Case Title: Disciplinary Counsel v. Howard

Citation: 2009-Ohio-4173

Docket Number: 20090407

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2009-08-25T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as Disciplinary Counsel v. Howard, 123 Ohio St.3d 97, 2009-Ohio-4173.] 
 
 
DISCIPLINARY COUNSEL v. HOWARD. 
[Cite as Disciplinary Counsel v. Howard, 123 Ohio St.3d 97, 2009-Ohio-4173.] 
Attorneys at law — Misconduct — Felony convictions — Two-year suspension 
with conditions for reinstatement. 
(No. 2009-0407 — Submitted April 8, 2009 — Decided August 25, 2009.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline of the Supreme Court, No. 08-012. 
__________________ 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Respondent, Lee Howard of Dayton, Ohio, Attorney Registration 
No. 0026930, was admitted to the practice of law in Ohio in 1977.  On August 30, 
2007, we suspended respondent from practice on an interim basis pursuant to 
Gov.Bar R. V(5)(A)(4) upon receiving notice that he had been convicted of a 
felony.  In re Howard, 114 Ohio St.3d 1515, 2007-Ohio-4425, 872 N.E.2d 955. 
{¶ 2} The Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline now 
recommends that we suspend respondent’s license to practice for two years, order 
conditions for his readmission including a mental-health evaluation, and afford 
credit for the interim suspension of his license.  The board made this 
recommendation based on findings that respondent had been convicted of two 
felonies, both stemming from his part in a standoff with police.  We accept the 
board’s findings that respondent committed professional misconduct and its 
recommendation for a two-year suspension with conditions for readmission. 
{¶ 3} Relator, Disciplinary Counsel, charged respondent with violations 
of two Disciplinary Rules of the former Code of Professional Responsibility: DR 
1-102(A)(3) (prohibiting a lawyer from engaging in illegal conduct involving 
moral turpitude) and 1-102(A)(6) (prohibiting a lawyer from engaging in conduct 
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that adversely reflects on the lawyer’s fitness to practice law).  A panel of the 
board heard the case, made findings of fact and conclusions of law, and 
recommended an indefinite suspension with attendant conditions for respondent 
to petition for reinstatement and with credit for the interim licensure suspension.  
The board adopted the panel’s findings of misconduct, but “based on all the 
circumstances surrounding his arrest and conviction,” recommended the two-year 
suspension of his license with credit for the interim suspension and conditions for 
readmission. 
{¶ 4} Neither party has objected to the board’s report. 
Misconduct 
{¶ 5} Respondent pleaded guilty in April 2007 to assault with a deadly 
weapon in violation of R.C. 2903.11(A), a felony of the second degree, and to 
inducing panic in violation of R.C. 2917.31(A), a felony of the fifth degree.  The 
convictions followed from incidents beginning on the night of January 19, 2007, 
when a Dayton police officer entered the back yard of respondent’s former East 
Hudson Avenue residence to investigate what the officer thought could be a stolen 
vehicle.  The officer’s investigation and respondent’s reaction led to a standoff 
lasting several hours. 
{¶ 6} The officer, who had been dispatched in uniform and in a marked 
cruiser to identify and recover a stolen car from an address near respondent’s 
house, found the car in an alley around 11:00 p.m.  While waiting for a tow truck 
in that high-crime neighborhood, the officer saw another car parked, apparently in 
the grass, almost touching the back of a house that was completely unlit.  
Suspecting that that car might too be stolen, the officer fixed his searchlight on 
the back of the house and got out of his cruiser to take down the license plate 
number and run a check on the vehicle. 
{¶ 7} In the meantime, respondent awoke inside his home to the 
searchlight shining in a first-floor window.  Looking out, he testified, he did not 
January Term, 2009 
3 
 
see the officer because of the searchlight shining in his face.  Respondent opened 
the window and discharged a firearm, intending, he testified, only to frighten 
whoever was in his yard.  The officer, who never identified himself as the police, 
called out, shouting, “Hey Buddy, did you throw something or shoot something at 
me?”  The officer heard nothing but a low “growl” in response. 
{¶ 8} The officer then circled the house, and upon returning to the back 
yard, saw someone at the open window.  The officer shined his flashlight in the 
window and demanded, “Now are you going to talk to me now or what?”  At that 
moment, the officer saw a “white arm” reach out with a black handgun.  Saying 
nothing, respondent fired a shot and quickly closed the window. 
{¶ 9} The situation then escalated.  The officer called for backup, and 
more officers arrived to secure the area, blocking traffic and warning neighbors to 
remain indoors.  Officers attempted to communicate with respondent by telephone 
and bullhorn, but to no effect.  The bullhorn was respondent’s first indication that 
the person who had been in his back yard was a police officer. 
{¶ 10} Officers also called in a SWAT team, members of which 
discovered a bullet hole in the rear passenger door of the first officer’s cruiser.  A 
standoff lasting several hours ensued, with respondent refusing to answer the 
telephone.  When he finally did answer his telephone, he spoke for about an hour 
with a hostage negotiator and, according to his testimony, fully realized only then 
that the police were on the premises.  Respondent refused to leave his house, 
despite all demands and assurances.  The situation finally ended with the SWAT 
officers firing tear gas, which forced respondent out of the house and led to his 
apprehension. 
{¶ 11} At his April 2007 sentencing, the Montgomery County Court of 
Common Pleas placed respondent under five years of intensive community 
supervision, requiring him to (1) undergo “crisis care” assessment and comply 
with all recommended treatment, (2) attend a “Victim Impact Panel/Victim of 
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Violence” program, (3) obtain verifiable full-time employment, (4) move from his 
East Hudson Avenue address, and (5) pay all court costs, a supervision fee of $50, 
and restitution of $6,198.95.  The court also ordered the destruction of the 
handgun and six hunting guns found during a search of respondent’s residence. 
{¶ 12} But because of respondent’s good behavior, the court modified the 
terms of his sentence.  In May 2008, respondent’s intensive community 
supervision was reduced to basic probation.  And in September of that year, the 
court reduced the sanction again to “monitored time supervision.” 
{¶ 13} Respondent did not appeal his convictions and at the panel hearing 
did not dispute the charges of misconduct.  The panel and board thus found 
respondent in violation of DR l-102(A)(3) and (6).  We accept these findings of 
misconduct. 
Sanction 
{¶ 14} In recommending a sanction, the panel and board weighed the 
aggravating and mitigating factors listed in BCGD Proc.Reg. 10(B)(1) and (2) and 
compared sanctions imposed in similar cases. 
{¶ 15} The panel and board weighed in respondent’s favor that he had 
practiced nearly 30 years with no prior discipline.  See BCGD Proc.Reg. 
10(B)(2)(a).  Respondent had also cooperated during the disciplinary proceedings, 
acknowledging his criminal conduct and convictions.  See BCGD Proc.Reg. 
10(B)(2)(d).  Moreover, because respondent was in the process of paying the price 
for his crimes, the panel and board found mitigating the imposition of other fines 
and penalties.  See BCGD Proc.Reg. 10(B)(2)(f).  In addition, the panel and board 
accepted letters in support of respondent’s character and reputation that his family 
and a retired Dayton police sergeant had written for the presentence investigation. 
{¶ 16} But because respondent had “twice shot a loaded handgun at a 
uniformed police officer at close range,” the panel and board found the 
aggravating features overwhelming.  Both noted from respondent’s testimony that 
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5 
 
“he had been awakened out of a deep sleep by a bright light shining into the 
window of his totally darkened house at approximately 11:00 p.m.” and that 
because his car had recently been stolen twice, “he believed [that the officer] was 
a criminal trespasser attempting to steal his auto.”  The panel and board also 
acknowledged that “a seven-year police street officer had failed to get control of a 
situation which he had ‘caused’ by accessing private property where a car was 
legally parked” without first properly identifying himself.  The panel and board 
nevertheless held respondent principally accountable for the fact that a police 
officer’s attempt to investigate a crime against property had “quickly morphed 
into a physical threat to the officer’s own life and safety.”  Adopting the panel’s 
report, the board concluded: 
{¶ 17} “[T]here was no doubt * * * that Respondent had not only created 
a dangerous situation for a uniformed police officer; his behavior had also called 
into play a very dangerous situation for his neighborhood and for the Dayton 
Police Department.” 
{¶ 18} Though not considered a mitigating or aggravating factor, 
respondent’s explanation for his conduct during the standoff troubled the panel 
and board.  When asked why he had not come out of his house in response to 
officer’s requests and demands, respondent testified: “I was afraid for my safety.  
They had been doing things to, in my opinion, lure me outside” and “it seemed 
like I was under attack by terrorists or something.”  Respondent said he had 
believed at the time that the police were trying to hurt or kill him, testifying: 
{¶ 19} “[I]n my opinion when they started flashing those amber lights on 
that SWAT vehicle in my backyard, they were trying to provoke me into firing 
another shot; and then it would have all been over.  The reason I didn’t go out was 
because I have heard of instances where police officers have beaten people, 
sometimes killed people; and I have also heard of situations where they never get 
punished for that.  They can get away with it.” 
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{¶ 20} Respondent did not offer proof of a mitigating mental disability 
under BCGD Proc.Reg. 10(B)(2)(g).  This testimony nevertheless raised concerns 
for the panel and board about his mental fitness at the time of the standoff and 
since that time.  Respondent implicitly acknowledged a possible problem himself, 
promising “wholeheartedly” to comply with any conditions of reinstatement that 
included a mental-health evaluation. 
{¶ 21} As for sanctions imposed in similar cases, the panel recommended 
respondent’s indefinite suspension from practice mainly on the authority of 
Disciplinary Counsel v. LoDico, 118 Ohio St.3d 316, 2008-Ohio-2465, 888 
N.E.2d 1097.  In that case, we indefinitely suspended a lawyer from practice, 
giving no credit for his interim suspension under Gov.Bar R. V(5)(A)(4), after he 
was convicted of one count of carrying a concealed weapon, a felony of the fourth 
degree, and six misdemeanor counts of aggravated menacing.  The convictions 
resulted from an incident in which the lawyer, after a night of heavy drinking, 
held six people in a bar parking lot at gunpoint, one after another, with a .45-
caliber pistol and laser sight.  And that was not the lawyer’s first disciplinary 
sanction.  Within the preceding three years, that lawyer had been suspended from 
practice for 18 months, albeit with a conditional stay of six months, for 
unprofessional, undignified, and discourteous conduct in separate incidents before 
two common pleas court judges. 
{¶ 22} Even the panel acknowledged, however, that respondent’s 
misconduct did not rise to the level of malfeasance in LoDico.  The board 
apparently seized on this distinction in modifying the recommendation for an 
indefinite suspension based “on all the circumstances surrounding his arrest and 
conviction.”  Implicitly, the board found extenuating the facts that respondent 
lived in a high-crime neighborhood, that his car had already been stolen twice, 
and that the investigating officer did not properly identify himself before he began 
a search of respondent’s property.  The respondent had also been frightened 
January Term, 2009 
7 
 
before by unidentified persons shining bright lights into his home.  These 
circumstances in no way excuse respondent’s criminal conduct; however, they do 
offer insight into why respondent endangered police officers, his neighbors, and 
himself on the night in question, an element not present in the LoDico case. 
{¶ 23} Another 
distinguishing 
feature 
is 
respondent’s 
previously 
unblemished professional record.  And here, unlike in LoDico, the sentencing 
court reduced conditions for respondent’s community control and probation, 
indicating that it has reassessed his threat to society.  Respondent’s willingness to 
obtain treatment for a possible mental disorder also weighs in his favor. 
{¶ 24} Thus, having accepted the board’s findings of misconduct, we also 
accept the recommendation for a two-year suspension.  Our decision allows 
respondent to forgo the full-freighted petition for reinstatement and hearing 
process that applies to indefinite suspensions under Gov.Bar R. V(10)(B) through 
(G).  We find this safeguard for the public’s protection unnecessary in this case, 
given the evidence of mitigation, respondent’s amenability to psychological 
assessment, and the unique circumstances of the underlying misconduct.  For the 
same reasons, we accept the recommendations to order a mental-health evaluation 
as a condition of respondent’s reapplication to practice under Gov.Bar R. 
V(10)(A) and to allow credit for his interim suspension. 
{¶ 25} Respondent is therefore suspended from the practice of law in 
Ohio for two years, with credit from August 30, 2007, for the interim suspension 
imposed in In re Howard, 114 Ohio St.3d 1515, 2007-Ohio-4425, 872 N.E.2d 
955.  As a condition for readmission to practice, respondent must prove to a 
reasonable degree of psychological certainty that he is able to return to the 
competent, ethical, and professional practice of law.  Costs are taxed to 
respondent. 
Judgment accordingly. 
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MOYER, C.J., and PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL, 
LANZINGER, and CUPP, JJ., concur. 
 
O’CONNOR, J., dissents and would indefinitely suspend respondent from 
the practice of law in Ohio. 
__________________ 
Jonathan E. Coughlan, Disciplinary Counsel, and Phillip A. King, for 
relator. 
Lee Howard, pro se. 
______________________