Treasure Map Leads To Disbarment

The full Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has raised a single justice’s three-year suspension to disbarment as reciprocal discipline for his resignation in Florida.

The background:

The respondent was admitted to the bar in Massachusetts on June 7, 1977, and in Florida on November 27, 1984.  In 1995, he was indicted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida on charges of conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.  He eventually pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), admitting that he had met with an incarcerated client and received from the client a map to a warehouse where 145 kilograms of cocaine were located.  The respondent sent that map to another client by facsimile  transmission.  In June, 1999, the respondent was sentenced to a 105-month term of incarceration, with four years of supervised release to follow.  The respondent did not report the conviction to bar counsel in Massachusetts. S.J.C. Rule 4:01, § 12(8), as appearing in 425 Mass. 1313 (1997).  On November 12, 1999, the Supreme Court of Florida allowed the respondent’s petition for disciplinary resignation, and granted him leave to seek readmission after five years. The respondent did not report the discipline to the Board of Bar Overseers (board) or to bar counsel, as he was required to do by S.J.C. Rule 4:01, § 16(6).  After learning of the conviction and discipline in Florida, on November 23, 2011, bar counsel filed a notice of conviction and petition for reciprocal discipline in the county court.  A single justice of this court suspended the respondent from the practice of law for three years, declining to apply the suspension retroactively to the date of his disciplinary resignation from the Florida bar.

The court found no special mitigating factors and concluded:

We conclude that a three-year suspension is markedly disparate from what has been imposed in like circumstances, and that disbarment is appropriate.  The order of the single justice is therefore vacated, and the matter is remanded to the county court, where a judgment of disbarment shall enter, effective as of the date of the single justice’s order of term suspension.

The case is In re Michael W. Burnham, decided today. (Mike Frisch)