SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - An appeals panel on Thursday upheld a judge’s recommendation that a Northern California district attorney accused of moral turpitude be disbarred.
The unanimous three-judge state bar appeals panel agreed that Del Norte County District Attorney Jon Alexander engaged in improper communication with a defendant and suppressed evidence in connection with a July 2011 conversation. The panel also agreed that Alexander initially denied having the conversation when asked by another prosecutor.
Alexander’s case now goes to the California Supreme Court for a final decision. His attorney said the district attorney disagrees with the decision and that even if Alexander is guilty, the punishment is too severe.
“We hope and trust that the Supreme Court will see this situation as we see it, at worst, an unprecedented and involuntary four-minute encounter and not a professional or moral blemish; and that this decision will be reversed,” Alexander’s attorney Farschad Farzan wrote in an email.
Alexander had previously testified that he was targeted for prosecution by state bar officials who didn’t believe his story of redemption and sobriety after losing his Orange County criminal defense practice in the 1990s because of a methamphetamine addiction. He had been disciplined three times previously by state bar officials and briefly suspended from practicing law for improperly keeping clients’ fees in the 1990s.
Alexander was elected district attorney in 2010 after a contentious election won by 93 votes. His story of recovery and second chances appealed to voters in the small, rural area known for its tall trees, salmon fishing and methamphetamine problems.
But less than two years after taking office, state bar officials were seeking to disbar him for a variety of reasons, including making and taking questionable loans from lawyers and others connected to the criminal justice system in Del Norte County, one of the state’s least populated regions with 29,000 residents - including 3,000 inmates of California’s most-secure maximum security prison, Pelican Bay State Prison.
The financial charges were later dropped, but a state bar judge did recommend his disbarment for engaging in a conversation with a defendant he was prosecuting without her lawyer present. Alexander than denied having the conservation when asked by a subordinate, and he failed to disclose the discussion with the defendant’s lawyers, two serious transgressions according to the state bar panel.
However, the defendant was wearing a hidden recording device, which state bar officials obtained.
The judges’ wrote in their 23-page decision that “the high standard of conduct expected of prosecutors, who act as the gatekeepers to the fair administration of justice, was lacking in this case.”
The judges said Alexander’s past record and failure to take responsibility led to their recommendation.
“Alexander’s three prior records of discipline and his denial of any wrongdoing weigh heavily in favor of disbarment,” they wrote.
The Del Norte County Board of Supervisors suspended Alexander without pay in April 2013 after he was barred from practicing law while his case was pending.
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