Opinion ID: 2499764
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Petitioner's Custody in the Department of Corrections

Text: Petitioner was soon transferred from the Denver County Jail to Sterling Correctional Facility, where he was housed in a minimum security area from December 2005 through February 2008. He was assigned a forty-hour-a-week job teaching inmates who were studying for GED tests, and he volunteered one or two nights a week as a reading and writing tutor for inmates who were not proficient in English. On weekends, he assisted other inmates with their studies. Petitioner also regularly attended Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings. During Petitioner's time at Sterling, his lawyer settled a suit brought against Petitioner by Mansfield's family for $1,000.000.00, [13] which subsumed a restitution order of $20,866.20 in Petitioner's criminal case. [14] Also around this time, the Colorado Supreme Court immediately suspended Respondent from the practice of law. The People then initiated the disciplinary case underlying this matter. After the PDJ granted the People's motion for judgment on the pleadings, a hearing board suspended Petitioner from the practice of law for two years, effective August 10, 2007. Petitioner appealed the sanction and sued for malpractice against the attorney who represented him in his disciplinary proceeding; as he explained, he believed he was required to appeal his disciplinary case if his professional negligence suit were to go forward. The case against his former counsel was ultimately dismissed. In February 2008, Petitioner's application for placement in community corrections was denied, so he volunteered for transfer to the Cheyenne Mountain Reentry Center on the advice of his caseworker. On arrival, Petitioner found the facility chaotic and dangerous; he inured himself to these conditions by volunteering to work in the law library and attending AA and Narcotics Anonymous meetings almost every night. [15] As he recalled, the meetings represented a refuge and an escape from the chaos of the center, but he also hoped the parole board would look at his attendance at these meetings as an indication that he was committed to change. Following his transfer to Cheyenne Mountain Reentry Center, Petitioner initiated a lawsuit against Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) based on a letter MADD had submitted to the PDJ in Petitioner's disciplinary matter. [16] That suit, too, was dismissed, and Petitioner was ordered to pay MADD's attorney's fees and costs. [17] Following negotiation, MADD agreed to assume a portion of those fees. Emily Tompkins, current MADD State Executive Director, testified that Petitioner's lawsuit had a significant financial and emotional impact on MADD: the several-thousand dollars MADD spent in defending against Petitioner's claims would have gone a long way to advance that organization's mission, and the lawsuit caused volunteers to fear they might be subjected to legal action for going about their daily business of serving victims of drunk driving. Petitioner was transferred in August 2008 to the Cañon Minimum Centers' Skyline Camp in Cañon City, where he held the position of inmate representative. [18] Petitioner testified that he volunteered in the library at Skyline and taught life skills to other inmates at the facility. On August 20, 2010, Petitioner was released from incarceration and assigned as a resident-inmate to Arapahoe County Community Corrections. Almost immediately, he began work during the week at an architectural firm owned by a family member, spending time on the weekends reconnecting with his family and performing upkeep on their investment properties. In the fall of 2010, Petitioner attended, at the recommendation of his caseworker, a drunk driving impact panel sponsored by MADD, [19] a responsible driving seminar, [20] and a series of relapse prevention classes. [21] Also around that time, he again began attending weekly one-hour CLHL meetings, [22] where he now shares [his] story and tries, in a non-judgmental way, to help other attorneys who face difficult circumstances. Since August 2010, Petitioner has regularly submitted to random drug screens and urinalysis monitoring tests, none of which have yielded a positive result. [23] Petitioner was discharged from community corrections on intensive supervised probation in March 2011. Since then, he has found employment as a paralegal with several lawyers, including R.J. Driscoll (Driscoll) and his attorney in this matter, David C. Japha. He has continued to look after his family's investment properties during evenings and weekends and to perform maintenance on his own home in anticipation of selling it. Petitioner also attests that he has signed up to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, although he has not yet begun to work for that organization. On November 30, 2011, Petitioner's sentence to confinement was discharged, he was released from custody of the Department of Corrections, and he began serving his mandatory parole sentence.