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Disciplinary Counsel v. O'Neill9/7/2004
Submitted August 17, 2004
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline of the Supreme Court, No. 02-34.
{ } Respondent, Deborah P. O'Neill of Columbus, Ohio, Attorney Registration No. 0007128, a judge of the Common Pleas Court of Franklin County, was admitted to the practice of law in 1980. In a complaint filed on June 17, 2002, amended on November 19, 2002, relator, Disciplinary Counsel, charged respondent with six counts of misconduct involving numerous violations of the Code of Professional Responsibility and the Code of Judicial Conduct.
{ } Relator's allegations implicated incidents from 1997 through 2002. Count I of the complaint charged that during this period, respondent had repeatedly held improper ex parte conversations, failed to appropriately exercise judicial discretion, and failed to follow the law in a variety of ways, including unwarranted bond revocation. Count II charged that respondent had improperly refused to allow attorneys to preserve their objections on the record. Count III charged that respondent had improperly denied continuances without exercising judicial discretion. Count IV charged that respondent had repeatedly made misrepresentations to lawyers, other judges, and court personnel in the course of her duties. Count V charged respondent with acts of judicial intemperance on numerous occasions, including rudeness to judges, other court personnel, counsel, litigants, and members of the public. Finally, Count VI charged that respondent had improperly used county resources and personnel to promote her unsuccessful campaign in 2002 for a seat on the Franklin County Court of Appeals.
{ } A three-member panel of the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline heard the cause, conducting 19 days of proceedings during May, August, September, October, and November 2003, and February 2004. From the testimony of 99 witnesses, the parties' factual stipulations, 529 stipulated exhibits, and numerous other exhibits, a majority of the panel made findings of misconduct with respect to Counts I, II, IV, V, and VI of the complaint and recommended that respondent be suspended from the practice of law for two years. The dissenting panel member found misconduct only with respect to Count V and recommended a one-year suspension, conditionally stayed, and a probation period with mandatory professional counseling and mentoring. The board adopted the panel majority's findings of misconduct as to Counts I, IV, V, and VI, as well as the finding of no misconduct as to Count III, and further found no misconduct in connection with Count II. The board recommended that respondent be suspended from the practice of law for two years.
Count I
{ } The most serious misconduct established in support of Count I was that respondent has used a variety of coercive tactics to expedite dispositions in criminal cases, usually as a means to manage her docket. In three cases during the relevant time period, respondent forced pleas from defendants by threatening to revoke or actually revoking their bonds -- not for acceptable reasons such as that the defendants posed flight risks or safety concerns or had failed to appear --but because the defendants wanted to exercise their rights to refuse an offered plea and go to trial. Similarly, respondent improperly revoked the defendant's bond in a fourth case because his counsel was not prepared for trial on the trial date. In a fifth case, respondent, after rejecting a misdemeanor plea offered by the parties, threatened to impose the maximum sentence if the defendant did not plead guilty as charged in the indictment and chose to exercise his right to a trial.
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