Lawyers and Drugs

Two cases, from Illinois and Arizona have me thinking about Lawyers and drugs.  Courthouse News Service is reporting on the lawyer, Dodie Junkert who was busted for among other things, cocaine possession based on a search warrant that turned out to have been so flawed that a subsequent motion to suppress the evidence in the criminal case against her, was granted by the court.  Not being able to leave well-enough alone, the lucky lawyer brought a mis-guided civil lawsuit based on his claimed civil rights violations--she lost.

The second story via the Legal Profession Blog relates to a disciplinary action against a lawyer, Ronald Jeffrey Washington who was prosecuted after a security alarm at his residence brought the police who found a garage open and lots of evidence of drug dealing by the lawyer.  The Arizona disciplinary authorities imposed a 2 year suspension, after a problematic prosecution for drug dealing resulted in a conviction for the lesser included offense of simple drug possession. 

Previously on Bad Lawyer I talked about my dear lawyer friends, Carter and Nancy, now dead who were not able to permanently recover from drug addictions and alcoholism.  These diseases are cunning, baffling, and powerful comprising both the abuse of substances: alcohol and drugs and the mental obsession which distorts and disorganizes thinking--as reflected in the two accounts from this AM's blawgs.  These stories aren't unusual, they are only amusing if you can detach enough from the carnage of the lost educational and legal resources that these two lives represent.  These are two more lawyers who through their choice to engage their disease walk away from the ideals of the legal profession.  Sad.