Thomas Finneran, [X]squire | [DISBARRED]

Mass­a­chus­setts.  Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

From the Bay State.  The Mass­a­chu­setts Board of Bar Over­seers has deter­mined that Thomas M. Fin­eran, who pled guilty in 2007, to giv­ing false tes­ti­mony in a fed­eral redis­trict­ing law­suit, should be disbarred.  

Unlike Cal­i­for­nia, “[d]isbarrment is the pre­sump­tive dis­ci­pline for a lawyer who is con­victed of a felony or a crime involv­ing obstruc­tion of jus­tice or false swear­ing,” the Board opined in its deci­sion.  The Board’s rec­om­men­da­tion was for­warded to the Mass­a­chus­setts Supreme Court for final adjudication.

While we are look­ing for­ward to Mr. Finneran’s join­ing the Evil Esquire Bar Asso­ci­a­tion as an inter­minable mem­ber with full bar privledges, upon his actual dis­bar­rment, we can’t help but won­der why the Mass­a­chus­setts Board of Bar Over­seers over­looked the sub­stan­tive mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances Mr. Finneran prof­fered at his dis­bar­rment hear­ing includ­ing: “pain from his arthritic hip, con­cern over his wife’s ortho­pe­dic health con­di­tion, anger at the per­ceived (and erro­neous) infer­ence that he had been moti­vated by racial ani­mus, the pur­port­edly ‘pri­vate’ nature of his mis­con­duct, and his long and dis­tin­guished pub­lic career (see Boston Globe Arti­cle).  

Obvi­ously the fore­go­ing fac­tors could sig­nif­i­cantly skew one’s tes­ti­mony and defi­nately out­weigh his attempt to skew the out­come of a ‘minor’ judi­cial pro­ceed­ing brought by the Black Polit­i­cal Cau­cus and sev­eral other vot­ing rights groups con­cern­ing voter redis­trict­ing.  Why should they be allowed to win a lawsuit?

At least one of the twelve mem­ber board has his head on straight.  In dis­cent Eric Lund wrote: “I agree that inter­fer­ing with the admin­is­tra­tion of jus­tice is a ‘seri­ous crime’… Our inquiry, how­ever, should not end with the ques­tion whether or not a statu­tory felony has been com­mit­ted, but rather should also address the ‘seri­ous­ness’ of the par­tic­u­lar crime in the con­text in which it occurred.  The cir­cum­stances in which Mr. Finneran’s felo­nious con­duct occurred should lead to a lesser sanc­tion than that of disbarment.”  

Bravo Mr. Lund.  We couldn’t agree more.  If harsh penal­ties are meted out to crim­i­nal Esq’s it will embolden groups like the Black Polit­i­cal Cau­cus to file more law­suits because deter­ing ‘cheat­ing’ will inject some fair­ness back into the judi­cial sys­tem.  Kinda like pro­fes­sional sports.  Who wants to fol­low base­ball, for instance, if there’s no cheat­ing?  Not really a good anal­ogy because the public’s inter­ests don’t directly suf­fer as a result of cheat­ing in pro­fes­sional sports.

In any event, the full board will send its deci­sion to the state Supreme Judi­cial Court, which will prob­a­bly decide Finneran’s fate within the year.  If dis­barred, Finneran will not be able to apply for rein­state­ment for eight years.  Mass­a­chus­sets is like Cal­i­for­nia, they read­mit dis­barred Esquir(ette)s after the public’s out­rage has waned and they’re dis­tracted with other scan­dals.  But he would have to con­vince a hear­ing board that he should have his license rein­stated. Any­body know what the going rate for rebar­ment is in Massachussetts?