Risk Update

Conflicts News — Racist Posts Raise Conflicts Concerns, Office Space Duty Dust Up

Posted Dan Bressler

“Lawyer’s Racist Posts Test Conflict of Interest Standards” —

  • “Massachusetts’ highest court is being asked to grapple this week with a question that some say could have impact far beyond a single case: Should a court-appointed lawyer’s racist, Islamophobic Facebook posts disqualify him from representing a Black, Muslim client?”
  • “The issue is at the heart of an appeal from a defendant who said he deserves a new trial after discovering that his public defender made more than 20 bigoted social media posts while representing him.”
  • “A lower court judge ruled that the appellant, Anthony Dew, hadn’t proven how his former defender’s racism amounted to ineffective representation.”
  • “Dew told the court he was unaware of Doyle’s racism and Facebook posts until 2021, court records show. He asked to withdraw his guilty plea and get a new trial. Dew has argued that, among other flaws, Doyle failed to file a motion to suppress.”
  • “Prosecutors counter that ‘the strength of the Commonwealth’s evidence gave Doyle good reason to recommend a plea, that the plea was not coerced, and that, by accepting the plea, the defendant validly waived his right to pursue any further motions.'”
  • “A Suffolk County Superior Court denied the appeal, ruling that Dew couldn’t pinpoint specific ways in which the attorney’s representation impacted his case.”
  • “The defendant, backed by Lawyers for Civil Rights, the Muslim Justice League, the Hispanic National Bar Association, and other groups, says he shouldn’t have to.”
  • “They [The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund and the New England Innocence Project] want the court to declare that this kind of racism and Islamophobia is an implicit conflict of interest, meaning there was a structural error in the case. Under Massachusetts precedent, once a conflict of interest has been established, the defendant doesn’t need to show specific harm, said Edward Gaffney, Dew’s new court-appointed attorney.”
  • “Courts haven’t been previously asked whether a lawyer’s broad, public hatred of people of color disqualifies him or her from representing them.”
  • “The closest parallel is a Ninth Circuit case called Ellis v. Harrison. There, a defense attorney made racist comments directed at Black clients, court staff, and lawyers, causing the state itself to concede that the defendant deserved a new trial.”

“Maine Reprimands Veteran New Hampshire Attorney for Conflict of Interest Over Office Space” —

  • “A single justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court issued a reprimand for reciprocal discipline this month to a New Hampshire attorney accused of engaging in improper conduct due to his personal interest in opening an outfitters store and law office space at a property owned by beneficiaries to which he served as a trustee.”
  • “The New Hampshire Supreme Court’s Professional Conduct Committee found in November 2021 that veteran attorney Thomas E. Dewhurst III, who was also admitted to the Maine Bar in 1987, violated rules associated with conflicts of interest and communications with persons represented by counsel while assisting the sisters in a property and trust dispute.”
  • “The New Hampshire’s court sanctioned Dewhurst with requiring six additional hours of continuing legal education classes in conflicts of interest in the area of estate and trust work. He also was ordered to have no professional misconduct violations during a one-year period.”
  • “The sisters claimed that Dewhurst engaged in improper conduct because of his personal interest in opening an outfitters store and law office space for himself at the trust-owned property, according to the New Hampshire disciplinary documents.”
  • “After some discussion, the Cannell sisters agreed that the guns could be sold as part of a business. Dewhurst referred the Cannell sister to another attorney for the purpose of representing the CCT beneficiaries after Dewhurst recognized that it would be a conflict for him and his firm, the New Hampshire filing said.”
  • “Dewhurst moved his law office into the plaza property in August 2019 while still being a trustee of the CCT which owned the property. An attorney for the trust prepared Dewhurst’s lease, but he did not provide the completed leases to their attorney and instead sent it to one of the sisters.”
  • “Dewhurst’s installment the store’s White Mountain Firearms in October 2019 resulted in the relationship breakdown between Dewhurst and the sisters. The lease Dewhurst presented to Mary Ann Cannell listed the store as ‘Dewhurst Outfitters [doing business as] White Mountain Firearms’ despite the sisters’ insistence that firearms not be sold at the plaza property, the documents said.”