Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Page 7
PERSPECTIVES (Column)
Pat Murphy, Back in Law Practice, Faces Disciplinary Charges
By ROGER M. GRACE
Patrick B. Murphy, who resigned from the Los Angeles Superior Court in May of last year — virtually on the eve of an order by the Commission on Judicial Performance ousting him from office — has reactivated his membership in the State Bar of California.
Just how long he’ll remain a member, however, is in question, as is the matter of whether he’ll wind up as a defendant in a federal criminal action.
Murphy, who’s listed by the State Bar at an address in Glendora, located in the San Gabriel Valley, should make a killing in the law biz.
As you probably recall, his excuse for not showing up for work as a judge, month after month, was that he had developed a malady: a phobia of being in a courtroom.
So, if a party wants to force a delay, the obvious move is to associate Murphy as counsel. He’ll fail to show up for a scheduled appearance, but without any adverse consequence for the client — or, at least, without any consequence that will stick. His doctors will provide a medical excuse for the non-appearance (he has very obliging doctors), and a new hearing will be slated.
Murphy will become the “King of Continuances.”
…Unless, of course, he’s disbarred. Disciplinary charges were filed against him Nov. 15, just four-and-a-half months after he reactivated his law license.
Should his license be lifted, Murphy would be precluded from any activity in law other than as a paralegal or mediator. The Commission on Judicial Performance — which withdrew its order of removal after it realized Murphy had already resigned, and wound up censuring the jurist — barred him “from receiving any assignment, appointment, or reference of work from any California state court.”
The State Bar’s notice of disciplinary charges accuses Murphy, in two of four counts, of “committing acts involving moral turpitude, dishonesty or corruption,” in violation of Business & Professions Code §6106.
The charges in Count 1 parallel those which were found by the commission to be true: excessive absenteeism over a four-year period, engaging in outside activities when he should have been on the bench, lack of candor with the presiding judge of the Citrus Municipal Court (on which he sat prior to unification), creating administrative problems by virtue of his absences, and malingering.
The notice recites that Murphy was absent from Sept. 20, 1999, until April 3, 2000; stopped working as of June 8, 2000; and resigned on May 4, 2001. Largely drawn from the commission’s May 10 decision, the notice chronicles Murphy’s activities during the time he was supposedly too sick to work: teaching one or two night law classes a week, completing pre-med physics and chemistry courses at Cleveland Chiropractic College in Los Angeles, and attending classes at a school of medicine on the Island of Dominica in the West Indies from January to April of 2000.
Count III also alleges moral turpitude. It points to his lying about his state of health to Rolf Treu, the presiding judge of the Citrus court, falsehoods which he caused to appear on a health certificate, and inconsistencies in his testimony before the CJP.
The Office of Chief Trial Counsel got a bit inventive in two other counts. Deputies Trial Counsel Paul T. O’Brien and Charles T. Calix, who signed the notice, stuck in allegations that Murphy violated Business & Professions Code §6068, subd. (b), by failing to “maintain the respect due to the courts of justice and judicial officers,” and subd. (d), which creates a duty to “employ, for the purpose of maintaining the causes confided to him or her those means only as are consistent with truth, and never to seek to mislead the judge or any judicial officer by an artifice or false statement of fact or law.”
There’s a hefty case against Murphy on legitimate bases and they hardly needed to stick in such ill-starred grounds.
It’s stretching it to say that a judge violates the attorney’s duty to show respect to the courts when the judge plays hooky from judicial assignments and lies to the presiding judge.
As far as untruthfulness and seeking to mislead judges, the factual allegations in the notice relate to Murphy’s disbelieved testimony before the three masters for the CJP and his attempts to deceive the commission, itself. While it’s true that the masters were all justices of courts of appeal, they were acting in the capacity of masters, not judges. The California Supreme Court pointed out in McCartney v. Commission on Judicial Qualifications (1974) 12 Cal.3d 512 that a proceeding before masters is not one “before a ‘court of justice’.” And certainly efforts to hoodwink the commission doesn’t come under the stricture. Moreover, it’s doubtful that testimony by a lawyer, as opposed to statements by a lawyer in the course of representing a client, are contemplated by the code section.
Other charges might be added.
Murphy came under investigation in 1999 by state and federal authorities in connection with possible money laundering of about $1.8 million in funds belonging to a friend, Dr. George Taus, who was in bankruptcy.
The judge was named as a defendant by the trustee in Taus’ bankruptcy who was seeking to recoup funds which reportedly had passed from one party to another during 1996 and 1997.
The purported efforts to divert the funds from Taus’ estate so as to frustrate creditors, as well as the interests of Taus’ wife in a dissolution of marriage action, spawned two Superior Court lawsuits. In one, a securities firm sued Murphy and others for fraud.
All of the litigation was settled in April of 2000 — but the possibility of criminal action against Murphy and others persists.
Gerry DeSimone, of the Agoura Hills law firm of De Simone & Dalton, was the lawyer in the cases for Paul Ottosi, who had received Taus’ funds for safekeeping, purportedly at Murphy’s request. DeSimone told me yesterday:
“I have been advised by the Office of U.S. Attorney that, yes, they are still investigating the issue of bankruptcy fraud. It’s far from over.”
He said that Assistant U.S. Attorney Angela J. Davis asked him a few months ago to preserve his files in the cases.
Davis would only say:
“I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of a pending investigation.”
Another matter the State Bar might bring up in its disciplinary action is the representation by Murphy of Debbie Montgomery. On Jan. 25, 1993, three weeks after he took his oath of office as a judge, Murphy filed a brief on her behalf in the Court of Appeal. A judge is legally foreclosed from practicing law.
Meanwhile, Susan Sweetman Murphy’s action for a dissolution of marriage from Murphy, filed July 16, 1997, is still pending, with a status hearing scheduled way off, on Aug. 22, 2008.
Murphy on April 13 of last year was hit with a federal tax lien in the amount of $235,214.
Murphy’s present law office location, in Glendora, is near San Bernardino, where he began his law practice in 1984. Judges there had a problem with Murphy: as one of them put it in a 1996 interview, “He had a little difficulty making appearances.”
Murphy linked up with attorney James C. Hazen, forming Hazen & Murphy. Hazen wound up suing Murphy for $1 million, alleging that he had been forced to pay off on malpractice claims because of Murphy’s foul-ups; that Murphy committed land fraud, telling him that some land they jointly owned was worthless and had been lost in foreclosure when it was actually valuable and had been placed by Murphy in the hands of a straw man; and that Murphy “paid no share of office expenses” contrary to his contractual duty.
Hazen’s finances were shaky at that point and, after Murphy cross complained against him, the two wound up mutually dismissing their actions.
During his early days of practice, Murphy allegedly abandoned a client, Jeffrey Wayne Samsel, who had been arrested for driving under the influence.
Murphy opened an office in Covina in February, 1992, after bringing an election challenge to a sitting Citrus Municipal Court judge, Abraham Khan. An election piece said of Murphy: “He has an active and successful law practice in our community....”
He was actually spending most of his time at a workers comp mill in Orange County. He was an officer of it and its house counsel.
Murphy’s attacks on Khan were of the truth-bending variety. But he won the election.
Four years later, he entered a three-way race for a Superior Court open seat, losing in the run-off to Karl Jaeger.
And now, Pat’s back in law practice — but for how long?
Copyright 2002, Metropolitan News Company