Disbarment And Contempt Upheld

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld an order of disbarment and contempt of a single justice. Among the instances of misconduct:

“The respondent owns and maintains a Web site onwhich she posts information about allegations of child sexual abuse. In2001, the respondent represented a father in a paternity and custodyaction in the Probate and Family Court who had been accused of sexuallyabusing his minor son. The son had also been the subject of a care andprotection proceeding in the Juvenile Court. The respondent posted onher Web site information that had been impounded in the care andprotection action, e.g., information identifying the son as having beenallegedly sexually abused by his father, including the son’s full nameand photographs of him. The respondent also posted the full names ofthe son’s mother and a half-brother (the product of the mother’spartnership with a man whom she married and later divorced); pleadingsfrom the mother’s divorce action; and comments by the respondentcharacterizing the mother as a perjurer who had conceived both childrenout of wedlock and who had falsely accused both fathers of sexual abuse.”

The court rejected a number of procedural objections concerning the disbarment and contempt. The contempt involved violation of the disbarment order. The attorney was jailed for four days until the contempt was purged.

The case  is In The Matter of Johnson, decided December 5, 2007. (Mike Frisch)