A reprimand and probation has been imposed by the Maine Grievance Commission on a criminal defense attorney
Respondent was appointed in October of 2018 to represent a client who had been convicted of murder in a petition for post-conviction review (“PCR”). One of the major issues on review centered around DNA evidence, which had formed the basis for the conviction. The DNA inquiry focused on the possibility of contamination due to an employee of the Maine State Police Crime Lab who was found to have contaminated other samples in the lab.
She had asserted claims of concealed and/or contaminated evidence
In its order denying the PCR petition on January 5,2022, the Court stated that “there is zero evidence in the record . . . to support Petitioner’s claim thatthe photographs were ‘suppressed,’ that the photographs bore directly on the identification of [the client], or that the photos ‘depict facts that squarely refute testimony offered at trial.’ ” The Court further stated that there was “no evidence” that the Crime Lab employee had contaminated critical pieces of evidence.
With a personnel file she had obtained
Subsequent to the impoundment Order, and despite the Court’s denial of her requests to unseal the records, Respondent attached a portion of the confidential personnel information to a pleading filed on May 10, 2021 in the PCR case, and also to a pleading in a separate matter that she filed on behalf of a family member.
And
In the course of representation, Respondent made a number of assertions and allegations regarding State actors including the Attorney General’s Office prosecutors…
Respondent also made highly inflammatory allegations aqainst the State in her filings.
A court order followed
“[i]t is difficult for the undersigned to understate the amount of vitriol contained in the document that Petitioner’s counsel filed on 8/31/2020. . . other than to opine that the undersigned in over 40 years of practice in Maine Courts has never read a document quite like it.”
Nevertheless
After the Court’s November 2020 Order, Respondent made additional inflammatory statements against State actors.
Respondent has no prior discipline. (Mike Frisch)