Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Thursday, December 28, 2006 8:49:13 PM
Once again, SX has made my job easy by providing in a comment another personal horror story about the Colorado Office of Attorney Regulation. He commented on my essay "We don't see an ethics violation." I have taken the liberty of correcting his link, so his second comment on the same post can be ignored. I have also made bold some of his more important comments.
I have changed my policy about naming names. I used to shy away from naming public officials out of courtesy. I have come to the conclusion this courtesy is misplaced-that public officials do not feel a need to change their policies unless they come to realize that they can be subject to criticism by name. When they and their friends do a google search of their names, they ought to feel uncomfortable about finding their names associated with a description of a willful failure to do their jobs. Perhaps we can get SX to provide the names of the two DA's who wouldn't take action.I've been asking the Office of Attorney Regulation counsel for the past six years to hold Denver attorney, Madeline Wilson, accountable for her ongoing conduct of attempting to influence a public servant, false reporting and perjury. I decline to reproduce specific facts here, because there are simply too many, space and time is too limited and, frankly, they would likely be boring to readers.
Over the last couple of years, I have also asked the Jefferson and Denver County D.A.'s to prosecute criminal charges, the same kind of perjury and other charges that are pursued against ordinary citizens, like Sandford Schupper (see People v. Schupper, http://www.courts.state.co.us/coa/opinion/2006/2006q2/04CA1224.pdf
First, I encountered the usual, "Your claims appear to arise from a contested divorce proceeding." I hear that often in my case and others. Apparently, the Rules of Professional Conduct, the Rules of Civil Procedure and even the criminal statutes are suspended in divorce proceedings because --after all-- everyone knows these types of cases are adversarial, where perjury is commonplace, and "matrimonial law" is considered the b*stard step-child of law (or so say law professors).
Second, I encountered another typical form of government bureaucracy, which is to defer responsibility (sometimes mischaracterized as "jurisdiction") to another agency. As often happens, as in this case, the finger-pointing results in circular reasoning and, which gives rise to a reasonable inference of lawyers protecting lawyers, a theme-of-interest discussed in this BlawG:
The D.A. explained to me that the decision not to prosecute Ms. Wilson was based, in part, because the "Colorado Attorney Regulation has declined to investigate Ms. Wilson and [therefore] many of your allegations are not within my jurisdiction."
"What a curious anomaly!" I thought, because Louise Culberson-Smith (Assistant Regulation Counsel responsible for the intake call-center methodology used to rid of complaints) reminded me recently that, "this office does not conduct criminal investigations or handle criminal prosecutions. That function lies with local law enforcement such as . . . the district attorney. If you believe Ms. Wilson engaged in criminal conduct, you may report your allegations to those authorities. If Ms. Wilson is subsequently convicted of , or pleads guilty to, a criminal violation, you may report such conviction to our office for disciplinary review. Otherwise, we are unable to prosecute the criminal charges you propose.” In another memorandum, she wrote, "I have repeatedly offered to reconsider this aspect of your complaint if you provide evidence of a court's decision or finding against Ms. Wilson." In yet another memorandum, she wrote, ". . .you may request reconsideration of this issue by providing us a copy of the court's decision against Ms. Wilson."
Of course, because the D.A. declines to prosecute these charges against an attorney (in part, because the OARC has declined to investigate) and because the civil court is disinclined to entertain claims against an attorney (irrespective of the case law, as applied to the facts of this case), there never could be any "judicial findings" of either a civil or criminal nature. Hence, there never will be a disciplinary investigation of Wilson, regardless of what facts I allege and regardless of what Rule 251.9 requires of the OARC (I note that, unlike criminal prosecutors, who are not required to prosecute every crime, the OARC "shall" (which means 'must') conduct an investigation and has no discretion to dismiss any allegation, that, "if proved," constitutes a Rule violation. The Rule does not say, "except those that regulation counsel deems minor.")
This story is just one more example of, as SX says in the subject line, lawyers protecting lawyers. I hasten to add that no one protects the public. CMBD.