Just "Felonious Peccadillos"; I'm "Overqualified for Oklahoma"; Bar Association, "Bring It on Bitch": Surprisingly Ineffective in Fighting Disbarment

Some excerpts from the long opinion in State ex rel. Oklahoma Bar Ass’n v. Barlean, decided Tuesday by the Oklahoma Supreme Court (opinion by Justice Kuehn); Barlean appears to have been a former candidate for the Oklahoma state legislature:

On January 5, 2023, Respondent pled guilty to two misdemeanor charges of Domestic Assault and Battery …. Both charges stemmed from violent incidents involving Respondent and a woman with whom he had a romantic relationship. On August 16, 2021, during an argument, Respondent strangled or choked the woman until she gave him her car keys. He was arrested, charged with a felony and bound over for trial. While out on bond, on December 2, 2022, during another fight Respondent pushed the woman down a flight of stairs, injuring her arm. He was arrested again and charged with a misdemeanor.

Under Respondent’s plea agreement, the felony charge was reduced to a misdemeanor and Respondent pled guilty to both charges. He agreed to supervised probation with requirements including restitution, community service, completion of an intervention program, anger management classes, an alcohol and drug assessment and any recommended treatment. Respondent failed to complete these requirements. The State moved to accelerate his deferred sentence on September 30, 2024; on November 22, 2024 Respondent pled no contest to the motion to accelerate. Both counts were reduced to convictions and he was fined….

This Court’s May 20, 2024 order of interim suspension directed Respondent to show cause why a final order of discipline should not be imposed. In his Answer, Respondent claimed that a June 2021 arrest, search of his house, and incarceration—unrelated to the charges at issue here—was illegal and led him down a “dark, self-destructive path” which culminated in his arrest for domestic violence by strangulation, the basis for the charge in CF-2021-3557. He attached a copy of a civil rights complaint he had filed in federal court as a result of the allegedly illegal search and incarceration.

In that complaint, Respondent blamed the victim in both criminal cases for his troubles. Respondent also claimed in his Answer that he had barely practiced law in Oklahoma and retired from legal practice in the 2010s. He appeared to argue that there would be no point in imposing a suspension from practice, or any form of discipline, since he did not practice law or represent clients.

This Court has held that domestic violence is itself a “serious breach of a lawyer’s ethical duty and will not be tolerated.” Respondent pled guilty to two crimes of violence against a person with whom he had an intimate relationship. In each instance he resorted to violence while quarrelling with the victim. The crimes were separated by several months, and the second occurred while he was out on bond after having been charged with the first crime. Although his deferred sentence offered him the opportunity to avoid those convictions, he admitted that he failed to complete the requirements he himself had agreed to. These convictions and the circumstances surrounding them reflect, at best, extremely poor judgment and a propensity to violence….

The court also referred to other incidents involving Barlean, including this:

Respondent sent the OBA [Oklahoma Bar Association] more than twenty emails after the Rule 7 Notice of Judgment and Sentence [in the disciplinary action] was filed. He claimed the criminal charges would be dismissed (as discussed above, they were not). He called this Court incompetent, a joke, redneck and lazy, invited the OBA to “bring it on bitch”, and stated he was overqualified for Oklahoma. Along with a certificate of completion of his required anger management program, he wrote, “I don’t strangle. I crush or pull out voice boxes. Ask my Airborne instructors.” He suggested the female OBA attorney was embarrassed to be “schooled by a Man”, and threatened to drag the State through a federal Section 1983 civil rights claim. He invited an OBA paralegal trying to help him with subpoenas to “come after me so I can show you what the United States trained me to do to Communists.” …

[As to another claim,] Respondent did admit that he is not “a choirboy”, with a “colorful youth and felonious peccadillos.” …

Respondent’s conduct reveals a consistent pattern of violence and poor judgment compelling our conclusion that Respondent is unfit to practice law. He is disbarred….

Jana J. Harris, Assistant General Counsel, Oklahoma Bar Association, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Complainant.

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