Murder Most Disbarrable

An attorney convicted of three murders should be disbarred, according to a recommendation of the California State Bar Court Hearing Department

On March 15, 1984, respondent was arrested on a warrant pursuant to a complaint filed by the Orange County District Attorney, in in Orange County Superior Court, case no. A4CF00251, which alleged that in or about May 1980 respondent killed Richard Rizzone, Rena Miley and Thomas Monahan in Westminster, California…

On January 3, 1990, a jury trial commenced, which ended in a mistrial on November 6, 1990.

On November 24, 1993, a second jury trial commenced, which concluded on March 15, 1994. At the conclusion of trial, the court issued jury instructions for first degree murder, and for second degree murder with express malice.

On March 25, 1994, a jury returned a verdict, finding respondent guilty of three counts of violating Penal Code section 187 [murder — second degree] for the killings of the Richard Rizzone, Rena Miley and Thomas Monahan.

On April 13, 1994, the Review Department of the State Bar Court issued an order finding that respondent had been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude and placing respondent on an interim suspension while the instant discipline case is pending.

On June 29, 1994, the Orange County Superior Court sentenced respondent to a term of 46 years to life in state prison.

The conviction was affirmed and the matter was sent to the State Bar Hearing Department  in 2002.

Sanction

The killing of a human being with the presence of a manifest deliberate intention to unlawfully to take away life constitutes moral turpitude, as defined by Lesansky. Such actions are indisputably a serious breach duty owed to the victim, and society, and is a flagrant disrespect for the law and societal norms. Therefore, respondent’s conviction, on its face, justifies disbarment. Moreover, the sanction of disbarment is necessary to fulfil the purposes of attorney discipline, including the maintenance of the highest professional standards and the preservation of the public’s confidence in the legal profession.

It took 15 years from the referral to this recommendation.

The Orange County Register reported in 2013.

Everyone in Orange County law enforcement during the 1970s and ’80s knew about Tom Maniscalco – and that was before he was charged with three counts of murder.

He was one of the founders of the Hessians motorcycle gang who rode Harleys by day and went to law school by night in the 1960s.

After he passed the bar exam, Maniscalco defended his biker buddies in Orange County courts by day while running a meth and counterfeiting ring by night, according to court records.

And then he became a suspect in the May 1980 deaths of two former motorcycle gang members and the 19-year-old girlfriend of one of the victims. His case became one of the 60 featured in “Notorious OC,” an e-book published in 2012 by the Register about the most notorious criminal cases in the county’s history.

The verdict was reported by the Los Angeles Times.

I prosecuted the bar discipline case stemming from Ruthann Aron’s conviction for solicitation of the murder of her husband and an attorney.

After full briefing and argument before the D.C. Court of Appeals on the question of moral turpitude, she consented to disbarment.

Bethesda Magainzine Beat had a 2016 update on the Aron case. (Mike Frisch)