facing criminal prosecution in a Kansas courtroom.”
During the Chandler trial in Shawnee County District Court, Spradling
falsely told the jury a protection from abuse order was issued against
Chandler prior to the 2002 slaying of Sisco and Harkness. There is
evidence Sisco requested a mutual temporary restraining order four years
before his death while going through the divorce from Chandler.
When Chandler appealed her case, Spradling told Supreme Court
justices in a written brief that she believed the more rigorous
protection from abuse order had been put in place by a district court.
That’s what she had told the Chandler jury and repeated to state
disciplinary investigators despite an inability to produce evidence a
judge had ever issued that type of restraining order against Chandler.
Spradling testified to the three-person disciplinary panel that she
never possessed documentary proof of the protection from abuse order.
She said filing of the disciplinary case led her to conduct a fresh
attempt to locate such a document. That search was unsuccessful, she
said.
“I was wrong. Dead wrong,” Spradling told the panel. “So, for a
person who wants to be right, strives to be right, being wrong is
embarrassing, humbling.”
The disciplinary panel responded to her confession in its report: “In
addition to the false statement made to the jury and to the Supreme
Court, during the respondent’s sworn statement made during the
disciplinary investigation, she also made false statements. During the
disciplinary hearing, the respondent admitted that her sworn statement
included misstatements. The hearing panel concludes that the respondent
took an oath to tell the truth when she gave the sworn statement and she
failed to do so.”
Spradling’s reputation as an experienced prosecutor of complex crimes
in Johnson and Shawnee counties led officials in Jackson County to hire
her as a special prosecutor in the Ewing case. It was a case made
difficult because the alleged crimes occurred in a small community and
turned on the jury’s conclusions of the credibility of female witnesses.
Spradling convinced a jury in Jackson County that Ewing was guilty of
rape, aggravated criminal sodomy and battery. The Holton man was
sentenced to 27 years in prison.
In 2019, the Court of Appeals concluded Spradling made a half-dozen
errors during the Ewing trial and had offered unsubstantiated claims to
the Ewing jury during closing arguments. The case was remanded to
Jackson County District Court. Rather than go through a retrial, Ewing
agreed in May to a plea deal that would trigger a 10-year sentence for
sexual assault.
Grace Pryor and Stepp family react to District Attorney's removal
The voice of victims has been heard.
District Attorney Greg Newman has been removed from office in only the third case of its kind in North Carolina history.
Superior
Court Judge Robert C. Ervin issued his order April 27, permanently
removing the top criminal prosecutor for Henderson, Polk and
Transylvania counties from his elected office, finding Newman engaged in
“willful misconduct in office” and “conduct prejudicial to the
administration of justice which brings the office into disrepute,” under
N.C. General Statute 7A-66.
The decision was made nearly two weeks after a three-day removal hearing April 12-14 in Henderson County Superior Court.
"Finally,
justice was served," said Grace Pryor, one of the so-called "Newman
victims," who claims she was sexually assaulted while a student at
Brevard College and Newman refused to prosecute the two men. He instead
blamed her for what she was wearing, she claimed.
"We were put first today, and I think that's the
most important part. Victims just want to be put first and we want to be
heard," she said.
Under the law, Newman was
required to vacate his office immediately April 27, and his $137,000
salary is now ceased. Gov. Roy Cooper is tasked with appointing an
acting district attorney until the next election in November 2022.
The
term “willful misconduct in office” has been defined as “the improper
or wrongful use of the power of his office by a judge acting
intentionally, or with gross unconcern for his conduct, and generally in
bad faith,” Ervin wrote in his 30-page order.
“Conduct
prejudicial to the administration of justice,” is defined as “conduct
which a judge undertakes in good faith but which nevertheless would
appear to an objective observer to be not only unjudicial conduct but
conduct prejudicial to public esteem for the judicial office,” Ervin
wrote in his order, citing multiple instances presented in the hearing
with which he agreed.
The rare removal process started when a grassroots group of families of
victims in cases of alleged child rape, murder and other serious crimes,
filed an affidavit Feb. 11 in Henderson County Superior Court under the
little-known state law G.S. 7A-66.
It sought to have Newman removed from office due
to his alleged pattern of “chronic and unrepentant misconduct,” claiming
he mishandled cases and failed to prosecute felonies.
“Mr.
Newman is proud of the fact he has been able to serve the people of
Henderson, Polk and Transylvania counties since 2013. His office has
done great things while he has served as the elected DA,” David
Freedman, one of Newman’s defense attorneys, said April 27.
When
asked if Newman had anything to say regarding Ervin’s finding in the
30-page decision, Freedman said, “Mr. Newman has always had great
respect for the judicial system of North Carolina.”
Those who started the petition to remove Newman from office feel otherwise.
Peggy
McDowell filed the G.S. 7A-66 affidavit without a lawyer, but she was
supported by more than a dozen families who said they were seeking
justice on their own because Newman had been acting out of self-interest
rather than in the best interest of the public.
One
was her daughter, Joanne McDowell, a former UNC law student, who now
lives in Canada. Joanne McDowell claimed she had to flee the country to
protect her child from sexual abuse by his father and four years later
was charged by Newman with felony child abduction, which she calls a
“vindictive charge.”
“Newman's expulsion proves
that endemic corruption plagues North Carolina's legal system,"
McDowell said. "For years, Newman's victims begged for relief from the
N.C. Attorney General, N.C. State Bar, and N.C. Court of Appeals, but
these institutions repeatedly protected the wrong people. Now that
ongoing harm has been established, N.C. must assist Newman's victims and
investigate systemic corruption.”
Valerie
Owenby, now 22 and living out of state, also supported the removal
petition and was a witness at the hearing. She claims she had been raped
from ages 5-12 by a Hendersonville neighbor, James Sapp, but Newman
pleaded down the felony to a misdemeanor in 2015 without notifying her
or her parents and without letting her face the accused in court.
Valerie Owenby
Owenby filed a complaint with the state bar over
Newman’s misconduct. The state bar’s Disciplinary Hearing Committee on
Jan. 4, 2021, found he had lied to a judge, lied to a victim, violated
the N.C. Crime Victims’ Rights Act and the Rules of Professional
Conduct, handing him a three-year suspension of his law license, which
was stayed.
That disciplinary order became a central pillar in the removal hearing, along with two other incidents of misconduct.
In a brief text April 27, Owenby wrote the Citizen Times, “I’m overwhelmed by how happy I am right now.”
“The
justice system worked. The court carefully evaluated the evidence. And
at the end of the day Mr. Newman's conduct warranted removal from
office,” said James Cooney III, a Charlotte attorney, who with Isaac
“Ike” Northup of Asheville, was appointed by Ervin to present evidence
as independent counselors in the removal hearing.
“So
while it was a good day for the justice system, it is tempered by the
fact that there was conduct that led us to this point,” Cooney said.
How the removal happened
The
rare removal hearing was neither a civil lawsuit nor a criminal
inquiry, but rather an inquiry. While Newman hired defense attorneys
Freedman and Stuart Brooks, Cooney and Northup did not volunteer and
were not paid for their services, Cooney said.
“We
have no dog in this fight,” Cooney told the courtroom in his closing
arguments April 14 in response to claims by Newman that the hearing was
politically motivated. “This is not being driven by politics of any
kind. This is being driven by our duty to the law. That is the only
thing that any one of us is concerned about.”
Independent counsel James Cooney speaks during opening statement - Newman removal
He
reiterated that any citizen has the ability to call for the removal of a
district attorney outside of an election under certain conditions,
including “willful misconduct in office.”
The
list supporting the removal process included a wide range of “victims.”
Donna Few, of Transylvania County, claimed Newman withheld evidence and
did not conduct a proper investigation into the killing of her son, Hank
Few, in 2012. Kim Shepherd, of Hendersonville, claimed Newman refused
to convene a grand jury in the shooting death of her brother, James
Stepp III, in 2019.
Newman, 59, a Hendersonville native and UNC
Asheville graduate, had worked in private practice in Hendersonville and
also served as mayor before he was appointed in 2013 by then Republican
Gov. Pat McCrory to serve as district attorney for prosecutorial
district 42. Newman was elected uncontested in 2014 and again in 2018.
“Now
that ongoing harm has been established, NC must assist Newman's victims
and investigate systemic corruption," McDowell said via email.
How rare is it to remove a DA in N.C.?
The hearing was unusual in that only two district attorneys had been removed in this process before.
In
1995, District Attorney Jerry Spivey, a white man, was removed from
office in Wilmington after several petitions under G.S. 7A-66 were
brought against him for using a racial slur against a Black man while
drinking at a bar one night.
In 2012, Durham County District Attorney Tracy Cline was removed under the statute for making false statements against a judge.
Cline’s
predecessor, Mike Nifong, was disbarred in 2007 after the N.C. State
Bar found him guilty of multiple ethics violations in his handling of
the notorious Duke lacrosse investigation, and then he resigned as
district attorney.
By state law, the DA removal
process must move quickly. The affidavit to remove Newman was referred
out of Henderson County Superior Court by Judge Peter Knight, to Judge
Ervin of Morganton.
According to his March 17
order, Ervin found probable cause for a public hearing to proceed on the
grounds of “willful misconduct in office,” and “conduct prejudicial to
the administration of justice, which brings the office into disrepute.”
The three-day hearing April 12-15 centered on
disciplinary actions against Newman, in which Ervin found “probable
cause for believing that charges allege in the state bar proceedings may
be true,” including:
A
Jan. 4, 2021 State Bar Disciplinary Hearing Committee’s three-year
stayed suspension of Newman’s law license for lying to a judge and
violating the N.C. Crime Victims’ Rights Act and the Rules of
Professional Conduct in Owenby’s 2015 child rape case.
A
reprimand, or written warning, entered against Newman on May 4, 2019 by
the State Bar’s Grievance Committee for being found in conflict of
interest when he struck the guilty plea of drug charges against a person
known as “C.B.,” someone Newman had represented previously when as a
private defense attorney.
A case
involving “vindictive prosecution” that is now pending before the state
Supreme Court. This case involved Leonard Schalow, who was charged in
2014 with the attempted voluntary manslaughter of his wife. It was
declared a mistrial due to a technicality and Newman brought a new
charge of attempted first-degree murder, under which Schalow was
convicted, but it was overturned on double jeopardy violations by the
N.C. Court of Appeals. The court called Newman’s actions “prosecutorial
vindictiveness.” Schalow has been in jail since 2014 as he awaits his
latest trial.
Those who signed on to the
affidavit in part cited disciplinary actions against Newman by the N.C.
State Bar as the basis for the need to remove him. These include the
state bar’s disciplinary actions.
Defense attorney Stuart Brooks listens to testimony from district attorney Greg Newman
In
their closing arguments, defense attorneys David Freedman and Stuart
Brooks argued that the misconduct cited at the hearing, mainly from past
disciplinary actions found by the state bar, don't rise to the level of
"willful misconduct," that Newman's office is not in disrepute, and
even if it were, the disrepute is not the result of that misconduct as
the statute necessitates.
Citing the Spivey removal case in which that DA
used a racial slur, Brooks said that was a clear case where the conduct
resulted in the prosecutor losing the faith of the public and was
clearly “prejudicial to the administration of justice.”
But
in Newman's case, Stuart said, “there’s no evidence that the citizens
of this county have lost the trust, confidence and respect of Mr.
Newman.”
Brooks said, too, that the underlying
facts were public record and members of the public or any political
opponent could have uncovered them.
District Attorney Greg Newman and his wife, Kim, following the third day of Newman removal
But
in his closing comments, independent counsel James Cooney III pointed
out several facts that weren’t public knowledge at the time of the 2018
election, including the reprimand from the state bar and the conflict of
interest that have been focuses of the case.
Cooney
also said that after the court heard Newman admit in the first day of
the removal hearing that he admitted to willful misconduct, the hearing
could have concluded.
“We have undisputed
facts,” Cooney said of the State Bar’s Disciplinary Hearing Committee
order issued in January against Newman regarding his false statements in
the Valerie Owenby case.
“Defendant's
statement that Valerie Owenby had been advised of the plea and did not
want to be heard, was false,” Cooney said, citing paragraph No. 37 of
the DHC order.
The next paragraph states: “Defendant knew his statement to the court was false.”
“Not
should have known, not made a mistake, not was negligent. He knew it
was false,” Cooney said, adding that the order states that Newman did
not correct his error, and lied about it again in his May 2017 response
to the state bar’s letter of notice.
“What is
also undisputed is this – Mr. Newman admitted from the witness stand on
cross-examination that if he made a false statement to the state bar,
knowing it was false, that's willful misconduct. He said that to Mr.
Northup directly. It surprised me, but that's what he said.
“The bar has found that as a fact. He has admitted that constitutes willful misconduct. You can stop right there.”
In
his April 27 order, Ervin wrote that “the district attorney’s office
shall notify the victim of the date, time, and place of all trial court
proceedings of the type that the victim has elected to receive notice,”
according to state law.
The state bar’s DHC found Newman did not do that,
nor did he allow Owenby the opportunity to consult with the prosecuting
attorney to give her views about dismissal, plea or negotiations or
sentencing; in short, she was not allowed to have her voice heard.
Ervin
further cited comments from Angelica Wind, executive director of Our
VOICE, a rape crisis prevention center in Buncombe County, who testified
at the hearing about the importance of the victim’s role in cases
involving alleged sexual offenses.
Angelica Wind, executive director of Our Voice, testifies during second day Newman removal
“Wind
opined that it was important for victims to feel involved in the
process … part of a victim’s sense of obtaining justice is having their
day in court and being able to speak,” and that this opportunity
“involves having some recognition that a harm was done to the victim and
letting the offender know what he has done to the victim … this is
important to the victim’s perception of the administration of justice.”
But
Cooney went on to give a timeline of the cases in which Newman
undertook acts of willful misconduct, which only became public after the
2018 election so that the public would not have known about them before
casting their votes.
He also admonished Newman
for victim-shaming a witness the previous day who had testified that
Newman did not bring charges against two men she claimed raped her while
she was a sophomore at Brevard College, telling her because she was
wearing a crop top and was not a virgin that she wouldn’t be believed.
“What
(Newman) said about her yesterday before the court was essentially it
was her fault. She had made choices in her life. She had put herself
into positions where men could take advantage of her. She had done
things that led to this, and she needed to change her life,” Cooney said
at the hearing.
“What about the men? Why not
make a statement about the men that it is not acceptable, simply because
a woman has sex with someone on your team to assume that you can have
sex with her anytime you want?” Cooney said, angrily pointing at Newman.
Cooney
also said on opening day of the hearing that Newman “mischaracterized”
the state bar DHC decision that found Newman had lied in the 2015 child
rape case – and also found he showed no remorse – by citing a Nov. 25
Citizen Times article in which Newman showed further unrepentance by
saying, “I think the panel really doesn’t believe I lied to the court.”
Shea
Denning, professor of public law and government for the UNC School of
Government and director of the N.C. Judicial College, said while removal
of a district attorney under G.S. 7A-66 is unusual, DAs do leave office
midterm more frequently to retire or move on to other positions.
In
any of those cases, she said, the governor will appoint an acting
district attorney until the next election in 2022. The office will
continue to be staffed by that appointee and the assistant DAs. Denning
said there is no timeframe listed in state statute on when the governor
must appoint an acting DA.
Where does this leave those who claim their cases were not properly handled by Newman and his office?
Shea Denning
“There are some instances in which prosecutions
could be pursued that were not previously pursued that may not be
possible,” Denning said.
“And there may be
instances where it may not be possible because there is a legal barrier
or a practical barrier. The legal barrier could arise from principles
like double jeopardy. And that might occur even if the case was not
resolved by an acquittal in a previous trial.
“The
practical barriers are the things, for example, the inability to
present the evidence, the lack of witnesses or the lack of physical
evidence, all of the practical things that you can think of would make
it more difficult to prosecute a case years after it occurred,” she
said.
Denning also said that Newman's removal does not preclude him for running for another elected office or from practicing law.
