Opinion ID: 2550875
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Legal Arguments

Text: Respondent asserts that this proceeding somehow violates his First Amendment rights. He cites no fact or law to support this contention, except his allegation that the underlying ethical complaints made him unable to accept work representing other clients. Respondent's brief contains no coherent argument as to how his First Amendment rights were violated. His discussion on this issue centers on an alleged conflict of interest of Hazlett and the Disciplinary Administrator's office, as well as accusations against Judge Pierron, Paretsky, and Oldham. Respondent does cite to a Tenth Circuit case for the proposition that [i]t is public policy . . . everywhere to encourage the disclosure of criminal activity, Lachman v. Sperry-Sun Well Surveying Co., 457 F.2d 850, 853 (10th Cir. 1972); and he further states that the public policy interest is clearly in the respondent representing James Bolden and David Price lawfully to accomplish their goals. The Disciplinary Administrator suggests that Respondent intends to argue that he has a right to make the accusations contained in his pleadings against members of the judiciary, judicial staff members, opposing counsel, city officials, and others and that this right is guaranteed by the First Amendment. During the hearing, Respondent testified that he believed the First Amendment gave him immunity to make the claims he had made. In re Johnson, 240 Kan. 334, 729 P.2d 1175 (1986), was a contested case in which this court found a respondent should be disciplined for false, unsupported criticisms of and misleading statements about his opponent in a county attorney election campaign. In our discussion of the First Amendment in relation to attorney speech, we said: A lawyer, as a citizen, has a right to criticize a judge or other adjudicatory officer publicly. To exercise this right, the lawyer must be certain of the merit of the complaint, use appropriate language, and avoid petty criticisms. Unrestrained and intemperate statements against a judge or adjudicatory officer lessen public confidence in our legal system. Criticisms motivated by reasons other than a desire to improve the legal system are not justified. Johnson, 240 Kan. at 336. Likewise, in State v. Russell, 227 Kan. 897, 610 P.2d 1122, cert. denied 449 U.S. 983 (1980), a respondent made false statements while running for a position on the Board of Public Utilities, and the comments were not deemed to be protected speech. Upon admission to the bar of this state, attorneys assume certain duties as officers of the court. Among the duties imposed upon attorneys is the duty to maintain the respect due to the courts of justice and to judicial officers. A lawyer is bound by the Code of Professional Responsibility in every capacity in which the lawyer acts, whether he is acting as an attorney or not, and is subject to discipline even when involved in nonlegal matters, including campaigns for nonjudicial public office. State v. Russell, 227 Kan. 897, 610 P.2d 1122, cert. denied 449 U.S. 983 (1980). State v. Johnson, 240 Kan. at 337. The case at bar does not involve an attorney acting in nonlegal matters. It involves the conduct of an attorney acting in his professional capacity. In either situation, when a lawyer's unbridled speech amounts to misconduct that threatens a significant state interest, it is clear that a State may restrict the lawyer's exercise of personal rights guaranteed by the Constitutions. See N.A.A.C.P. v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 438, 9 L. Ed. 2d 405, 83 S. Ct. 328 (1963). Respondent has made and continues to make serious accusations against members of the judiciary, court staff, attorneys, municipal officers and employees, and others. The panel found that he failed to provide even one scintilla of proof of such wrongdoing, through exhibits, witnesses, or his own testimony. The panel further found that [i]t is patently obvious that the Respondent either failed to conduct any investigation whatsoever into the claims made by his client or that he personally invented the serious allegations of wrongdoing. Moreover, the panel found that Respondent had based many of these allegations on information provided to him by his client, Price. At the hearing, the presiding officer asked whether, after the passage of a couple of years, Respondent now believed that some of these statements were untrue. Respondent replied No, sir, I don't know of anything that is not true. Rather, he went on to reaffirm the accusations against the court employees, Judge Pierron, Vincent, and others. When asked about his allegation that now Justice Luckert backdated an entry of appearance in a previous case involving Price, Respondent admitted he was uncertain whether such an entry of appearance even existed. The First Amendment provides no defense for the inflammatory and false accusations that Respondent has repeatedly made in his pleadings and motions, and which he maintained orally in the panel hearing and in oral argument before this court.
Respondent argues eight violations of due process, asserting he was: (1) prevented from presenting a record; (2) barred from raising constitutional claims; (3) subjected to cumulative prosecutorial misconduct; (4) subjected to bad faith participation in [an] unlawful motive; (5) denied access to exculpatory evidence; (6) subjected to retaliation against his witnesses; (7) victimized by racial discrimination; and (8) selectively prosecuted. In reviewing a procedural due process claim the court must first determine whether a protected liberty or property interest is involved and, if so, the court must then determine the nature and extent of the process due. Winston v. Kansas Dept. of SRS, 274 Kan. 396, 409, 49 P.3d 1274 (2002). A due process violation can be established only if a claimant is able to establish that he or she was denied a specific procedural protection to which he or she was entitled. The question of the procedural protection that must accompany a deprivation of a particular property right or liberty interest is resolved by a balancing test, weighing (1) the individual interest at stake; (2) the risk of erroneous deprivation of the interest through the procedures used and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and (3) the State's interest in the procedures used, including the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedures would entail. Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335, 47 L. Ed. 2d 18, 96 S. Ct. 893 (1976). The question of what process is due in a given case is a question of law over which an appellate court has unlimited review. State v. Wilkinson, 269 Kan. 603, 608-09, 9 P.3d 1 (2000). The basic elements of procedural due process are notice and an opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner. Winston, 274 Kan. at 409. The United States Supreme Court has held that the Due Process Clause applies to lawyer disciplinary proceedings. That due process includes fair notice of the charges sufficient to inform and provide a meaningful opportunity for explanation and defense. In re Ruffalo, 390 U.S. 544, 20 L. Ed. 2d 117, 88 S. Ct. 1222, reh. denied 391 U.S. 961 (1968). Kansas has specifically adopted this holding. State v. Caenen, 235 Kan. 451, 458-59, 681 P.2d 639 (1984); see In re Daugherty, 277 Kan. 257, 261, 83 P.3d 789 (2004). To the extent that the substance of Respondent's arguments can be discerned, there is nothing in his brief or in his oral argument before this court that indicates his arguments regarding due process violations have any basis in fact. However, we briefly address each of his arguments below.
Respondent argues that he was prevented from presenting the record related to the charges against him and that [w]itnesses were prevented from making reference to documents answering the arguments of Stanton Hazlett's case on the tribunal's constantly repeated admonishments of the respondent not to question witnesses on issues that turned out to be the tribunal's report recommendation for disbarment. Neither Respondent's brief nor his oral argument have indicated which specific relevant records he was prevented from producing or exactly which issues or documents witnesses were admonished not to speak of. He may be referring to the panel's admonishment that he not attempt to relitigate the Baby C or Bolden claims. This was not a violation of due process, and this argument lacks merit.
Respondent argues he was barred from raising selective prosecution as a constitutional claim during the hearings. However, in no instance was Respondent barred from raising this or any constitutional claim. He did in fact raise constitutional claims in the proceeding before the panel and before this court. For example, he testified that the ethics violations he was charged with, arising from his accusations of criminal activity against various persons, infringed protected speech. He further testified that he was upholding the Constitution by his actions. He was not barred from so testifying at the disciplinary hearing, and he raised the claims again in his brief to this court and his argument before us. This argument lacks merit.
In support of this contention, Respondent references only the prosecutorial misconduct, discussed above. This court's recent decision in State v. Tosh, 278 Kan. 83, 91 P.3d 1204 (2004), provides a two-step analysis under which we analyze allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in criminal cases. This court need not reach the Tosh analysis here, however, because Respondent fails to complain of any specific instance of conduct, accusing the Disciplinary Administrator only of general vindictiveness. In truth, in view of Respondent's many wild unsupported allegations, in appears to us the Disciplinary Administrator has been extremely patient and professional throughout these proceedings. Respondent's argument on this point is incoherent and lacks merit.
This argument appears to refer again to Respondent's unsupported allegations against the Disciplinary Administrator, who, he states, is embroiled with other state and judicial employees in a common enterprise to kidnap Kansas babies through deception and coercion and sell the infants in an illicit commerce. He also argues that Judge Pierron, who joined in Paretsky's initial complaint regarding the Baby C case, had an undisclosed fiduciary interest that was directly affected financially by the resolution of the issues. These allegations are completely without factual basis, and the tandem argument is without merit.
Respondent argues that material affidavits and other exculpatory evidence contained as attachments from both complainants were omitted from the first and second ex parte probable cause hearings. Respondent does not indicate what exculpatory evidence might exist or have been withheld.
Respondent alleges specific instances in which witnesses he named to support him in this proceeding were retaliated against. Respondent states that a few days after he named Frank Williams as a witness in support of Stan Hazlett's pattern and practice, the State sought to seize [Mr. Williams'] stock in satisfaction of a long dormant judgment. Respondent also argues that [s]everal natural parents were prepared to testify against a number of attorneys involved in the alleged adoption/kidnapping conspiracy, but that the Disciplinary Administrator dismissed the complaints against the attorneys. At Respondent's request, the panel reviewed confidential records of possible disciplinary complaints against four attorneys representing adoptive parents in camera. The panel concluded that any complaints that existed were not relevant and that they would fail to establish a connection between those attorneys' treatment by the Disciplinary Administrator's office and any alleged conspiracy. Respondent also pointed to several affidavits alleging retaliation by Topeka city officials and Topeka police. The record is otherwise totally devoid of facts to support the argument that Respondent's due process rights were violated by retaliatory actions taken against his witnesses. The affidavits were submitted in connection with the Bolden Litigation. No connection is established between those affidavits and Respondent's due process rights in this hearing.
Respondent also argues the Equal Protection Clause precludes selective enforcement of the law based on race or ethnicity. He argues that he presented witnesses who testified that the proceedings were deliberately based on an arbitrary, illegal, or otherwise unjustifiable standards [ sic ]. Presumably Respondent is referring to his own testimony alleging that the basis for Judge O'Hara's ruling was Price's race, and to the testimony of Price, whose ideas largely formed Respondent's allegations. Judge O'Hara strenuously denied this charge of racial discrimination. Respondent also alleges that Paretsky singled his motions out because he was representing an African-American and further alleges that racial discrimination was the initial motivation for the disciplinary action against him. Paretsky categorically denied these allegations in his reply and again in his testimony at the disciplinary hearing; he singled out the motions because they resembled pro se complaints, and he was concerned the client might be injured by the representation. Respondent further alleges that he was charged for representing an African-American and an American Indian who were at all times treated differently than litigants who were members of a majority race. Several witnesses, including Oldham, Paretsky, and Barnes, testified that the plaintiffs in Respondent's cases were treated no differently than other litigants. Respondent makes several other accusations that are unsupported by the record. At oral argument before this court he persevered in his allegations against Judge O'Hara, Paretsky, and others with no apparent ability or willingness to support those allegations with facts. In essence, he evidently resorted to such allegations whenever challenged. His beliefs  or, more likely, excuses for the bad outcomes flowing from his incompetent legal work  do not support his racial discrimination argument.
Respondent argues that the Disciplinary Administrator and the panel recognized a substantial basis existed to find that the respondent was selectively prosecuted so they denied the respondent his Sixth Amendment right to call witnesses and put on evidence of Selective Prosecution. Respondent seems to base this argument on the fact that Stanton Hazlett did not testify at the panel hearing. Stanton Hazlett was named on Respondent's list of witnesses; it is unclear whether Respondent ever sought to have him testify beyond that. Stanton Hazlett acted as the prosecutor in these proceedings. Respondent's argument of selective prosecution is without merit.