Today in Supreme Court History: September 18, 1857

9/18/1857: Justice John Hessin Clarke's birthday.

Justice John Hessin Clarke

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Matter of Disbarment of Donald D. Nash, 473 U.S. 931 (decided September 18, 1985). He had been convicted of Class A sodomy. He later applied for reinstatement; the Oregon decision denying reinstatement has an extensive and graphic depiction of his treatment for pedophilia, 885 P.2d 1112 (1993). He had had sex with the 6-year-old daughter of a client. The psychiatrist at the reinstatement hearing noted that Mr. Nash was married to a woman 20 years his junior who was “unlikely to be at his maturity level”. The Dr. recommended that he return to practice but be prohibited from taking on clients who had little daughters. Good God! -- thankfully the court did not buy it. As of today he is still disbarred.

Matter of Disbarment of John Cody, 473 U.S. 930 (decided September 18, 1985): This man, John Donald Cody, has such an extensive history that he is on Wikipedia. After being caught stealing client funds, he disappeared, stole another’s identity, and incorporated a charity supposedly for Navy veterans (actually it was a charity for himself). He got onto the VA’s referral list and was photographed with George W. Bush, John Boehner, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani (no surprise there) and Karl Rove. They finally caught him in 2012 and he’s in prison for life.

[Dr. Ed 2]

“Restricting a lawyer to representing clients who have no children is not realistic; nor is the Bar in any position to supervise such limitations on a lawyer’s practice.”

I have some serious questions here, starting with that there was only one victim who was not a family member. That’s possible but statistically unlikely, usually once you start looking, you find a whole bunch more victims and as 1985 was the height of the sexual abuse hysteria, they would have looked. Was this his only exposure to young girls.

“The applicant pleaded guilty and was placed on five years’ probation.” For a “Class A” felony — for what would once have been a capitol offense, repeatedly sodomizing a 4-year-old?!?

That’s an awfully light sentence, and this was at the height of the McMartin Case and the rest. Makes me think they didn’t have a very solid case, which makes me wonder if he really did it.

And if he plead guilty to something he didn’t do, as a lot of men did back then, that would cause a problem if he took the stand here…

And again, no other victims? It’s possible, but when it isn’t a family member, there are inevitably more victims. And there are lots of single mothers needing an attorney…

So then I look at the Oregon Sex Offender regs and find this:“(1) A sex offender classified as a sexually violent dangerous offender (ORS 137.765) or a predatory sex offender (181.765) may not reside near locations where children are the primary occupants or users.”

This is common and assuming he is one or the other of those, it would also mean that he can’t work with children either — while the Bar maybe can’t prohibit him from having clients with young children, the Dept of Probation *can* — and you’d think that a group of lawyers would know that. (Or at least made a phone call to find out…)

So you have someone who pleads guilty to a heinous crime, but only gets probation and now can’t get his bar card back because they can’t prevent him from associating with children while the sex offender laws (which have more teeth than the bar folk) already prevent him from doing so?

This sorta smells funny….

OTOH, 1993 may have predated the sex offender regs.

[David Nieporent]

Classic Dr. Ed. "Why don't these lawyers know this proposition of law I just made up?"

[Noscitur a sociis]

Give Dr. Ed points for consistency: he can only supports the rape of adult women, but of children too!

[SMP0328]

A real-life version of Mad Men's Don Draper (who was really Dick Whitman).

[The Margrave of Azilia]

From the episodes I saw, Draper wasn't a nice guy, but he wasn't as bad as this Cody fellow.