Opinion ID: 1828241
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Proceedings before the Commissioner

Text: The commissioner conducted a character and fitness hearing on February 18, 2003, pursuant to Supreme Court Rule XVII, § 9(B). The commissioner received documentary evidence and heard testimony given by petitioner and her witnesses. This record reveals that in May 1996, petitioner received an undergraduate degree in business and office education. With the assistance of her father, who was then the Superintendent of the Vernon Parish School Board, petitioner obtained a teaching position at DeRidder High School in Beauregard Parish. In May 1998, as petitioner was completing her second year of teaching at DeRidder High, she began a sexual relationship with M.C., a fourteen-year old student in her ninth-grade English class. Petitioner was twenty-three years of age at this time. Over a period of approximately six weeks, petitioner spoke with M.C. on the telephone or saw him in person nearly every day. Because M.C. was too young to have a driver's license, petitioner arranged to pick him up in an alley behind his home and to take him back to her house, where they engaged in sexual intercourse. In addition, petitioner and M.C. drank alcohol supplied by petitioner, and on one occasion, petitioner allowed M.C. to smoke marijuana that he had brought to her home. On the evening of July 11, 1998, petitioner picked up M.C. and brought him back to her house, where they engaged in sexual intercourse. However, unbeknownst to petitioner or M.C., the Beauregard Parish Sheriff's Office had received a report from M.C.'s father that his son was having a sexual affair with one of his school teachers. The officers agreed to investigate the complaint. Upon arriving at petitioner's home, the officers knocked on the door and announced themselves. Petitioner turned off the lights in the house and told M.C. to hide. Meanwhile, petitioner dressed and eventually opened the door, telling the officers she had not heard the knocking because she had been washing her hair. The officers asked whether M.C. was in the house; petitioner lied, said that he was not, and denied he had been inside her home. The officers then requested and obtained petitioner's permission to search the home. M.C. was found hiding in a bedroom closet, underneath a pile of clothes. Petitioner was arrested and charged with five counts of carnal knowledge of a juvenile and three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile. [2] On February 25, 1999, pursuant to a plea agreement, the State filed an amended bill of information charging petitioner with two counts of felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile and one count of indecent behavior with a juvenile, [3] also a felony. Petitioner pleaded guilty to the charges in the amended bill of information and was placed on supervised probation for a period of three years with special conditions. State v. Hinson, No. CR-598-98 on the docket of the 36th Judicial District Court for the Parish of Beauregard. Following her conviction, petitioner was terminated from her position at DeRidder High and she was required to forfeit her teaching certificate to the Louisiana State Department of Education. [4] Petitioner's probation concluded on February 25, 2002, and she has subsequently received an automatic first offender pardon. At the character and fitness hearing, petitioner admitted she knew her relationship with M.C. was wrong. At the conclusion of the hearing, the commissioner issued detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law and recommended that petitioner be conditionally admitted to the practice of law in Louisiana, subject to a probationary period of two years. The Committee timely objected to the commissioner's recommendation, and oral argument was conducted before this court pursuant to Supreme Court Rule XVII, § 9(B)(3).