The Bar Sometimes Rings Twice

The Mississippi Supreme Court imposed reciprocal disbarment based on a Louisiana order sanctioning an attorney for misconduct as both a judge and lawyer.

The Supreme Court of Louisiana, which has exclusive original jurisdiction in judicial disciplinary proceedings, found that the charges filed by the Commission were substantiated by clear and convincing evidence. Id. at 752. That court issued a forty-five page opinion, with an unpublished appendix, detailing its findings of Hughes’s judicial misconduct and her unprofessional conduct as an attorney and judicial candidate. Id. at 746-91. Because the record evinced an extraordinary pattern of misconduct, the Louisiana court concluded,  “Judge Hughes has demonstrated a blatant and incorrigible inability to conform to the rules imposed on any aspect of her career – be it notary, attorney, candidate, or judge.” Id. at 790.

The court found that, in Hughes’s capacity as a practicing attorney, she repeatedly had taken money from clients and had failed to perform the services for which she had been retained, and then she refused to refund the fees. Id. at 785. Out of the nine charges involving Hughes’s failure to account to former clients and/or to refund unearned fees, the court singled out several incidents for discussion as particularly representative of Hughes’s misconduct. Id. at 775 n.16. 

One of the matters involved accepting a fee to represent the son of Lana Turner on a second-degree murder charge.

The Supreme Court of Louisiana found that these and numerous similar charges involving Hughes’s refusal to refund unearned fees or to account to clients had been established by clear and convincing evidence. Id. at 775 n.16.

Sanction

In imposing the sanction of permanent disbarment upon Hughes, the Supreme Court of Louisiana explicitly or implicitly considered all nine criteria utilized by this Court to determine an appropriate sanction for attorney misconduct. Hughes did not respond to the Mississippi Bar’s motion for reciprocal discipline, and thus she has presented no mitigating factors for our consideration. No extraordinary circumstances compel, justify, or support variance from the sanction of disbarment imposed by the Supreme Court of Louisiana. Rather, the facts ascertained by the Supreme Court of Louisiana and the discipline imposed by that court after careful consideration of Hughes’s conduct under the Rules of Professional Conduct fully support this Court’s imposition of the sanction of disbarment. Therefore, based on the record before us, the Mississippi Rules of Discipline, and our case law, this Court finds that Yvonne L. Hughes shall be disbarred.

(Mike Frisch)